The book under review, as the author states in the Epilo¬gue, was completed in mid-1979 and therefore could not take into account ‘governmen¬tal lawlessness’, for instance, the Bhagalpur blindings of undertrials, the revival of sati in certain parts of India, the scandalous and barbaric treatment of inmates of the Protective Home for Women in Agra, the harrowing tales of inhuman exploitation of bonded labour in Punjab and Haryana, and the count¬less more recent examples of custodial brutality and violence within the Indian Police and some ‘correctional organizations’. Although the book contains a scathing attack on these and similar practices, it is not exactly the emotional outburst of a con¬cerned individual at the grue-some happenings in our coun¬try. It is designed more as an indictment of the systemic infirmities of the legal system that we Indians have bestowed upon ourselves, and of the way we allow it to work.
Nov-Dec 1982, volume 7, No 3