The only conference of its kind in South Asia, the fourth edition of the
Law and Social Sciences Research Network (LASSnet) took place from 10-12 December 2016 in Delhi.
LASSnet is a virtual network anchored at the Centre for the Study of
Law and Governance, Jawaharlal Nehru University. LASSnet was established
in order to bring together scholars, lawyers and doctoral researchers
engaged in research and teaching of issues of law in different social
sciences in contemporary South Asia in 2007.
The fourth edition of the LASSnet conference was organised by the
Centre for the Study of Law and Governance, Jindal Global Law School of
O.P. Jindal Global University, National Law University Delhi, Azim
Premji University, Ambedkar University Delhi, the Indian Institute of
Technology Delhi, and the Dickson Pool Transnational Law Institute at
the King’s College, London. These institutions have been at
the forefront of interdisciplinary research on law and have engaged
with the role of law in the making of contemporary South Asia.
More than 500 participants from all over the world attended the
conference of over 60 sessions, and three featured panels engaged with
what it means to think with ‘evidence’ in law and outside law.
Evidence has increasingly become an important category in our
everyday lives, be it in the familial, political, or historical domain.
The contested nature of evidence in law and life found animated debate
at the conference. The theme of this conference, ‘Thinking with
Evidence: Seeking Certainty, Making Truth’ pertains to the question of
evidence and its role in legal and social research. For initiatives such
as LASSnet, the imperative of thinking with evidence – in these times
of virtual virality, forensic imaginaries and ephemeral archives –
serves as a fertile ground on which we can stage discussions of the
perils, pleasures, meanings and methods of inter-disciplinarity.
‘Thinking with Evidence’ allows engaging the possibilities of legal and
social world, and how they invite discussions on our changing world and
possible futures.
The conference was graced by many luminaries including C Raj Kumar, Ranbir Singh, Shyam Menon, Sudhir Krishnaswamy, Niraja Jayal, Julia Eckert, Ravinder Kaur, Vrinda Grover, Rebecca John, Peer Zumbassen, Shirin Rai, Lawrence Liang, Kalpana Kannabiran, Tarunabh Khaitan, Jawahar Raja, Abhinav Chandrachud, Shalini Randeria and Shireen Hassim.
LASSnet has highlighted the fact that although the domain of law has
primarily been either a site of legal practice or of scholarship by
lawyers alone, the emergence of LASSnet demonstrates how exciting and
important it is to have conversations about law and justice from a range
of disciplines. Scholarship in the field of law has grown to encompass a
wide array of disciplines, methodologies, political perspectives and
conceptual overlaps. If the initial movement was predominantly led by
sociologists and then by scholars of literary studies, it now includes
an ever expanding terrain of social science and humanities disciplines,
including anthropology, digital studies, film and history. LASSnet has
always seen law as an immensely fertile site to examine the social, the
historical and the political. Previous LASSnet conferences were held in
2009, 2010 and 2012 at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), the
Foundation for Liberal and Management Education (FLAME) in Pune and at the Department of Law, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.
The opening talk at the 2016 conference was delivered by the eminent political theorist from Yale University, with Professors Shiv Visvanathan, Ramin Jahenbegloo, and Gitanjali Surendran
on Gandhi’s ideas on non-violence. The closing contemplated the
evidence of hope by crafting a discussion between the eminent legal
scholars Indira Jaising, Babloo Loitongbam, Usha Ramanathan, Upendra Baxi, and Julia Eckert.
Three memorial panels were organised to recognise the contribution of
the work and lives of three young academics, all of whom passed away in
2015. The panel dedicated to Dwijen Rangnekar marked his pathbreaking work in the field of geographical indicators. Another panel remembered Priya Thangarajah,
a young Sri Lankan lawyer and researcher who made invaluable
contributions to deepening our understanding of law and violence in
times of conflict. And finally tribute was paid to U.S. based Pakistani
scholar late Nasser Hussain whose work on law and emergency remains one
of the most important contributions to the field in the region. The
three panels engaged with the work of these scholars as a way of
acknowledging their deep learning across histories, borders, disciplines
and friendships.
The conference witnessed discussions around six books by emerging
scholars from the LASSnet community on themes ranging from public
interest litigation in India to debates around sentencing
in criminal cases. One of the panels focused on a discussion around law
and disability following the recent release of
The India Social Development Report. The
Indian Law Review,
an academic journal on Indian law, was launched at the conference, also
a product of the conversations at LASSnet over a decade. A syllabus
workshop designed between King’s College London and O.P. Jindal Global
Law School was held where mid-career teachers were invited to submit a
syllabus of their own design for feedback and discussion.
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