For the SLR Forum, we continue to invite contributions on a rolling basis in the form of short essays and commentary on contemporary developments or issues that speak to the Aims and Scope of the Journal. To submit, please mail us at [email protected]

NLSIU’s Socio-Legal Review (SLR) Journal is now inviting submissions for Volume 22(1) of the Journal. The deadline is 31st January 2026. Please find the submission guidelines here: repository.nls.ac.in/slr/policies... Please find all other relevant details here: drive.google.com/file/d/131cp...

New on the SLR Forum: Dr. Chandrabhan Yadav interviews Dr. Shivani Kapoor on Professor Tulsi Ram's Hindi autobiography and the political possibilities embedded in the autobiographical form and its engagement with caste and Dalit experience. forum.nls.ac.in/slr-forum-bl...

New on the SLR Forum: For 'Voices from the Field', Mahek Bhatia reflects on the implications of digital networking methods for researchers conducting socio-legal fieldwork in India, particularly for questions of positionality and access. forum.nls.ac.in/slr-forum-bl...

New on the SLR Forum: In this two-part series, our editors interview Dr. Saagar Tewari about his new book, 'Islands Against Civilization: Anthropology, Nationalism, and the Politics of Scheduling, 1918-1950' (Orient BlackSwan, 2024). forum.nls.ac.in/slr-forum-bl...

New on the SLR Forum: Tanishq Desai critiques the legitimacy of cash bail, using Bourdieu’s framework of symbolic violence to interrogate its disproportionate impact against working-class persons. forum.nls.ac.in/slr-forum-bl...

In our latest from the SLR Interviews series, our editors spoke to Dr. Vibhuti Ramachandran about her recent book 'Immoral Traffic' (CUP 2025), on the practice of ethnography and the positionality of the ethnographer. forum.nls.ac.in/slr-forum-bl...

New on the SLR Forum: Dr. Srinivas Burra examines mainstream pedagogical approaches towards teaching international law, exploring methods for incorporating critical international law perspectives with a focus on Global South jurisprudence. forum.nls.ac.in/slr-forum-bl...

New on the SLR Forum: Dr. Ashna Singh argues that TWAIL scholarship on international law ignores caste in its teaching, research and discourse and shows that caste is central to the TWAIL perspective for the critical perspectives it offers on South Asia. forum.nls.ac.in/slr-forum-bl...

New on the SLR Forum: Dr. Akhila Basalalli analyses the need for a new pedagogy of international law, taking lessons from the growing integration and inward-looking normativity of international law. forum.nls.ac.in/slr-forum-bl...

New on the SLR Forum: Prof. Rohini Sen uses the feminist pedagogical techniques of standpoint theory and relational analysis to critically examine notions around expertise in teaching and research in international law academia. forum.nls.ac.in/slr-forum-bl...

New on the SLR Forum: Tanya Sara George and Abhishek Sanjay critique Section 62(5) of the RPA, which disenfranchises incarcerated persons - analysing its colonial origins, disproportionate impact on marginalised groups and jurisprudence on the issue. forum.nls.ac.in/slr-forum-bl...

We are meeting for our second session today, to discuss Chapter 3 of the book with Dr. Mrinal Satish. Do join us if you're on campus, details here.

In the second iteration of the SLR Reading Circle, this term we are reading Dr. Alastair McClure's Trials of Sovereignty over four sessions. If you're on campus, join us! Details of the first session are here, we are reading Chapter 1 with Dr. Samyak Ghosh.

The SLR Forum now has a new home! Do engage with the breadth of socio-legal scholarship that we have published here over the years. forum.nls.ac.in/slr-forum/

New on the SLR Forum: Anshul Dalmia empirically analyses 34 recent constitution bench judgments for their level of accessibility, on metrics of the availability of transcripts, translations into vernacular languages, clarity and brevity. www.sociolegalreview.com/post/who-can...

New on the SLR Forum: Anagha Damaraju argues that the Patna HC's hasty approval of the Bihar caste survey's data collection modalities may lead to the misuse of sensitive data, rendering marginalised caste groups susceptible to privacy violations. www.sociolegalreview.com/post/caste-d...

