Although conceived in the early 19th Century, the Indian Penal Code, 1860 has stood the test of time. This is true not just for India, but for several other ex-colonial societies where the IPC was implemented by the British. In independent India, most substantial amendments introduced to the IPC, from 1980s onwards, have been a result of the Indian women’s movement and have thus sought to address and arrest violence against women. These developments foregrounded the importance of analyzing the penal code for its underlying patriarchal values leading to the production of signicant feminist (and non-feminist) critical criminal law literature in India. There has been a signicant rise in criminal law scholarship on offences against women (rape, dowry death, cruelty, adultery etc.) and more recently, on sexuality, the principles and doctrines of criminal law have not received sucient attention from the lens of ‘gender’.
In this conference, we invoke gender as a category of analysis in criminal law. Gender is “a primary way of signifying relationships of power” which shapes and constructs all reality. We invite papers on criminal law which do not merely adopt a descriptive approach to gender but employ gender as a methodology. ‘Gender analysis of the Indian Penal Code’ (borrowing from Ved Kumari’s classic essay (1999) on the penal code) cannot be limited to issues and areas which pertain to the relations between sexes (or to sex-specic provisions). It must translate into sustained examination of social and institutional relationships, as also ideological pre-suppositions of gender-neutral methodology of legal research. In this context, IPC needs a new analytical lens.
Venue
The Conference will be hosted at the Indian Law Institute, Bhagwan Das Road, New Delhi.
Submission Deadline
● Submission of abstract (500 words): 16th August 2022.
● Communication of acceptance: 26th August 2022.
● Submission of full paper (4000-5000 words): 26th September 2022.
Kindly follow the ILI Citation Format
Submission should be sent to [email protected] with Subject “Paper Submission_Name of Candidate”.
Registration Details
Participants:-
● Research Scholars: INR 500
● Academicians: INR 750
