Law and literature

by Shubhodeep Shome | August 26, 2011

Before his metamorphosis, Franz Kafka was a small time legal clerk.

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With Aditya Sudarshan, author of A Nice Quiet Holiday and Show me a Hero, winning the prestigious MetroPlus Playwright Award for 2011, no further proof may be required that the five-year law programme does not kill off all vestiges of creative writing talent in us, the B.A., LlB. crowd. Before I continue on the theme of this piece, I would like to tell you about a visit again. To another library in London: The Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (“the IALS”). I endured many hardships to reach this repository of knowledge. It was one building away from my present alma mater and I nearly swallowed an insect because of a yawn. I will not bore the reader with details. Hugging a corner of Russell Square (which is a square-shaped park) and stretching towards the U.C.L. buildings, is this sleek, brown, glass and stone structure that would not look out of place on Planet Naboo. This houses, apart from a gigantic law library occupying several floors, other eclectic services such as the Commonwealth Lawyer’s Association and super nice librarians that hold regular sessions teaching legal professionals how to use WestLaw or Microsoft Word. There is a bit of perverse pleasure in knowing that it is sort of like a Parsi Fire Temple in its exclusivity: non-legal scholars may not apply. Thank you very much.

Initially, I was disappointed because its Indian law collection, apart from some random reporters, was restricted to one shelf (mostly Baxi and Dhavan), that too in the second level basement. Then I felt better when I realised that jurisprudence texts were also housed in the very same basement. It pleased me to see that legal ‘science’ was getting the physical treatment it deserved. Mu-ha-ha-ha-ha! I tried to read some Joseph Raz but after being told that values were based on ethics and ethics relied upon values, I decided that there will be much about this world I will never know. Or want to know. I was then startled by the law and literature collection. Someone, or some people, had written a whole volume on Shakespeare’s relevance to the law. There was another work by Amy D. Ronner entitled ‘Law, Literature and Therapeutic Jurisprudence’ (2010). Ronner confirmed something that I have long known: lawyers and literature are intimately connected. Beyond even John Grisham.

Ronner, initially a literature professor and then a practicing lawyer who returned to teach law, recounts a change in her students as they progress through law school that will be familiar to many readers of myLaw.net - India’s only contextual network for lawyers. In the first year, when they arrive at law school, students are full of burning inquisitiveness about stories. Who are the parties behind these cases? Was the woman in Donaghue v. Stevenson a genuinely wronged woman or a menopausal succubus? Yes, the law can help! It must. In three years time, they speak and behave the code. Their eyes have glazed over. They don’t care about people anymore. Or stories. They want principles. Ratio Decidendi.

Several noted authors in history have been lawyers or law students. Franz Kafka’s dim view of humanity was no doubt a product of his experience as a small time legal clerk. Shakespeare’s discussions on law and politics are so impressive that many doubt he could be anything but trained in the law. Men like Nehru, a consummate historian, or Gandhi, or Dr. B.R. Ambedkar wrote prolifically and on vastly differing topics. My own favourites include China Meiville - a radical Leftist critic of international law turned sprawling sci-fi and fantasy novelist or Daniyal Moinudeen, former New York solicitor turned to farmer and novelist in Pakistan. Ronner notes another interesting point. In the U.S.A., before the industrial economy led to the advent of professionals, a lawyer was essentially a man of letters. This meant that a lawyer did not just know the Bible or local codes, but was heavily conversant with the classics of literature as well as Greek and Roman philosophy. In India, Brahmins performed the same function. It should be of no surprise then that in pre-colonial India, Kashmiri Pundits would not only officiate at ceremonies but also act as emissaries for merchants (and then go on to found the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty). Monks in Tibet are known to play both a religious function as a well in secular dispute resolution function. Qazis do the same in Islam.

Recently in Nandini Sundar v. State of Chattisgarh, the Supreme Court quoted Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness to illustrate colonisation for mineral wealth. One may have issues with judicial overreach but it would not be out of place to mention that in literary qualities, the judgement was outstanding. Again this is no accident. If the judge is reading good literature, how can he write badly? Judges frequently build narratives while sketching the facts of a case. Lord Denning was known for this. This can go horribly wrong too. Justice Krishna Iyer went to town with the purple prose, using an English of his own creation, one only he and some magical object hidden in a secret vault in Kerala could decode.

Respect the messenger too.

Image above is from Wikimedia Commons here.

India’s schizophrenic attitude towards the English language has augmented the dualism of culture, a division between English and the vernaculars, exacerbating the split between law and literature. Law students read almost because they have to, not because they like, or heaven-forbid, love to. Nandan Nilekani notes the “Rise, Fall and Rise of English” in Imagining India as one of the features of modern India that is aiding development. The other poster boy for its adoption is Chetan Bhagat. In our law schools, however, how much focus is dedicated to fostering the knowledge of letters? Any sort of letters? One of India’s premier literature-related centres today, at Jadavpur University, came up initially as a centre to teach engineers English. If this is the basic institutional motivation to literature in the country (our law schools after all are ‘experimental’, the subjects, instead of chimpanzees or bonobos, real human teenagers) then can we complain how badly laws are drafted and case law is written?

Perhaps it would not be out of place then to ask for a little equality between writers and books. All sorts of writers and all sorts of books. Super simple urban lit to advanced sci-fi and horror. Laws are based on texts and it is disrespectful to treat the message as more important that the messenger. The textual tradition, of writing, of reading, demands it be given conveniences - food, water, housing, and transportation. After all, the Greek herald Pheidippides collapsed and died after delivering his news due to over-exhaustion. For while Kenya, the cradle of champion marathon runners, shall remain ever grateful to him, the tale illustrates why messengers should not just be not shot but also treated with dignity.

The Shome is known at times by names other people call him, like Shome, Shome Shome, the Shomester, and Shylock.