Can Literature/Poetry Enhance Anti- Discrimination Law?

Gurroop Cheema, BA LLB (Hons.), O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India.

ABSTRACT

Law and literature form two very different spheres of the society. However, both these realms often intersect as well as facilitate each other. In fact literature often helps bring out and highlights the flaws of the existing legal structures. When it comes to the intersection of law and literature, one of the lesser explored question is that of whether poetry and literature can enhance anti-discrimination law. Law is often restricted and reserved for the dominant ideology in any society, thereby excluding the marginalised. This results in the voices of the marginalised communities being shunned and their contribution to the legal systems thus essentially remains next to nothing. The law therefore in turn favours the dominant ideologies and what flows from the same is the ostracizing of the marginalised communities from the legal realm. Literature can however help in raising the voices of the disempowered sections of the society. This paper aims to delve into how literature can form a bridge between the marginalised communities and their voices being included in the existing and even upcoming legal fabric that essentially runs the society.