New on the SLR Forum: Lakshmi Menon, from The Square Circle Clinic, reviews Alastair McClure's book 'Trials of Sovereignty', arguing that discretionary capital sentencing follows a colonial legacy designed for subjugation and punishment. www.sociolegalreview.com/post/the-leg...

Our Special 20th Anniversary Issue ends with a Postscript written by Kalyani Ramnath, Editor-in-Chief of SLR in 2007. Ramnath reflects on SLR’s journey, particularly the initial years, placing the question of socio-legal in an institutional context. repository.nls.ac.in/slr/vol20/is...

This looks fantastic, with a great line-up of scholars including legal historians Elizabeth Lhost and Kalyani Ramnath (who was there in the early days)! Also includes Anup Surendranath & Maitreyi Misra on death penalty (India) and Maryam Khan on socio-legal studies in Pakistan. Congratulations, all!

In our fifth and final article, Sara Dezalay asks what a socio-legal enquiry looks like on a "global" scale when seen from the vantage point of Africa, showing the entanglement of law in the selective globalisation fostered by global value chains. repository.nls.ac.in/slr/vol20/is...

In our fourth article, Maryam S Khan shows the emergence and development of socio-legal research in Pakistan in broad comparison with India, arguing that the meaning and evolution of “socio” in socio-legal is contingent on social and historical contexts. repository.nls.ac.in/slr/vol20/is...

In our third article, Anup Surendranath and Maitreyi Misra show how mitigation practice—which draws heavily from social science disciplines—brings forth the tensions between the ostensible neatness of legal doctrine and the complexity of social reality. repository.nls.ac.in/slr/vol20/is...

The second article in our Special Issue is by Deepa Das Acevedo and Jahnavi Chamarthi who discuss the relationship between the subdiscipline of legal anthropology and the broader field of law and society scholarship, with a special focus on India and SLR. repository.nls.ac.in/slr/vol20/is...

In the first article of our Special Anniversary Issue, Elizabeth Lhost critically examines what constitutes “law’s archive” when doing legal history. Outlining trends in socio-legal history, she asks how a critical historian can tell a story of fragments. repository.nls.ac.in/slr/vol20/is...

SLR's Special 20th Anniversary Issue is out now! Volume 20(2) reflects on two decades of socio-legal inquiry from India, South Asia, and beyond—through legal history, anthropology, mitigation practice, comparative method & institutional memory. Read here: repository.nls.ac.in/slr/

The recording of the launch event of our Special 20th Anniversary Issue is now available on our YouTube channel. If you missed it, go watch an insightful discussion on the contours of socio-legal scholarship today, with special focus on South Asia. www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5Mu...

Reminder to register for our Special 20th Anniversary Issue launch event happening tomorrow, 18 June at 3 PM IST. Catch SLR Editors in conversation with Elizabeth Lhost, Anup Surendranath, Maitreyi Misra, Maryam Khan, and Sara Dezalay. Register here: shorturl.at/ElSzB

In this interview, our editors spoke to Dr. Sagnik Dutta about their book, 'In the Shadow of Minority Rights' (CUP 2025), on Muslim women's resistance, activism and agency in the context of increasing Hindu majoritarianism and violence. www.sociolegalreview.com/post/muslimn...

It’s finally here! India, South Asia, and Beyond—SLR’s ambitious 20th Anniversary Issue takes stock of the field. Join us on 18 June, 3 PM IST for its launch + round-table with our authors on what socio-legal inquiry means today. Q&A to follow! Register: shorturl.at/ElSzB

In this two-part series, we interview Dr. Rahul Rao about his new book, 'The Psychic Lives of Statues' (Pluto Press, 2025) and speak to him about questions of iconography, memory, decolonisation and progress. www.sociolegalreview.com/post/statues...

As part of SLR’s anniversary celebrations, we spoke with former editors about the journal’s evolution and socio-legal inquiry today. Our final feature before the Special Issue launch later this month! Read now at SLR Forum. @gautambhatia88.bsky.social www.sociolegalreview.com/post/looking...

