Former Solicitor General of India, senior advocate and activist, Indira Jaising’s is a life dedicated to battling injustice.
By Nichola Marie
Of Indira Jaising it is said: ‘When the poorest in India need a voice, they find one in Jaising’. The first woman to be designated a Senior Advocate by the Bombay High Court in 1986, and the first female Additional Solicitor General of India in 2009, the 1940-born Jaising has consistently focused on the protection of human rights and the rights of women.
In the course of her long and storied career, she has fought on behalf of victims of the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster, helped Syrian Christian women in India win property rights equal to their male counterparts, and helped draft India’s first domestic violence law. She was also appointed by the UN to lead an investigation into the persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.
Jaising has argued several high-profile cases including that of Rupan Deol Bajaj, the IAS officer who prosecuted KPS Gill for outraging her modesty; one of the first cases of sexual harassment that had been successfully prosecuted. She also fought the case of Githa Hariharan, which led to the Supreme Court ruling that a mother is equally a natural guardian of a child as a father.
Emphasising a constitutional approach to women’s rights, she maintains, “If women are oppressed, everyone in the country is oppressed.”
Hailing from a non-legal family, Jaising has persevered despite the odds. She has also spoken out against a common tendency in the profession: “What the male judges and lawyers do not like is women not willing to be patronised. If you do not have a godfather, it is not accepted. If you are your own person in the legal profession, it is not accepted. If you are okay with being patronised, you are accepted in the inner circle; you are accepted into the old boys’ club. I insisted on not becoming part of the old boys’ club. I make it a point to hire women lawyers in my office. They have a safe working environment in my office.”
Along with her husband Anand Grover, Jaising founded the Lawyers Collective in 1981, an organisation devoted to feminist causes and the promotion of human rights.
