Terror Trials: Life and Law in Delhi's Courts

This book explores the modes of life made possible in the everyday experience of the courtroom in Delhi, India, where terror trials are experienced differently by defendants through a minute engagement with legal technicalities. Legal technicalities are fraught and highly contested, and acquire urgent ethical qualities in the life of a trial, such as the file becoming a space in which the world can be made or unmade, the petition a way of imagining a future, and investigative and courtroom procedures enabling the unexpected formation of close relationships between police and terror-accused.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 272 pages
Publication date: 17 January 2023
Publisher: Fordham University Press

This book delves into the ethnography of terrorism trials in Delhi, India, exploring the modes of life that emerge within the courtroom's daily experience. Mayur Suresh sheds light on how legal procedures and technicalities shape the habitability of courtrooms, highlighting how they become the means through which defendants navigate the terror trials. Contrary to the prevalent understanding of India's terror trials as a result of the expansion of the security state and displays of Hindu nationalism, Suresh reveals how defendants perceive these trials differently, engaging intimately with legal technicalities. Amidst the relentless terror trials characterized by tales of torture, illegal detention, and fabricated charges, defendants immerse themselves in legal procedures, develop their petition-writing skills, forge friendships with police officials, cultivate a cautious faith in the courts, and experience profound betrayal when this trust is betrayed. While these legal technicalities may appear mundane, they are fraught with contention and acquire urgent ethical dimensions in the context of a trial. The file becomes a space where the world can be constructed or dismantled, the petition a means of envisioning a future, and investigative and courtroom procedures facilitate the unexpected formation of close relationships between police and terror-accused. By examining how legal technicalities function in everyday interactions among lawyers, judges, accused terrorists, and police, Suresh demonstrates how human expressiveness, creativity, and vulnerability emerge through the law.

Weight: 426g
Dimension: 152 x 229 x 20 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781531501778