The Armed Forces Special Powers Act of 1958 (AFSPA) grants the military the ability to maintain public order in ‘disturbed areas,’ through wide powers of arrest, the right to shoot to kill, and to occupy or destroy property of counterinsurgency operations. The latter portion of this law has enabled more than 50 years of occupation in the north-east regions of India, particularly in Manipur and Nagaland. But an underreported aspect of the law has been its frequent and disproportionate use in oppressing and sexually exploiting women with impunity. It was under the AFSPA that the 1991 Kunan-Poshpora mass rapes in Kashmir happened, and on July 11, 2004, Thangjam Manorama, a young Manipuri girl, was raped and killed by an Indian paramilitary unit stationed locally. Five days later, twelve women protested naked under a banner that said ‘Indian Army Rape Us.’ The naked Meira Paibi protests are another form of civil disobedience—women marched with lit torches at night and seek justice over the Army’s human rights violations under AFSPA. While the central government has scaled down the AFSPA, especially in recent years, it is still enforced— receiving continuous criticism both abroad and at home.⁠

In 2019, the scope of what it meant to be ‘Indian’ was modified through the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which introduced a citizenship process for religious minorities (i.e. Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians) from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh — but it doesn’t grant eligibility to Muslims. The original 1995 Act detailed the conditions for citizenship, as well as the process for naturalization and renunciation, regardless of religion. Legal scholars have pointed out that the amended Act violates the principles of secularism, equality, and justice enumerated in the Constitution In 2019, large-scale protests erupted around the country in response to the initial amendment proposal. It also received significant criticism from human rights groups both within the country and internationally, as they called into question India’s commitment to UN principles and its own democratic principles. Three years on, this law is yet to be properly implemented as the rules under the CAA have not been finalized—although a period of six months is granted to frame the rules of any piece of legislation, according to the Manual on Parliamentary Work, the Covid-19 pandemic caused extensive delays in the timelines. The original proposers of the CAA, the Home Ministry, have been granted an extension until June 30th 2023, before they must present it to Parliament. ⁠
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The Equal Remuneration Act of 1976 requires “payment of equal wages for work of the same and similar nature to male and female workers, and for not making discrimination against female employees in the matters of transfers, training, and promotions, etc.” According to the Global Gender Gap Report 2022, however, India ranks 135 out of 146 countries worldwide in terms of gender parity. Although improvements have been made, Covid19 reversed decades of progress. Working women with families were disproportionately affected by the pandemic, split between domestic and professional responsibilities, and forced to choose. Feminist scholars note that the law fails to capture the obstacles which obstruct or prevent this participation. While women’s education has expanded significantly, this hasn’t necessarily translated into a corresponding increase in paid workforce participation. “A coterie of powerful conservative men would rather protect women than promote them,” feminist economist Shrayana Bhattacharya writes in Times of India. Additionally, employers use reproductive and domestic-based justifications to not hire women or to underpay them, as studies show that domestic duties, conservative social norms, and a lack of flexible work models have led to significantly low female labor force participation rates (LFPR). Moreover, the wording of the 1976 Act is inherently exclusionary to trans and queer individuals.⁠

In 1959, India signed the UN’s International Genocide Convention, which focussed on suppression, prevention, and punishing of genocide—yet no domestic laws exist to prevent or punish the same. The existence of domestic legislation against murder, hate speech, and crimes against the human body are used to explain this absence, yet these existing laws don’t take into account mass killing or specific targeting of ethnic groups based on identity. The International Genocide Convention’s definition of ‘genocide’ shows that this amount of harm and violence exists on the systemic level rather than just the individual. The Indian Penal Code, being a remnant of colonialism, doesn’t have accommodations for mass crimes based on ethnic, religious, linguistic, cultural, or geographical grounds, to name a few. ⁠

India’s primary law tackling cybercrime and dealing with e-commerce was the Information Technology Act of 2000. It laid out penalties for aforementioned cybercrimes, and through a major amendment in 2008, encompassed the sending of “offensive messages” and addressed pornography, child porn, cyber terrorism and voyeurism. Controversially, however, the IT (Amendment) Act 2018 also gave authorities the power of “intercepting or monitoring or decryption of any information through any computer resource.” Internet activists have criticized the amendment for its intrusion into citizens’ privacy. Fears of such digital overreach were heightened when reports showed the Indian government relying on NSO Group’s proprietary spyware Pegasus to monitor activists and journalists, according to a 2021 Amnesty International report. The IT Act, its ambit, and its application pose important questions about the future of our digital privacy and those who fight for it. ⁠

