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Society and Sovereignty: Identifying and Understanding the Labour Party’s Approach to Rights Across the 20th Century (2025)
Thesis
Nagi, S. Society and Sovereignty: Identifying and Understanding the Labour Party’s Approach to Rights Across the 20th Century. (Thesis). SOAS University of London

This thesis provides a novel discursive and analytical legal-historical account that reveals how the Labour Party and its key or leading figures—individuals who held important positions or exercised significant authority—understood and approached the... Read More about Society and Sovereignty: Identifying and Understanding the Labour Party’s Approach to Rights Across the 20th Century.

The rule of law and racial difference in the British Empire (2023)
Book Chapter
Sharma, K. (2023). The rule of law and racial difference in the British Empire. In S.-S. Wheatle, & E. O’Loughlin (Eds.), Diverse Voices in Public Law (15-34). Bristol University Press. https://doi.org/10.56687/9781529220766-005

This chapter begins by discussing the history and some modern conceptions of the doctrine of the rule of law (RoL) before turning its attention to the development and deployment of the doctrine within the British Empire. Firstly, it examines how the... Read More about The rule of law and racial difference in the British Empire.

The ‘Vulnerable’ Hindu Woman, Love-jihad, and the Indian Courts: The Hadiya Case - Commentary on Asokan KM vs State of Kerala (2017) 2 KLJ 974 (2023)
Journal Article
Sharma, K. (2023). The ‘Vulnerable’ Hindu Woman, Love-jihad, and the Indian Courts: The Hadiya Case - Commentary on Asokan KM vs State of Kerala (2017) 2 KLJ 974. Verfassung und Recht in Übersee, 56(1), 59-69. https://doi.org/10.5771/0506-7286-2023-1-59

In Asokan K.M. v. State of Kerala (2017) at the behest of a disgruntled Hindu father whose daughter had converted to Islam and married a man of her choice, the Kerala High Court (HC) cast the daughter, Hadiya, as a ‘vulnerable’ woman bef... Read More about The ‘Vulnerable’ Hindu Woman, Love-jihad, and the Indian Courts: The Hadiya Case - Commentary on Asokan KM vs State of Kerala (2017) 2 KLJ 974.

Colonial courts, judicial iconography and the Indian semiotic register (2022)
Journal Article
Sharma, K. (in press). Colonial courts, judicial iconography and the Indian semiotic register. Law and Humanities, 16(2), 331-336. https://doi.org/10.1080/17521483.2022.2080943

In From the Colonial to the Contemporary: Images, Iconography, Memories, and Performances of Law in India's High Courts, Rahela Khorakiwala brings together germinal works on the uses of architecture and iconology in and by law with thick descriptions... Read More about Colonial courts, judicial iconography and the Indian semiotic register.

Dadaji Bhikaji v Rukhmabai: Rewriting Consent and Conjugal Relations in Colonial India (2021)
Journal Article
Sharma, K., Lammasniemi, L., & Sarkar, T. (in press). Dadaji Bhikaji v Rukhmabai: Rewriting Consent and Conjugal Relations in Colonial India. Indian Law Review, 5(3), 265-287. https://doi.org/10.1080/24730580.2021.1962083

Through an examination of the late nineteenth century case of Dadaji Bhikaji v Rukhmabai this article traces the history of the doctrine of restitution of conjugal rights (“RCR”) in Hindu law in colonial India. It highlights the importance of caste i... Read More about Dadaji Bhikaji v Rukhmabai: Rewriting Consent and Conjugal Relations in Colonial India.

Governing Conjugality: Social Hygiene and The Doctrine of Restitution of Conjugal Rights in England and India in the Nineteenth Century (2021)
Journal Article
Lammasniemi, L., & Sharma, K. (in press). Governing Conjugality: Social Hygiene and The Doctrine of Restitution of Conjugal Rights in England and India in the Nineteenth Century. Australian Feminist Law Journal, 47(1), 67-84. https://doi.org/10.1080/13200968.2021.1923252

This article focuses on the doctrine of restitution of conjugal rights (RCR) as a colonial legal transplant and examines how ideas of social and moral hygiene manifested in the debates around the doctrine in late-nineteenth century England and India.... Read More about Governing Conjugality: Social Hygiene and The Doctrine of Restitution of Conjugal Rights in England and India in the Nineteenth Century.

Restitution of conjugal rights and the dissenting female body: The Rukhmabai Case (2020)
Book Chapter
Sharma, K. (2020). Restitution of conjugal rights and the dissenting female body: The Rukhmabai Case. In S. Bonnerjee (Ed.), Subaltern Women’s Narratives: Strident Voices, Dissenting Bodies. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003121220-18

Trial transcripts remain an under utilised source through which colonial women’s lived experiences as well as their narratives of resistance can be recovered. This paper aims to explore Indian Hindu women’s resistance to attempts to control their bod... Read More about Restitution of conjugal rights and the dissenting female body: The Rukhmabai Case.

Withholding Consent to Conjugal Relations within Child Marriages in Colonial India: Rukhmabai's Fight (2020)
Journal Article
Sharma, K. (2020). Withholding Consent to Conjugal Relations within Child Marriages in Colonial India: Rukhmabai's Fight. Law and History Review, 38(1), 151-175. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0738248020000024

Married at the age of eleven, Rukhmabai refused to go and live with her husband who had filed a suit for restitution of conjugal rights against her in 1884. This paper analyses the transplantation of the notion of restitution of conjugal rights into... Read More about Withholding Consent to Conjugal Relations within Child Marriages in Colonial India: Rukhmabai's Fight.

Mother India: The Role of the Maternal Figure in Establishing Legal Subjectivity (2017)
Journal Article
Sharma, K. (2018). Mother India: The Role of the Maternal Figure in Establishing Legal Subjectivity. Law and Critique, 29(1), 1-29. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10978-017-9197-4

Psychoanalytic jurisprudence attempts to understand the images used by law to attract and capture the subject. In keeping with the larger psychoanalytic tradition, such theories tend to overemphasise the paternal principle. The image of law is said t... Read More about Mother India: The Role of the Maternal Figure in Establishing Legal Subjectivity.

Review of: Wing-Cheong Chan, Barry Wright, Stanley Yeo (eds): Codification, Macaulay and the Indian Penal Code: The Legacies and Modern Challenges of Criminal Law Reform (2012)
Journal Article
Sharma, K. (2013). Review of: Wing-Cheong Chan, Barry Wright, Stanley Yeo (eds): Codification, Macaulay and the Indian Penal Code: The Legacies and Modern Challenges of Criminal Law Reform. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique, 26(4), 957-962. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-012-9299-0

A Symbol of State Power: Use of the Red Fort in Indian Political Trials (2011)
Book Chapter
Sharma, K. (2011). A Symbol of State Power: Use of the Red Fort in Indian Political Trials. In A. P. Foley (Ed.), Ethics, Evil, Law and the State: State Power and Political Evil. Inter-Disciplinary Press. https://doi.org/10.1163/9781848880771_005

A political trial is carried out against those who threaten the very existence of the state. When faced with such a crisis of legitimacy the state takes recourse to political trials. These political trials allow the state to display its power and yet... Read More about A Symbol of State Power: Use of the Red Fort in Indian Political Trials.