Looking Back: An Interview with Former SLR Editors

Megha Mehta, Dhruva Gandhi, and Gautam Bhatia

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As part of SLR’s 20th Anniversary Celebrations, we caught up with some of our former editors to reflect on the journal’s evolution, its place within student-led legal scholarship in India, and the role of socio-legal inquiry today. From defining interdisciplinarity to recounting their experiences as student editors, this conversation is a glimpse into the people and the work behind the scenes.

What was the place of SLR within NLS and amongst other student-run journals in India from your time? In particular, how did you view the work that SLR aimed to do in legal scholarship?

Megha Mehta (Editor 2018, Editor-in-Chief 2019): I think my time at NLS was marked by a shift towards multidisciplinary specialisations—such as journals/forums dedicated to law and technology, amongst others, as well as the infusion of critical theory within what one would call classical or mainstream legal doctrine and jurisprudence. However, I’ve always understood SLR as aiming to provide a space for those who wish to look at law as a subset of the social sciences and analysis within that framework, and not just in terms of “intersections” or “infusions” of law with society.

Dhruva Gandhi (Editor 2018): Towards the end of my time in NLS, there were quite a few student-run journals that had cropped up. However, I think alongside NLSIR (or perhaps, after it) SLR was viewed as one of the flagship journals of the institution. The one dimension which set SLR apart from the other journals was perhaps the fact that within the other journals, there was considerable focus on business/corporate/private laws. SLR, therefore, provide a space to promote “socio-legal” scholarship.

Gautam Bhatia (Editor 2009): During my time at NLS, there were only four or five student journals in existence. The NLSIR (at the time called the Student Bar Review) had pride of place, and all other journals came after it. SLR was focused on the intersection of law and society, while also paying attention to legal doctrine.

What, according to you, is the most important contribution of socio-legal work? Why is thinking about the law through humanistic and social science lenses valuable?

Megha Mehta: When I was pursuing my LL.M. at Harvard Law School, we were given the option to cross-register for courses offered by other schools at the University, including social science departments. What I understood from my experience, combined with the training imparted during my first two years at NLS, is that a social scientist’s way of looking at things and the research framework they adopt is very different from that of a lawyer’s. I’m not just talking about substantive content of study—as lawyers, irrespective of practice area, our work centres around application of a rule and precedents interpreting that rule to certain undecided hypotheticals. Sometimes we may enter into a debate on the morality of a particular rule. However, we don’t conduct empirical analysis or field work to understand the real-time impact of a rule, or study its policy implications, unless required for a specific project. You cannot understand law as a set of rules divorced from society or as a separate force influencing or influenced by societal norms—continuing from my previous answer, you have to understand it as a constituent element of society itself.

Dhruva Gandhi: I will answer this question from the lens of a legal practitioner. My experience as a litigating lawyer (albeit brief) has taught me that there are multiple dimensions to the “system” than just the “law.” There are times when the caste or gender of an arguing counsel play a determinative role in the outcome of a case. There are other times when the economic ability of a litigant makes a difference simply because of the number of skilled lawyers they are able to engage. Therefore, there are factors other than simply the legal merits of a case that determine its outcome. Socio-legal work allows us to recognise these factors, and thereby, think about law and policy from a multi-dimensional perspective.

Gautam Bhatia: Law is not an autonomous discipline, and is informed by insights from other fields of enquiry. In particular, law is a human and social artifact, which is why studying law without the contributions of the humanities and social sciences will always be incomplete.

Over the years, SLR has struggled, often productively so, to define the scope of “socio-legal.” How do you understand this term/discipline?

Megha Mehta: This may be an unpopular opinion, but the very etymology of the term “socio-legal” suggests these are two separate elements that have been fused together to produce a third element which is somehow niche or separate from the parent entities, which creates the confusion in definition. Given my inclination towards critical theory, I would argue that they mean the same thing. It is rather a matter of understanding differences between the procedural frameworks employed as a lawyer and as a social scientist.

Dhruva Gandhi: Ah, yes, this is difficult. The definition of what is “socio-legal” will certainly vary based on who the editorial board of the day is. Is writing on certain areas of law that have a more public dimension in and of itself “socio-legal”? Or, does there have to be an element of empirical work or commentary on other disciplines for the work to qualify as “socio-legal”? I think one of the aims of the journal was to look at how the law shapes the lives of people, and how it plays out in reality. For this, I think it is important that one also looks at literature/data/commentary from other disciplines on the same subject matter to understand how the law is shaping lives or where the law falls short.

