Sandipto Dasgupta will speak on his book, Legalizing the Revolution: India and the Constitution of the Postcolony. Following decolonization, the challenge was to give institutional form to the varied and ambitious ideas of freedom generated by the anticolonial struggles. Through an original and comprehensive account of India’s anticolonial movement and constitution making, Legalizing the Revolution explores the unique promises, challenges, and contradictions of that task.

Hate crime laws, which criminalise violent expressions of prejudice, have faced growing criticism. Scholars have argued that hate crime legislation relies on the collaboration of legal institutions that are themselves shaped by histories of prejudice and fail to bring justice to survivors of identity-based violence. But what does it mean for a hate crime law to be successful? And to whose vision of justice are hate crime laws accountable?

Lower caste assertion in colonial India has been a topic of critical interest for several researchers in the recent past. The Satyashodhak Movement (Truth-Seeking movement) spearheaded by Jotirao Phule in 1873 is one such important movement. However, this movement has largely been studied in a teleological manner, from its birth as a social movement in 1873, to its culmination into a political party in 1920. In this presentation, I will argue that the ideological currents of the Satyashodhak variant of non-Brahmanism underwent seismic shifts after 1890.

Imran Khan, Pakistan's former Prime Minister (2018-2022) and candidate for Chancellor, University of Oxford 2024, remains a populist figure despite his conservatism and limited achievements. His female supporters have courageously faced jail time, representing a postfeminist politics tied to Khan’s narrative of Islamic sovereignty, victimhood, nationalism, and piety.

'Being Hindu, Being Indian' undertakes a systematic intellectual study of Lala Lajpat Rai’s nationalist thought through his active political life, spanning 1888 and 1928. Contesting the dominant scholarly interpretation of Lajpat Rai’s nationalism as the precursor of Savarkarite Hindutva, it highlights the internally differentiated nature of ‘Hindu nationalism’. An examination of Lajpat Rai's thought as a Hindu Mahasabha in the mid-1920s reveals that Rai organised a Hindu politics in service of a secular Indian nation-state.

Join Worcester College Provost, David Isaac CBE, as he interviews leading role models about their lives and careers. Chris Smith, The Rt Hon. the Lord Smith of Finsbury, was Labour MP for Islington South & Finsbury from 1983 to 2005. During this time, he became the first British MP to 'come out' and was the world's first openly gay cabinet minister. He served as Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport between 1997 and 2001, overseeing the reintroduction of free museum entry in the UK.

Enlightenment Workshop Joint Session

If you are interested in attending any of these events, please send an email to plp@law.ox.ac.uk to indicate i) which events you plan to attend, ii) whether you would like to join the speaker for dinner that evening, iii) whether you plan to attend the student seminar accompanying the Colloquium.

For more information, visit the PLP Colloquium website:
https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-and-subject-groups/jurisprudence-oxford/PLP-colloquium
where up-to-date information is listed.