https://www.livelaw.in/news-updates/nlsiu-vice-chancellor-awarded-infosys-prize-2022-in-humanities-category-214197

Jury: Prof. Arvind | Prof. Akeel Bilgrami | Prof. Mriganka Sur | Prof. Chandrashekhar Khare | Prof. Shrinivas Kulkarni | Prof. Kaushik Basu.

The prize comes with USD 100,000 (82 lakhs)

Sudhir is the third Law School alum after Shamnad Basheer and Lawrence Liang to win the prize. This is a slap to his troll haters on LI. I have said before (and will continue to say) that these trolls are very likely students of other colleges who are jealous that Law School has Sudhir has VC. As I have also said before, these people will be better off campaigning for an alum VC at their own college instead foo.

The prize also demolishes an argument made on LI (by the same trolls, I guess) that having lots of publications is a proof of academic scholarship. Lawrence and Sudhir have limited publications, as their haters point out. But what the jury clearly did (correctly) is to look at quality over quantity. Thus, Sudhir has been awarded the Prize for "his carefully argued account of the importance of the landmark 'basic structure doctrine' adopted by the Supreme Court in 1973". Sudhir has made this argument only in his book "Democracy and Constitutionalism in India: A Study of the Basic Structure Doctrine", published by OUP. Thus, a single well-argued book or journal article is better than thousands of pointless books and articles. If you go by numbers only , then the Jindal VC has tons of international publications listed in his bio, but Sudhir has so few that he lists a Legally India article on his bio! https://www.nls.ac.in/faculty/sudhir-krishnaswamy/ Also, ironically, Shamnad had various international publications but was actually awarded the prize (rightly) for diversifying access through IDIA. 😃

Finally, Professor Kaushik Basu deserves a special mention for backing Shamnad, Lawrence and now Sudhir. He has been a big supporter of Law School alumni in a academia and also invited Lawrence to give the prestigious KC Basu Memorial Lecture, joining the ranks of Nobel Laureates like Amartya Sen and Stiglitz and people much older than him.

Congratulations once again to Sudhir and Law School!! In future, my picks for the award are two more alumni (Menaka Guruswamy and Gautam Bhatia).

Middleman? This is a ridiculous argument, no? Do you chemically test for every ingredient in your packaged food to avoid laboratories and certifying agencies as middlemen?

The citations are a proxy of the fact that other people who understand and read his work find it worthwhile to stand on his knowledge. I do not need to read everything he has written to judge his scholarship - if that were the case then I can only judge a few people in a niche field which I know of. Even if, hypothetically, I did that, you turn even that modicum of objectivity of an h-index into a 100% subjective test of what you think is good.

Ya this kind of laziness makes fools of is all. You don’t need professional equipment to read some of Sudhirs scholarship. You just need eyes and an internet connection. And yknow- attention span and a brain. H indexes are not objective. Like you said it’s about who other scholars are citing. And look Sudhir has a decent H index, he gets cited okay, but let’s not pretend that the academy isn’t biased or doesn’t typically cite only a certain kind of scholarship. That other legal researchers are lazy and would rather cite a Bhatia who write blogs and is easy to read than read a book to cite Sudhir. Any number of other biases go into that. Some of those biases actually benefit Sudhir. I just think that if you have a high school education you should be able to read most scholarships in journals and form an opinion about whether the scholarship is rigorous or not.

The comment seemed to have triggered you. Take a chill pill. You'll feel better
What I would love for someone to point out is how many SC/ST/minorities etc have Infosys etc recognized through their awards. It's funny how these people (I mean the awardees) keep lecturing us about social justice and blah blah but the always seem to exclusively benefit from the system.

Aw come off it. You don’t say patently awful stuff and then get to pretend that someone else is too sensitive. It’s like a fart lecturing a nose.

We can make the argument that Dalit scholars need recognition without dragging savarna scholars who have worked significantly to aid the anti caste cause. This nonsense savarna posturing does nothing at all to make academia more inclusive. It just gives you some seemingly high ground which you can get knocked off the instant you have the courage to be a real person and attach your name to your comments rather than shoot from the shadows .