Sedition is a legal instrument that continues to haunt us. The 1962 landmark case of Kedar Nath Singh vs. State of Bihar upheld the constitutionality of the provisions in the Indian Penal Code criminalizing sedition, but it emphasized that any statements is seditious if it “intends to disturb public order or public peace by resort to violence.” This decision was cited in the 2021 case against journalist Vinod Dua, who, in a video, criticized PM Modi and the Centre’s handling of the migrant crisis the previous year. While the SC did assure Dua that under the Kedar Nath Singh judgment, “every Journalist will be entitled to protection,” sedition provisions continue to target individuals critical of the Indian government, regardless of the actual consequences of their statements.⁠
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The Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act, 2021 is seen as a progressive legislation for reproductive rights in India, which recently extended the window for termination of a pregnancy from 20 to 24 weeks in case of severe foetal abnormalities or survivors of sexual assault. Services such as therapy, social care, and rehabilitation, among others have been expanded as well, and patient confidentiality is guaranteed. Besides, the Act now guarantees the procedure for unmarried women too. Yet, the Act fails to include trans men and requires those seeking abortions after 20 weeks to have at least two doctors’ approval. For those seeking abortions after the 24-week limit, a state-level medical board determines the outcome of the request based on whether there are foetal abnormalities or not. The hurdles of bureaucracy women must overcome to have abortions show that this Act isn’t fully a rights-based law yet, because it doesn’t center the individual’s agency and bodily autonomy.

The 1994 Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act was enacted to curb rampant, unsafe organ trading nationwide. Under the Act, the process for organ donation was streamlined—yet India continues to face a shortage in donations. There is much documentation of exploitation, especially by rich and/or upper caste individuals, of poor and/or lower caste individuals in the illegal organ trade, despite commercial sale being prohibited by law. There are obstacles on the receiving end as well—at times, the donor’s criminal antecedents or other identity-based factors can be the deciding factor for many would-be recipients, with prejudice playing a significant role in the decision. With an already alarmingly low number of organs available and rising demand, abandoning these biases is crucial. “Let organ donation become a path breaker for communal harmony,” the Kerala High Court said, in one such case.⁠

The constitutional amendment to reserve 10% of seats in education and employment for those in the “Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) of society was upheld by the Supreme Court in November 2022. While the BJP government called it “a big boost in the direction of social justice,” activists have criticized the move, calling it discriminatory to Dalits and other marginalized communities. They point out that it is social background — like caste — that differentiates access to jobs and schools, not economic status. EWS are defined as ‘households from un-reserved categories with an annual family income of less than Rs. 800,000 a year, or who own less than five acres of agricultural land’ and make up about a quarter of the population. By comparison, the communities with Other Backward Classes (OBC) status make up 52% of the population, according to many estimates, but only have 27% reservation. The EWS quota, then, further alienates communities who have historically faced systematic barriers to employment and education.⁠

The Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act of 1989 was enacted to prevent atrocities and hate crimes against individuals from Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi communities. The necessity for such an Act is clear; even in the 21st century, the prevalence of systemic discrimination against members of the SCs and STs “is not a thing of the past.” Even with multiple amendments and additions over the decades, however, the SC/ST Atrocities Act is lacking in both execution and enforcement, and has glaring loopholes. Crucially, it only criminalizes individuals but not institutions, many of which are responsible for implementing the Act. In the case of the higher education suicides taking place at IIMs, IITs, and NITs throughout the country, activists have begun to draw attention to how institutional systems are complicit in caste discrimination and exclusion. With low conviction rates, the implementation of the SC/ST Act remains unsure. ⁠

The primary goal of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act of 1967 is to prevent activities directed against the “integrity and sovereignty” of India. Under its most recent Amendment in 2019, the Union Government can designate individuals as terrorists without following any formal judicial process. This “Anti-terror” law, as it is known colloquially, is noted to contravene several articles of the Universal Declarations of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Between 2014 and 2020, more than 10,000 individuals have been arrested under the UAPA, including academics, journalists, and activists. Tribal and Dalit rights activists and trade unionists like Sudha Bharadwaj and Surendra Gadling arrested for allegedly inciting the 2018 Bhima Koregaon violence are prime examples.⁠

Enacted in 1972, the Wild Life (Protection) Act provides for “the protection of wild animals, birds and plants; and for other matters connected therewith or ancillary or incidental thereto.” It extends throughout India and with the 2002 Amendment, the punishments and penalties under the Act became more stringent. There are criticisms against the Act, however: first, that it did very little to actually promote the conservation of the species listed; second, it penalizes scientists by making access to these animals for research purposes a prohibited and fineable offense. Due to the way animals are categories in the WLPA, wild pig and niglai—species which are both common and actively harmful to fisherman, farmers, and forest dwellers—are listed as Schedule 2 and have a massive economic and psychological cost on these communities. Thus, the Act disproportionately affects rural populations who have traditionally and historically relied upon their environments for life. ⁠

The Young Persons Harmful Publication Act of 1956 prevents the dissemination of items supposedly “harmful” items to the youth, or those below 18 years. While this Act applies to publications like “books, magazines, pamphlets, leaflets, newspapers, and the like”, a 2014 police raid in Kerala targeted shops selling Bob Marley shirts, stating that they encouraged young people to consume drugs. The shopkeepers were charged under this law, which defines a harmful publication as one that “tends to corrupt a young person” through images of “violence and cruelty” or “incidents of a repulsive or horrible nature.” Under this Act, protection of young peoples’ morals is used to justify censorship.⁠