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Reading against the times in 2025: Arvind Narrain’s book recommendations on law, culture and resistance - Part I

Legal scholar Arvind Narrain reviews ten books he read over last year that engage with the complex truths of law and political transformations - from a post-370 Kashmir to an alternative thinking on the Indian Constitution.

'Happy New Year'

'Supreme Solution'

Why not AI?

Book review: Anand Teltumbde’s memoir shows why prison is a mirror image of society, except the delusion of freedom

Acquitted in the 7/11 Mumbai blasts case, a prison rights activist reviews the prison memoir of another - a searing reading on intellectual stifling, of loosening faith in the judiciary, and why the Bhima Koregaon case is a landmark indeed.

'Delhi Diwali Green'

'Pulling Milord Down'

Book review: A philosophical investigation into chamber practice

Talha Abdul Rahman’s book has a sincere, clear purpose - bringing the gatekept advice on chamber practice to first generation lawyers and law students.

'School Principal Bench'

'Stop Snapping!'

'Complete Justice'

'A Grand Event'

Note: An additional Circuit Bench of the Bombay High Court is being inaugurated today (17th August,2025) at Kolhapur. It will commence judicial work from tomorrow (18th August,2025). This poem is a poetic comment commemorating this event.

'Let the law be laid'

Bench Fixing

Judgment Reserved

'An Urban Naxal?'

'I can still be President'

Jamia, Aligarh and the complex legacies of India’s Muslim institutions: Laurence Gautier’s new book tackles it all

In post-Partition India, AMU and Jamia Millia Islamia rose as political and symbolic characters, submerging deep into the socio-political lives of India’s 200 million Muslims.

White shirts, black pants

On July 15, the Rohini Court Bar Association issued a notice barring the general public, clerks and litigants from wearing white shirts and black coats on court premises. The notice came amidst complaints of touts defrauding litigants.

'Moon & Cartoon'

Without Beer or Favour

'Overt & Covert' : Two Lawmericks

'THUG LIFE'

What a post 9/11 short story tells us about the Mahmudabad arrest and law’s chilling effect in liberal academia

Laila Lalami’s haunting short story Echo (2011), part of a post 9/11 literary collection, follows an Arab academic in the US hounded for her critique of the ‘War on Terror’. Lalami’s U.S. and Modi’s India present a common blue print for chilling speech in liberal academic spaces, and the law’s enabling role in it.

Corporate Crumbs

Book review: Aditya Mukherjee’s new book on Nehru tirelessly ponders over the ‘Idea of India’

Mukherjee’s book, a fresh break from a lineage of jargonic writing on India’s first prime minister, puts in center the spirit of scientific inquiry and the challenge it poses to the communal project of reconstructing secular India.

Coaching Class Judges

Weepy weighs in..

Protocol

Taking a break

Gown with the Wind

Ceasefire

Sanjay Singhvi: A thinking trade unionist

An obituary to senior counsel Sanjay Singhvi, with whose passing the labour movement has lost a humanist, a brilliant labour lawyer and a valiant warrior

On thinking and questioning

If a government’s decisions are informed by anything other than scientific thought and reason, it becomes a theocratic government

An ode to Sanjay Singhvi, for whom life was an unwavering commitment to labour justice

On April 24, senior counsel Sanjay Singhvi passed away. He was among the last in a generation of lawyers who never, for a moment, faltered from their cause.

'Agenda'

Weepy's tirade

Our Assets

Book review: Anurag Bhaskar’s book gives a foresighted account of the many myths appropriating Babasaheb Ambedkar

On the 135th birth anniversary of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, we review one of the most important collections on Ambedkar’s works published over the past year. Bhaskar, an anti-caste legal scholar, locates, with scrutiny and honesty, Ambedkar’s profound legacy against the many myths undermining his radical vision for the future.

Judgment Invisible

A Big Chief's Big Award

A tango with the curtains marked my Supreme Court debut

The glorious curtains in the Supreme Court of India left an indelible mark on the memory of my debut in the Supreme Court.

Limits of Humour

Whither 'Rule of Law'?

Stand up,comic!

To judge a judge

Book review— Fraternity: Constitutional Norm and Human Need

This slender yet informative book by Rajmohan Gandhi must be welcomed and read by young lawyers, political scientists and historians, writes Shubham Sharma.

The year that was–13 | Great non-fiction books of 2024

A selection of books for the lawman and the layman, read in 2024, for the year 2025.

The year that was–12 | 2024 in books: Love, hope and resistance—Part 2

Arvind Narrain presents a list of books read in 2024 so that ‘truth may dazzle gradually’.

The year that was–10 | 2024 in books: Love, hope and resistance—Part 1

Arvind Narrain presents a list of books read in 2024 so that ‘truth may dazzle gradually’.

Book review: Prof. Upendra Baxi’s life of law

Saqib Rasool calls the book Of Law and Life a must-read for people associated with law and beyond.

Saurabh Kirpal’s new book offers a close examination of the 24-word equality provision in the Indian Constitution

How is equality imagined and practised in India? A review of Saurabh Kirpal’s sharp new book.

A new book shows how M.S. Golwalkar was the Guru of Gloom

Shubham Sharma reviews a new book by Dhirendra K. Jha on M.S. Gowalkar, showing the man behind a carefully constructed image by the Hindutva ‘machine’.

Nehru in the age of the RSS-BJP, ‘anti-communism’ and alignment of chakras

Aditya Mukherjee’s new book shows how Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru continues to ‘vibe’ with the India of today, and has perhaps become even more relevant in certain aspects, writes Shubham Sharma.

Book review— Practices of the State: Muslims, Law and Violence in India

Shubham Sharma calls Tanweer Fazal’s book Practices of the State: Muslims, Law and Violence in India an essential read to understand the ‘Muslim question’ in India today.

Humour and nostalgia: A review of Tales of Law and Laughter by Raju Z. Moray

Book review: In Defense of Flogging

Life of a communist woman: Review of Brinda Karat’s autobiography

The Books I read in 2023

Optimism of the intellect: A year in books—Part 3

Optimism of the intellect: A year in books—Part 2

Optimism of the intellect: A year in books—Part 1

How viable is Gandhi’s village today?

A top-notch primer on reservations in India

Court on Trial covers vast ground, only missing things here and there

Judges do make political choices, says Justice S. Muralidhar at the launch of Gautam Bhatia’s Unsealed Covers

Besides Justice S. Muralidhar, senior advocate Rebecca John and journalist Seema Chishti also spoke at the launch.

Brahma Prakash’s ‘Body on the Barricades’ is a moving imagery of the gasping republic

Exploring the spirit of India in the company of Jawaharlal Nehru’s ghost: Part 2

Exploring the spirit of India in the company of Jawaharlal Nehru’s ghost: Part 1

A constitutional concern for all of us

What a genuine leftist response to the Hindutva challenge should look like

Network nations would arise from cryptocurrency-based asset-funded cloud societies

No country for young men – A review of ‘Affairs of Caste’

A crash-course on the practice of law: An insider’s story

An ordinary man’s political journey

Lawyering in impossible times: remembering Nazi Germany’s treatment of lawyers

How India won an improbable election at the International Court of Justice

The other side of the ISRO spy story

Book review: ‘Gandhi’s Assassin: The Making of Nathuram Godse and His Idea of India’ by Dhirendra K. Jha