Colonial Hangovers: Female Consent & British Homophobia
This event is co-organised by the UCL South Asia Legal Forum, the UCL Pakistan Society and the UCL Sri Lankan Society
Colonial Hangovers: Female Consent & British Homophobia
05 Dec 2019, 18:00 – 20:00
The UCL South Asia Legal Forum proudly presents the first event of our 2-part series titled ‘Colonial Hangovers’, exploring the impact of colonial laws in South Asian legal systems and societies today. This event explores the findings of two leading academics on the following issues:
Dr Kanika Sharma (SOAS) - “Restitution of Conjugal Rights and the Dissenting Female Body in India”
The colonial legal system has left a lasting impact on Hindu Personal Law in India. This paper will examine the transplantation of restitution of conjugal rights from English ecclesiastical law to Hindu marriages. By the late nineteenth century, Hindu women who had been married in their infancy were being routinely forced to live with their husbands against their wishes on pain of imprisonment. Women’s consent – or lack thereof – was considered immaterial at the time of the marriage and its consummation. I will closely examine the Rukhmabai case (1884 – 1888) to recover one of the first Indian female voices that argued for female consent to be taken into account under the law in India.
Professor Robert Wintemute (KCL) - “The s. 377 Colonial Hangover: The Supreme Court of India’s Cure and the Future of LGBT Human Rights in South (and South-East) Asia”.
On 6 September 2018, the Supreme Court of India read down s. 377 of the Indian Penal Code (the prohibition of “carnal intercourse against the order of nature”, introduced by the British Empire in 1860) as unconstitutional if applied to private, consensual, adult sexual activity. The criminal law that stigmatised more LGBT persons than any other in the world ceased to have effect. What led to this historic decision? What is next for LGBT human rights in India? And what about similar British-introduced criminal laws in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei?
The talks will be followed by an audience Q&A and networking reception with refreshments.
Dr Kanika Sharma (SOAS)
At SOAS, Dr. Sharma is the Chair of the Centre for Asian Legal Studies, as well as co-convening Legal Systems of Asia and Africa and Law and Society in South Asia and teaching on the Public Law module.
Dr. Sharma obtained her PhD in Law from Birkbeck College, University of London in 2016. Her thesis used postcolonial and constitutional theories to examine the use of images and architecture in political trials. She also used psychoanalytic jurisprudence to analyse the relation between law and culture and the formation of the legal subject in colonial and post-colonial contexts. Her current research focuses on Indian colonial legal history, and she is presently working on studying notions of female ‘consent’ in the age of consent debates in India from the late nineteenth century. She is also looking at the ways in which law is performed and history is staged in relation to political trials.
Prior to starting her PhD in Law, Dr. Sharma studied journalism and politics in New Delhi and worked in various capacities including as a reporter and photographer for a national daily, as a military historian and as a researcher for UNICEF.
Prof. Robert Wintemute (KCL)
Robert Wintemute is a Professor of Human Rights Law at King’s College London and supported the s. 377 case from his first visit to India in 2006. He has worked on LGB human rights cases in the European Court of Human Rights, the Court of Justice of the European Union, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the Constitutional Court of Colombia, the Ontario Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Courts of Argentina, Massachusetts, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
The UCL South Asia Legal Forum is UCL’s platform on which to debate and discuss legal issues relating to the region.
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