From the page to the process—after sharing author reflections for our 20th Anniversary, we now turn to the editors who helped shape SLR. First up: Sanhita Ambast, Editor (2007), now Senior Research Advisor at Amnesty International, reflecting on the value of socio-legal work.

This week, SLR organised the second session of the Critical Reading Circle, where we watched Santosh (2024) alongside Nikita Sonavane's article 'Deconstructing Police Discretion as Brahmanism,' which was published in SLR's 19(1) issue. You can also read the Article here: lnkd.in/eXaRRRx8.

At SLR, we’ve learned from everyone we’ve worked with. As we celebrate 20 years, we share reflections from those who shaped our pages and inspired our questions. Each day this week, we bring you voices from our past authors reflecting on their experience working with SLR. #SLR20

SLR recently announced the initiation of the Critical Reading Circle at NLS, a space to read, discuss and think closely about theory and method. Today was our first meeting, where we read Duncan Kennedy's 'Legal Education as Training for Hierarchy'.

SLR extends greetings on the occasion of International Workers' Day. From our archives, we present papers that critically examine the relationship between labour, society, politics, and the law.

SLR extends greetings on the occasion of International Workers' Day. From our archives, we present papers that critically examine the relationship between labour, society, politics, and the law.

Ways of Remembering | We are delighted to publish a book roundtable on Oishik Sircar's Ways of Remembering: Law, Cinema and Collective Memory in the New India (Volume 1, Cambridge University Press 2024). Read the essays from this roundtable here: www.sociolegalreview.com/blog/categor...

20 years of SLR. 10 themes. 50 articles. It's a wrap on our Revisiting the Archives series. Thank you all for reading along. Here's our reading list with all the featured articles and more! Stay tuned for further updates on the Anniversary Celebrations. t.co/b200zFD3wd

New on the SLR Forum: Why does the UAPA remain resistant to critique? Navdha Sharma unpacks how hyper-nationalism and postmodern anxieties converge to render the UAPA ideologically untouchable.

We are excited to announce the Call for Papers for Volume 21(2)! We seek research articles, case comments, and Notes from the Field based on the Special Issue Theme of Law and Culture. Deadline: May 31, 2025

This week in SLR's Revisiting the Archives, we showcase papers at the intersections of disability and the law. These papers adopt a critical approach to disability showing how it is shaped by the law through discourses of productivity, normalcy, difference, and equality. Read on!

This week in Revisiting the Archives, a look at papers on the working of courts in India and possibilities of institutional reform. These articles examine issues of legitimacy, pendency, procedural justice, transparency, and judicial decision-making in and by Courts in India.

In Revisiting the Archives this week, articles from SLR's pages on the intersections of law, technology, and society. These articles deal with important issues of digital governance, privacy, and data protection from a socio-legal perspective.

In our latest piece on the SLR Forum, Aravind Sundar responds to Tanya Sara George's piece and argues against making §498A a compoundable offence. He rebuts the argument on the 'misuse' of the section and shows that compounding would trivialise the crime and be detrimental to women's autonomy.

We resume the Revisiting the Archives series as part of our 20th Anniversary Celebrations. This week, we highlight scholarship published in SLR that critically questions the assumptions and working of the criminal law, particularly rape law, from the viewpoint of gender.

Vol. 20(1) ends with a Book Review of Sandipto Dasgupta's Legalizing the Revolution (2024) by Shaunna Rodrigues. She evaluates Dasgupta’s methodological use of political theory and situates the book within the current crisis of constitutionalism in India. repository.nls.ac.in/slr/vol20/is...

Vol 20(1) comprises an experimental Case Comment on the SC judgment in Supriyo. In a lyrically written staged conversation, Danish Sheikh and Rupali Samuel ask whether queerness can position itself “beside” marriage so as to create conditions of freedom. repository.nls.ac.in/slr/vol20/is...

In our Notes from the Field in 20(1), Mohammad Meer Hamja and Pranav Menon draw upon socio-historical and ethnographic accounts of the Van Gujjar community to re-present them as powerful legal actors in their own right. repository.nls.ac.in/slr/vol20/is...