The Hollow Hope of Rights: Vignettes from India

Content

This talk examines the gap between the promise of constitutional rights and their material operation. Drawing on the speaker's experience as a constitutional lawyer, it interrogates how rights and constitutionalism--often seen as tools of liberation and constraint on state power--can instead separate the economic from the political, fragment popular movements, and depoliticize class struggle.

About the Speaker: Gautam Bhatia is a practicing lawyer at the Supreme Court of India and an independent legal scholar. He has appeared in landmark constitutional cases involving Kashmir's autonomy, equal marriage, citizenship in Assam, and online free speech. Formerly part of the legal defense team for WikiLeaks, his scholarship draws on legal practice to examine how modern constitutionalism can depoliticize class struggle.

Sponsored by the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI); School of Public Policy; Department of Sociology; Department of Economics; Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Asian & Asian American Studies Certificate; and the Center for Justice, Law, and Societies.