Join us ONLINE for Episode 3 of RightsUp – available to listen and download from Oxford Podcasts, iTunesU and the OxHRH website from 12noon, Friday 10 July 2015.

Episode 3: “I am not here to delight you”: Indira Jaising and Gender Justice in India

Indira Jaising is a force to be reckoned with — full of life, intelligence, conviction, and a desire to change the world. Throughout her career, she has earned the title of ‘first’ many times. In 1986, she became the first woman designated a Senior Advocate by the High Court of Bombay. She was the first Indian woman elected to the UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, and in 2009 she became the first woman appointed Additional Solicitor-General of the Supreme Court of India. She is a tireless advocate for women’s rights and the rights of the poor and disenfranchised, and her legal career has been marked by important legal victories on issues ranging from guardianship to divorce. Indira is also the founder of the Lawyer’s Collective, an organization of lawyers, law students and human rights advocates who work to provide ‘expert legal assistance to the underprivileged, especially women and children, workers in the unorganised sector and other members of marginalised groups.’ In this episode, we talk to Indira about her experience as a lawyer in India an we discuss some of the important events that have shaped both the Indian justice system and the fight for gender justice — not only in India, but worldwide.

In this episode we speak to:
– Indira Jaising, SC
– Arushi Garg, Oxford University law student

RightsUp is written, produced and edited by Kira Allmann, Max Harris, and Laura Hilly, with music written and performed by Rosemary Allmann.

RightsUp is brought to you by the Oxford Human Rights Hub at the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, with the support of a grant from The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH).

RESOURCES:

• Lawyers Collective
• Domestic Violence Act (India), 2005
• Baxi, Upendra (1985) – “Taking Suffering Seriously: Social Action Litigation in the Supreme Court of India,” Third World Legal Studies, 4:6
• “Tarunabh Khaitan: Koushal v Naz: The Legislative Court,” UK Constitutional Law Association, 22 December 2013