Media articles published over a 17-year period – between 2000 and 2017 – in the national press and online media range from – prisoners’ rights, campus violence, women’s rights, state impunity, judicial accountability, citizen engagement in law-making, questions of discrimination against dalits, adivasis, persons with disabilities, sexual and religious minorities and questions of culture. Viewed chronologically, the articles give a sense of the times, flagging issues for discussion as they have arisen in the public domain. There is a thematic scheme to them as well, within an overarching frame of an idea of justice. The articles, through different specific justice concerns detailed for a lay readership, attempt to open out the framework of the constitution to a popular appreciation – moving it out of the sacred, hence unreachable precincts of constitutional courts. They also aim to trigger a public debate on the scope of justice and its multiple sites. Finally they attempt to present to readers an account of the making and unmaking of laws through resistance struggles and movements that deliberate on the structure and content of specific legislations – the Justice Verma Committee and the new law on sexual assault is a case in point. The articles taken together also present an account of the development of human rights – in movements, in courts, and vis-à-vis the state over this entire period. There is therefore a continuing relevance of the concerns raised in this collection, even while each article addresses an urgent debate that has arisen at a particular moment in India’s contemporary history.
