Teaching
Academic Programmes
5-Year B.A., LL.B. (Hons.)
Courses
Education
BSC, St Xaviers College, University of Mumbai – 2001
LLB, Government Law College, University of Mumbai – 2006
LLM, Columbia University, New York (Human Rights Fellow) – 2011
Profile
Alok is a lawyer, activist and researcher working on LGBT and animal rights. Alok has practised as a civil liberties lawyer in the Bombay High Court for over ten years. He graduated as a lawyer from the University of Bombay, with a semester at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa; and has a Masters in Law from Columbia University, New York.
He has written widely on section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that criminalised homosexuality in India and was part of the legal challenge against it. Alok’s principle research on 377 resulted in the two following publications: “Section 377 and the Dignity of Indian Homosexuals” for the Economic and Political Weekly, 2006 and “This Alien Legacy: The Origins of “Sodomy” Laws in British Colonialism” for Human Rights Watch, 2008.
He has also co-edited Law Like Love with Arvind Narrain (Yoda Press 2011), where a wider queer politics was imagined. He is currently – guided by this idea of a wider queer politics – working on animal rights.
Work Experience
Alok has worked as a research assistant with Justice Edwin Cameron (during his tenure at the Supreme Court of Appela of South Africa) in the years 2002 and 2003, and clerked for Justice Albie Sachs, at the South African Constitutional Court, in 2007.
He has done animal rights research, activism and campaigning work with the Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisation and People for Animals, Goa. He is currently working on a captive elephant research project with the Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre, Bangalore. Alok has also taught seminars and lectures on Animal Rights and Politics in India, at National Law School of India, Bengaluru; West Bengal Institute of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata; and VM Salgaoncar Law College, Panjim.
Research work
Law, Culture and Rights
Animal Rights and Politics in India
Queer Rights and Politis in India
Intersectinality, Marginalisation and Animal Rights
Publications
Alok is a regular contributor on animal rights for Scroll at https://scroll.in/author/14794.
1. “Section 377 and the Dignity of Indian Homosexuals” for the Economic and Political Weekly, 2006
2. “This Alien Legacy: The Origins of “Sodomy” Laws in British Colonialism” for Human Rights Watch, 2008.
3. Law Like Love co-edited with Arvind Narrain (Yoda Press 2011)
4. The Despised and Dishonoured: The Non-Human ‘Beast’ and the Non-Conforming Khairati (NUJS Law Review, 2020)
5. In Their Own Right: Calling for Parity in Law for Animal Victims of Crimes (A documentation report. (FIAPO, 2021)
6. “The Permissible and the Perverse: Indian Geographies of Interspecies Sex” (co-authored with Prof. Naisargi Dave, (Environment and Planning: Nature and Space Journal, special issue on Animal Studies in South Asia, Sage Publication, 2021)