We want LI to be one of the friendliest places on the internet, where lawyers and law students help each other with their career related queries and occasionally discuss other stuff that might affect their lives too. In other words:
1. Be kind, respectful and helpful to each other.
2. Be bona fide, truthful, genuine and curious.
3. Assume the best intention of others.
Therefore, in using the site, you must agree to do your best to uphold these community guidelines.
Note that what you find here is written and moderated by anonymous people on the internet.
Therefore everything you read here is very likely unverified, rumour, speculation and/or downright false.
In continuing to read anything here, you must therefore agree not to take anything you read here as factual and that you will exercise due caution, diligence and common sense before acting on any information you may come across here.
You also agree to report any inaccurate or malicious comments with the buttons. Moderators take action within 24 hours, as required and appropriate under law.
Our full terms and conditions apply too.
Do you solemnly agree to all of the above?
99% of elite academic institutions? where did you pull that nonsense from? I clearly explained how students and faculty at other law schools here and abroad avoid the trap of empty performativity that you guys dont. Im neither male nor from an NLU- you again choose to disregard what I have to say because of presumed identity- not a very marxist thing to do. an identitarian woke thing to do.
that last sentence is the online version of a kid sticking fingers in his ears and shouting "nah uh i win i win i win !"
Poor people do already deal with apathy from everyone else. They don’t need performative rich kids making leftist politics all about them as well. Jgls students are the worst offenders across any university that I’ve seen. They’re the least bothered with materialist concerns . They’re also the most performative about their so called activism. Someone had to call them out and humble them a little I think.
Don’t pivot to whataboutery because you don’t like that what I’m saying has a ring of truth.
You assume that right wing folks who criticise your university for this stuff time and again are doing it because they are all hateful bigots- because youre incapable of imagining anyone other than yourselves complexly. Would they criticise a legal aid cell? would they criticise cleaning up biswamil? would they criticise yall going to the local trade union and working with people there? Nah. Part of what theyre criticising is that you all confuse your economic privilege for virtue. Education produces better human beings? are people who dont pay upwards of 60 lakhs to buy a degree (god knows yall arent earning it) worse than you? you think what youre doing when protesting a war thousands of miles away is more important than saving a life or building a bridge? the sheer arrogance. Values and morals produce good humans- not college degrees.
Name for me please the number of people - real people- who have received actual help from your legal aid cell that barely functions or your many centres with no impactful work. Name for me please the number of students who have been involved in cleaning up biswamil and ensuring there is infrastructure development in that area. Tell me exactly what students have done to help sodexo workers? Are they sitting on a day long hunger strike for that also? Exactly how have woke jindal students helped staff around campus? by being brats who dont have the decency of cleaning up after themselves in the cafeteria or by putting someones job at risk by daring him to confiscate the drugs youre so clearly bringing in? or by engaging in violent and disruptive behaviour in classrooms with younger professors- contract workers often much poorer than you all- and messing with them?
Oh sure theyve dug into their pocket money and given some money away to show their similarly rich friends how virtuous they are without actually doing the work of empowerment and advocacy? that sounds about right. Did yall hang out with some poor kids at the dhaba? What do you all want? If we give you a badge or a medal will you go away and stop sucking all the air and attention out of the room? will it ever be enough attention? Explain to me how youre all crazy leftists but none of you have any compunctions about participating in and encouraging drug trade that has disastrous effects within poor communities especially with kids? cause its inconvenient to what you want no?
What im talking about with the elite college liberals/ wokeists and the blue collar leftists does not actually happen in every university- you just find it comforting to say that. it does not happen in community colleges in america, and it does not happen in government universities across India. Go do delhi university, bangalore university, GLC, go see how students there work, theyre actually rooted in their environment. Even NLUs have this problem- but at least they started IDIA which actually helped people, and CDS at NALSAR did actual advocacy work for disabled people, and NLS' legal aid clinic, CWL and CSSIEP is actually doing decent work now, and NLUD has the death penalty centre which is about as good as actual work gets in this country. And students from none of those places make as big a deal about their "revolutionary" politics or their "radical leftism" as you guys do. The only reason you all get this much attention is because right jindal right wing kids use your idiocy to fuel a culture war. A culture war you want because you fancy yourselves rebels. A culture war that doesnt benefit a single poor person in this country. You would rather fight these culture wars than do anything to help someone else because the latter is hard and unglamourous and actually changing things takes being able to negotiate and work with your opponents and not just pretending youre the next che guevara because you didnt eat lunch one day.
