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Full-Text Articles in Law
Law's Autonomy, Ashok Agrwaal
Law's Autonomy, Ashok Agrwaal
Ashok Agrwaal
Like entropy, autonomy exists. As such, the existence of autonomy does not need any law or laws, beyond itself and its nature. Autonomy can, therefore, be said to be an "original" state of human kind; or at least of the individual. Law, which is frequently seen as preserving/ maximising/ conferring autonomy is actually a device to usurp autonomy. The paper looks at a specific example of how the nation-state, the most powerful usurper of autonomies created till date, arrogates autonomy to itself, in the name of ‘public interest’. Needless to say, in the hands of the state, autonomy translates into …
Bandipora Redux: A Tale From Two Insurgencies, Ashok Agrwaal
Bandipora Redux: A Tale From Two Insurgencies, Ashok Agrwaal
Ashok Agrwaal
This artixcle is based upon my work on State impunity in the context of the guaranteed right to life, in Punjab and Kashmir. The Indian state has fought insurgencies almost throughout its independent history: from Nagaland to Punjab, Andhra Pradesh to Kashmir, from the early 1950s to date. Among the many different kinds of human rights violations that the Indian security forces have been charged with, is the recurring charge that they force local people to act as 'human shields' \with a view to minimising uniformed casualties. These reports have been denied by the authorities who routinely provide other reasons, …
State Repression: Behind The Mask Of Democracy ..., Ashok Agrwaal
State Repression: Behind The Mask Of Democracy ..., Ashok Agrwaal
Ashok Agrwaal
There has never been a satisfactory solution to the problem of handling / controlling political power, albeit the liberal claim that theirs is the best of the possible solutions known to human history. Notwithstanding the rhetoric justifying the creation and evolution of the modern nation-state, which focuses on its potential – through the ‘Rule of Law’ – to be more just and egalitarian than any other system of organised political power, there is overwhelming empirical evidence to show that things have not changed very much. States continue to repress their citizens in all manner of ways. The difference being that, …