About LHSS Journal
In a bid to contribute more comprehensively to the conversation around interdisciplinarity in law and humanities and social sciences, the LHSS Collective, MNLU Mumbai, plans to start the Law, Humanities and Social Sciences Journal (LHSS-J). In the coming days, the journal aspires to furnish a platform for emerging research in the field while also harbouring expertise from fields such as history, philosophy, political science, sociology and literature in their engagement with law. At the same time, it would also strive to expand the horizons of readership for interdisciplinary research beyond the borders of conventional academic spaces.
A glance at any textbook of jurisprudence betrays a stark absence: that of juridical insights and theories from a uniquely Indian perspective. What explains this lack, despite the evidently robust debates around cases, legislations and policies in our courts, classrooms, and think tanks? Why do stellar concepts such as the basic structure doctrine and constitutional morality remain mere artefacts in the judicial system, with negligible presence in our public spaces and discussions? At the very least, this disconnect suggests a want of conversation between the laws and the human social currents amid which they emerge, and which in turn, they reshape.
Legal theories evolve only in sustained engagement with, and reflection on, the law at work in society. Such an approach calls for a critical response to law as an idea, an institution but also as an instrument for ordering society, politics and culture. Perhaps a colonial hangover, the relationship between the law as an institution and its daily life in India remains fraught. Law in courtrooms and legislatures, but also in law schools and academia puts on a hyper-specialised mantle, claiming a necessary distance from the clutter of politics, society and culture. Judgments, while salutary in intent and technically flawless, run aground at implementation. Scholars, fresh from the halls of legal academia, step out into the world of internships, practice, and large corporations to stumble upon questions and situations that lie beyond the ken of the statute books. Clearly, a dialogue between law and its larger milieu needs to happen.
Contact us at lhssjournal@mnlumumbai.edu.in