This is a you problem. You live in an insular world where nothing matters except your self image in your chosen small community. thats not going to lead to anything revolutionary.
Please dont spout off about american politics like you know what youre talking about. Go read Batya Ungar Sargon's book if you want to learn a thing or two- honestly its bizarre. I understand why youre all so invested in america constantly- you want to move there some day, you want to be hip and cool and consume american culture, and you dont want to be shamed for it while youre in india so you will imitate positions of woke american college students- just be freaking honest about it. Ambition isnt a bad thing if you actually work for it. admit it to yourselves at least. Dont pretend its making you a better person or a smarter person because you can spout really basic takes about american politics.
Please stop assuming the rest of us buy your nonsense ya. The right wing sees you for what you are-rich kids who want attention, and the left does too- youre not anyones comrade. I'm willing to bet yall dont know where the nearest trade union office is or know the name of a single worker working in any of the factories in sonipat. We're not asking you to be perfect- stop pretending that asking for a modicum of self awareness and humility is asking for perfection. I am angry and cynical and resentful- its hard not to be after seeing this crap year in and year out- that doesnt make anything I say invalid.
What youre not seeing, and what students at JGLS and Ivys are not seeing. is that there is a wide chasm between the identity driven ideological performance of elite college credentialed ( wouldnt call them educated) wealthy people and the concerns of the daily worker and farmer and the average aam aadmi. The left could be a broad tent that includes all types. but the elite college credentialled are sucking all the air out of the room because of their desperate need for attention and are in fact harming poor people by furthering activism that comes from obscure academic arguments rather than material concerns of poor people. Look at this website this week- do we even care why farmers are protesting? or are we all just here to gossip about students and proctors and play teams?
Thats why people call you out on your own hypocricy. Im an old school socialist and I would anyday prefer the naked lack of concern of the right wing toward the poor than this faux concern thats really all about self promotion from the elite left. FWIW- the indian left doesnt want you or need you. You have nothing to offer it until you get a smidge of common sense and humility and a morality that goes beyond group think.
Lets pick apart a few things JGLS lefties have done recently to show you how none of this is important from a left wing perspective- only an identitarian one. And then lets consider what students at elite colleges could do if they really gave a **** about poor people.
This latest scandal- ram temple. The problem behind the ram temple is not the ram temple. Literally no ones lives got worse because they inaugurated a temple we all knew they were going to build. The problem behind the temple were the riots and violence that preceded the rath yatra in the 90's. Many of those people still havent gotten any justice at all and I doubt anyone at JGLS could name even one of those cases. The problem behind the ram temple is that its being propogated as an economic solution to the problem of poverty and no body is concerned about whether this is a solution, any kind of solution, or even the best solution to address unemployment and poverty. The problem behind the ram temple is that this issue has for too long taken up all the air time leaving little enough room to discuss farmer suicides and medical scams and a hundred other real things that plague the country. The elite left is obsessed with this because they like to know theyre more tolerant of muslims than the right.The problem of course is that average everyday muslims shouldnt have to choose between someone who views them as an easily mollified identitarian vote bank or someone who is out to define them out of the union. they should have lawmakers and activists who are looking out for their interests in jobs, education, discrimination at work or in renting a house. We've all known the Sacchar committee results for a while- What has the elite left done to propose solutions to that problem? do they even have a coherent understanding of why muslims are left behind in Indian society? no. they do not. The muslims religion is the only bit they care about- not the hunger in his belly nor the fact that his daughter cannot go to college or that his son cannot get a job or that his wife will not inherit property fairly.
A materialist politics would not prioritise the ram temple over all the other things that are happening in this country.
