On 13 December 2001, the Indian Parliament was attacked by a few heavily armed men. Eleven years later, we still do not know who was behind the attack, nor the identity of the attackers. Both the Delhi high court and the Supreme Court of India have noted that the police violated legal safeguards, fabricated evidence and extracted false confessions. Yet, on 9 February 2013, one man, Mohammad Afzal Guru, was hanged to ‘satisfy’ the ‘collective conscience’ of society. This updated reader brings together essays by lawyers, academics, journalists and writers who have looked closely at the available facts and who have raised serious questions about the investigations and the trial. This new version examines the implications of Mohammad Afzal Guru’s hanging and what it says about the Indian government’s relationship with Kashmir.

'What happens once democracy has been used up? When it has been hollowed out and emptied of meaning?' Combining brilliant political insight and razor-sharp prose, Listening to Grasshoppers is the essential new book from Arundhati Roy. In these essays, she takes a hard look at the underbelly of the world's largest democracy, and shows how the journey that Hindu nationalism and neo-liberal economic reforms began together in the early 1990s is unravelling in dangerous ways. Beginning with the state-backed killing of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, she writes about how 'progress' and genocide have historically gone hand in hand; about the murky investigations into the 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament; about the dangers of an increasingly powerful and entirely unaccountable judiciary; and about the collusion between large corporations, the government and the mainstream media. The collection ends with an account of the August 2008 uprising in Kashmir and an analysis of the November 2008 attacks on Mumbai. 'The Briefing', included as an appendix, is a fictional text that brings together many of the issues central to the collection.

The premise of this book is that legal theory in general, and critical legal theory in particular, do not facilitate the identification of choices being made in the different facets of law -- whether in the enacting, interpreting, administering or theorising of law.

Kashmir, burdened with an unending humanitarian tragedy and rampant violence, craves for a peaceful settlement. Its reality is the Elephant in the room, with India pretending to sleep. As the country hosts empowerment symposiums, the Valley awaits a political dialogue to take off. The place once considered as a paradise on Earth, is now reduced to being a region fraught with terrorism, hatemongering and blatant human rights abuse. This timely book opens a window into ground realities that most of us are unaware of.

Human Rights and Peace: Ideas, Laws, Institutions and Movements redefines the ambit of peace, presenting a radically different perspective of looking at its relationship with human rights. It deals with the transformation of both the definition and practice of peace, showing how it has now taken the domain of human rights into its fold. Through experiential articles on the themes of ideas, laws, institutions, and movements, this collection reveals how people's struggles against specific forms of institutionalised violence take the form of calls for 'peace'. It brings together hitherto unpublished writings on peace and human rights. It also includes some rare articles extracted from landmark published pieces. This book is an insightful resource for students and researchers of Peace Studies, Human Rights, Politics, and International Relations. It is also an invaluable idea bank for activists, think tanks and policy makers who seek to understand the evolving paradigm of peace and human rights.