Indian Cinema and Human Rights: an Intersectional Tale

This book examines the intersection between Indian cinema (across geographic regions, languages and formats) and human rights. It analyzes Indian cinema from multiple human rights perspectives, such as freedom of expression and censorship, socio-economic rights, caste rights, women's and children's rights and LGBTQIA+ equality. The book bridges human rights law and cinema studies, and opens up new research areas within sociocultural and socio-legal academic contexts. It also contributes to academic disicplines beyond Law and Cinema, including Media, Cultural, Gender, Socio-economic and Sociology studies and is relevant for Liberal Arts curricula, Law Schools and as a reference book in university libraries in India and internationally, especially in film institutes. Finally, the book offers practical implications for human rights activists and policymakers by exploring how rights can be advanced through cinema and pop culture.

Adam Dubin, originally from New York City, is a human rights scholar and a Law professor at Universidad Pontificia Comillas in Madrid, Spain. He is also an adjunct professor of Comparative Human Rights Law at New York University (Madrid Campus). Adam´s scholarship focuses on human rights and its intersection with pop culture. He is the co-editor of The Eurovision Song Contest: From Concert Halls to the Halls of Academia (Routledge 2022), the first book to study Eurovision as an academic phenomenon. He is also a frequent speaker on topics related to pop culture and law and is the creator of a popular course he teaches titled, From Slavery to Black Lives Matter: Jurisprudence, Civil Rights and the Music of Struggle in the U.S. and another course titled Comparative LGBTQIA+ Jurisprudence, which considers cinematographic and musical representations in rights discourse. Adam´s other area of scholarship focuses on socio-legal rights in developing countries, namely in the region of Sub-Saharan Africa. He is the co-editor of the book Gender, Poverty and Access to Justice: Policy Implementation in Sub Saharan Africa (Routledge 2021). He is also the co-author of a soon to be published article on maternal health rights in Uganda in The Journal of African Law (Cambridge University Press). Adam previously worked for a leading human rights NGO in New Delhi and frequently teaches human rights courses at universities across India, including at National University of Juridical Sciences in Kolkata, as part of the Indian Government´s Global Indian Academic Network (GIAN) visiting scholar program.  Adam is an avid viewer of Indian cinema and streaming series and loves reading books about travel around India and Indian culture. He considers himself an addict of chai masala and is an enthusiast of Indian cooking and cuisine. He recently learned to make a delicious rice pulao.
Ruchira Goswami teaches at the National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS), Kolkata where she offers courses in Sociology, Film and Law, Gender and Law and Child Rights Law. Her course on Representation of law in films explores the portrayal of human rights and social justice issues of vulnerable groups in films of various genres. She was the Head of the Centre for Child Rights at NUJS, set up in partnership with UNICEF. Her areas of interests include feminist movements and legal reforms, children’s rights, representation of law in films and intellectual property and women’s rights. She has coauthored a book: ‘The Violent Domestic: Law, its Practice and Strategies of Survival” (Zubaan 2022) and extensively worked on projects related to women’s rights including a recent project on understanding survival and resilience of domestic violence survivors funded by the British Academy. Her publications are in International Human Rights Law and Women’s Rights, Intellectual Property and Women’s Rights, Right to Food, etc. She is closely associated with several human rights and women’s rights organizations and conducts workshops and capacity building programs on human rights issues with various stakeholders.
Ishita Sharma is an international trade law and development scholar, with an academic interest in Indian cinema. She is a law professor in the public law department at CUNEF University (Madrid). She has taught students at undergraduate and postgraduate level and has supervised numerous undergraduate and master's theses at different universities. She has also participated in national and international conferences and seminarsBorn in the town of Chhattisgarh in India, she spent most of her formative years in Pune and Mumbai. Upon completion of her bachelor’s in law from Pune University, Ishita pursued a Masters in Commercial and Corporate Law from Queen Mary, University of London. After practicing law in Mumbai representing clients before the Bombay High Court, she continued her career in Spain where she obtained her Ph.D. in international trade and competition law from Carlos III University of Madrid.  Her research area focuses on international law, the interrelation between commercial law and human rights and the effects of competition law on development. Ishita´s current work explores the intersection of human rights and business operations in developing countries. In particular, she is studying how Indian cinema has contributed to shaping social perceptions and the legal framework on issues such as child labor.