Before Ram temple there was palestine. Please explain to me exactly what a war in the middle east has to do with the material conditions of poor people in india? why should they give a crap? this is entirely a woke obsession thats only present at universities. Regular people do not care. they are not stuck to their phones looking at insta reels all day consuming propaganda about decolonisation (ridiculous academese for rape and murder) theyre working or trying to get work. they care about jobs, health care, education, opportunity, not having your air or water poisoned by a big company and being able to work with reasonable terms. thats it. this is a solely elite obsession. What material change happened because students at jgls had a protest and invited some silly speaker and got that professor cancelled? Did the war stop? did anyone who can do anything about the war take into account jgls students feelings? did anyone who can do anything about indias position do anything differently because of idiots in sonipat? no. so why is this issue more important for jgls students than the inhumane way some campus workers are treated on campus? Why is this issue more important than food service workers who have been seen eating out of the trash because theyre hungry? what is wrong with you guys that you think this kind of posturing makes you more moral?
What else did JGLS do- the modi documentary. I dont like censorship, I went to the screening. But at least I was aware that we were cosplaying as revolutionaries that day with little enough risk to our own well being. We didnt save the damn constitution, we just wasted precious capital playing cops and robbers on campus instead of advocating for cleaning up biswamil which is submerged in crap half of the year. Which we, without hesitation name our college festival after. This is disgusting. If youre only fighting right wing jerks on campus- youre not really fighting injustice or poverty. Youre just acting out some teenage fantasy.
Even the people who are revered on campus for their scholarship- their work is all ass backwards. One famous centre head worried to me how she doesnt want to upset a trans rights activist and wants to be a good ally. Well that trans rights activist wanted school teachers to give poor children puberty blockers and abolish same sex bathrooms in schools. Not private schools- government schools- thats in the NCERT guidance that he wrote. Why is JGLS more interested in fawning over this dude than protecting vulnerable children? if poor female kids dont have a female only bathroom they dont get sent to school. Why are the gender folks not daring to say anything about it at all?
Another womens rights centre is so obsessed with their own petty politics and ego games, the best thing they could do all last year was give diversity advice to a company, pad their resumes and that of their friends by hosting a conference and - iirc- an art competition? what are you high? these are the same people who will argue sex work is work and gloss over the dehumanisation inherent in that job or how truly helpless someone must be to do something like that to their own body. Elite college liberals who have done nothing at all to actually help women.
Oh and then theres that famous prof who writes about violence and the law and these navel gazing pieces about his own positionality when he works at jindal but hosts conferences on labour while jindal steel commits crimes against its workers. What tangible gain has anyone gotten out of his scholarship that elite self obsession and academese? Why is that guy a hero?
Sorry to say at least ivys had practitioner law professors like Catherine Mackinnon and Martha Minnow or even RBG in her day that actually moved the needle on important issues. Yall dont produce great scholarship, and neither do you actually do politics thats impactful. Have a little humility.
The thing leftist students at jindal should be doing if they really take their leftism seriously- is set up a legal services clinic that actually works for poor people in sonipat. actually put in days and nights trying to solve peoples problems instead of these meaningless protests. The protests all have the same stupid formula anyway and we're all tired of it. These safdar hashmi people will plan some theatrical protest that makes them feel morally virtuous, the right wing jerks will come and video and disrupt , they will send that crap to op india and organiser, the admin will behave like theyre amoral spineless yes men. and a few weeks will pass until it all repeats. What are any of you getting out of this? get a reality check. Stop confusing your privilege in caring about these virtue signalling issues with morality and try to actually make someones life a little better. Be nice to the driver uncle who has to carry a million little things to the gate cause princess cant hurt her nail. Show a modicum of respect to guard on campus who are hired to do a job to keep you safe. Try and protect academic standards and dont throw a fit over a bad grade. Try and learn the law. be a good student and maybe youll be a good person.
The future of the american or the indian left is not elite professors in law universities and their students. Not if they remain ignorant of the concerns of the poor. Even Baxi and other law professors were fairly elite- but at least they did something- their best- to move the needle on real issues. The future of the country is in freaking medical schools and engineering colleges and government universities like JNU where people do actual work that has actual impact. Save a life, build a bridge, figure out how to fix the economy. If you want to be included in that project of actually building a better country- you will have to- turn the phone off- shut up and learn to listen to people who actually need help. Spend your life in service of something other than your own image.