Wages of Impunity: Power, Justice and Human Rights

This book consists of essays on human rights and civil liberties in India. Reiterating the indispensability of fundamental rights, read in the context of the Indian Constitutions Directive Principles, the essays focus on aspects such as secularism, socialism, and the right to life, liberty, free speech and association. Using the Constitution as the point of departure, the author opens up the complexity of rights through inclusive analyses of case law on each of these aspects. On one track, the book looks at the origin of preventive detention laws in the country in the context of the debates during the colonial period on the issue. On a second track, the essays look at the practices of politics - the undermining of mass struggles and left movements and the rise of right-wing nationalism. On a third track explore possible remedies to a seemingly hopless situation.