LAS822 | Law & Society

Law and Society is designed as a core course for LLM students which would introduce them to  diverse perspectives on studying law, from the realms of social sciences and humanities. In this  course, law is understood to be a product of state power which is constantly in the process of  shaping its ‘citizens’. And as it does so, the state also ends up reshaping itself in the process. The  interaction between law and the state’s subjects has never been a uniform one. This course will  throw light on the complex nature of this relationship where law can become both the vehicle of  justice and rights for the citizens, as well as violence. The state can become the ‘protector’ of  local customs and practices as well as its ‘destroyer.’ Law can be the enabling force of both  tendencies of the state.

The state’s subjects consequently negotiate their relationship with the state sometimes through  the law, and sometimes without. While throwing light on the understanding of law as a  derivation of state power, this course further teaches us to read legal regimes ‘from below’,  illuminating the ways in which legal publics have in turn shaped the legal space through a  multiform range of interactions, conflicts, resolutions, and negotiations.