I know you lot very well because ive endured you'll for a long time. You lot know how to play the game, speak the perfect polished word to white people and present yourself as the second coming of the socially just Christ. But within India you know what to say and how to keep people in their place. I don't need and won't take any lectures from you about the "contributions" of you lot. You guys are the best till the rest of us keep falling at your feet and telling you just how great you are. When we stand up for our ideas and our assertions, your talk of social justice dissolves into thin air. I was lucky enough to escape India but of course the vast majority of my type will have to remain in India and dealing with you lot. Some day power structures will change, really change, and the benefits of networking to flow to other people. But I expect you to keep whining forever

Both Lawrence Liang and Sudhir Krishnaswami are overrated. Their scholarly output is not worthy to make them receive this prize. I do think this is an example of an old boys club nominating people from the club. As one of the commenters said, it shows the power of networking. Can someone please explain why Liang’s work on IP is superior to someone like Arul Scaria from NLUD, or why Sudhir’s book on the Indian constitution is superior to writings by Tarunabh Khaitan or Shubhankar Dam?

In case of Lawrence, Liang, I hardly see any top publications on his bio. And Sudhir has listed a Legally India article on his bio, as has been pointed out! WTF man???

And if the rule is to give it to someone based in India, I believe it should first go to doyens like Upendra Baxi, Amita Dhanda and BS Chimni, and then someone like Pratiksha Baxi for her work on rape trials.

Maybe it's not about quantity but quality. He's cited primarily for his 2009 book https://www.infosysprize.org/laureates/2022/sudhir-krishnaswamy.html#read-more

Quote:

Prof. Sudhir Krishnaswamy’s great achievement in his major book, Democracy and Constitutionalism in India (Oxford, 2009), is to elaborate the theoretical underpinnings, the legitimacy, and the unfolding significance of this doctrine, showing how it emerges by a very careful reading, not only of cases that have evolved in a nation’s legal history, but also by an interpretation of the debates in the constituent assembly, and indeed during the many deliberations during India’s freedom movement as it geared itself to acquire statehood.

Has anyone here actually read his book, or has a review or any details on whether it's a good scholarly work, because it might very well be sufficient to justify the prize. For what it's worth, it certainly has pretty good reviews on Amazon, especially for an academic book...

Another obvious angle is that the prize - not surprising, considering its Infy sponsors - also seems to be quite keen on Bangalore and Karnataka. From the citation:

Quote:

Krishnaswamy has been an important voice as a public intellectual, engaging in civil society debates and shaping and guiding legal policy, especially in Karnataka, where he has also been the founding member of the Alternative Law Forum and a founding trustee of the Centre for Law and Policy Research.

And part of the citation is clearly also for his roles in policy, and he would also be the second awardee with an Alternative Law Forum link, which is also founded in Bangalore.

What a load of tripe! An award for his PhD thesis published as a book way back in 2009!

As Kian/R and other commenters have said, this has everything to do with the Infosys-Bangalore connection and networking. If you want to give the Prize for books published ages ago, why not Pratixa Baxi as someone says? Why not Abhinav Chandrachud?

If activism and civil society campaigns are the reason, there are people who have done far more than Sudhir.

It is often said that the list of Nobel Prize non-winners is superior to the list of winners.

https://theconversation.com/the-nobel-prize-rewards-noble-writers-over-literary-merit-32888

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1966/10/nobels-hits-and-misses/305482/

Is that true for the Infosys Prize and TIME 100 too?

Who got the Infosys Prize: Shamnad Basheer, Lawrence Liang, Sudhir Krishnaswamy

Who didn't: Upendra Baxi, RP Anand, BS Chimni, MP Singh, Tarunabh Khaitan, Madhava Menon, Rajeev Dhavan, Prabha Kotiswaran, Pratixa Baxi, AG Noorani, VS Mani...

Who got listed in the TIME 100: Vrinda Grover, Menaka Guruswamy and Arundhati Katju, Karan Nundy

Who didn't: Indira Jaisingh, Colin Gonsalves and K Balagopal (for work on various human rights cases), Anand Grover and Saurabh Kirpal (for work on 377), Flavia Agnes (women's rights), Soli Sorabjee (work during Emergency).

What are your thoughts? Did giving it to Gen X people seem more trendy and glamorous than giving it to boomers? Was it good networking by some of the awardees?