Gautam Bhatia: It simply means that we understand and study law in its social context and as a social artifact.

What are your thoughts on interdisciplinarity? Do you agree with the critique that one must have one’s feet strongly in one discipline and then experiment with other disciplines?

Megha Mehta: Absolutely. Practically speaking of course, you don’t have to be a good social scientist to be a good lawyer or vice versa. But if you want to be great in both fields, it’s important to have a strong theoretical framework in one before attempting the other. For instance, a lot of people in India approach the courts for policy changes which should arguably be legislated through parliamentary discussion, which is what the courts ultimately direct anyway. It’s not enough to merely say that X rule should be implemented because you think it will benefit society—you need to understand the “how” of implementation based on your training as a lawyer.

Dhruva Gandhi: I think that is a tricky one. Certainly, it is difficult to be an expert at more disciplines than one. One would certainly have to be mindful of one’s limitations when engaging in inter-disciplinary work. However, if the scope and limitations of a scholarly work are well defined, and the inter-disciplinary sources are well identified and quoted, I do not see why there cannot be inter-disciplinary scholarship.

Gautam Bhatia: I’m not sure about the word “experiment.” Interdisciplinarity, when done well, is very important; because of the structure of our education, it will normally be the case that we will be formally trained in specific discipline; however, this need not mean that we are simply dabbling in other disciplines, or are treating them with less scholarly rigour.

What work do you think SLR can/should focus on in the coming years? What are some issues, themes, fields of work that a socio-legal enquiry can best address?

Megha Mehta: I think SLR has done a great job of covering a host of relevant issues through the years. However, I fear that socio-legal enquiry continues to be stereotyped as the academic study of only issues of marginalisation or oppression by the law, or as some kind of offshoot of sociology or political science divorced from a “pure” or “neutral” analysis of law. It’s worth exploring socio-legal enquiry as a disciplinary framework that lends itself to understanding even corporate/commercial and other civil law jurisprudence. For instance, if you’re a corporate lawyer and if you look at your work as just a matter of copying and modifying the same term sheet or the same prospectus that has been around for a million years, it’s bound to feel like drudgery. That work only acquires some meaning if you place it against the backdrop of evolving market dynamics, a changing political landscape, investment trends in a particular sector, and so on.

Dhruva Gandhi: SLR has a more or less defined mandate and can continue pursuing that. I don’t see any reason for changing that.

Gautam Bhatia: The intersection of law and political economy—which is picking up momentum in the US and Europe—is still relatively neglected in India.

What do you remember most fondly from your time at SLR? What would you define as your biggest learning from your time at SLR?

Megha Mehta: I picked up a lot of rigour towards proofreading legal writing during my time as an editor, which is something I apply even today when I proofread prospectuses as a capital markets lawyer. The contents of the documents I reviewed then and now are obviously poles apart, but that training in filtering out relevant from irrelevant information, inquiring into missing gaps in information, and knowing what is important to highlight for a reader, is a transferable skill that you can apply in any field throughout your life.

Dhruva Gandhi: This is a slightly difficult one, it has been close to 7-8 years since I was on the board of SLR. Biggest learning, ah. Well, I think it is from before I was on the SLR Board. Shubham Jain and I had co-authored a piece on the Land Acquisition Act (or Bill). It was a controversial issue in 2014-16, with a new legislation having been enacted. We had done a fair bit of empirical work on it as well. We had submitted the draft to SLR for publication. We received an email from the Board, which we understood to mean was a rejection. A couple of years later, when we were on the Board, another friend of ours (who was also on the Board) was going through the earlier emails. He realised that our submission had actually been accepted, and the Board wanted us to send a revised version. They were actually surprised when we did not send anything at all. Shubham and I were shocked when we learned about this. I guess the learning from the incident, if one were to draw one, was to communicate better. Even at the cost of sounding stupid, we could have clarified with the Board if our piece had been accepted or rejected. At least, our hard work would not have gone down the drain. Now, looking back it, I can certainly laugh about it. But yes, that was an episode I will never forget. Quite silly of us.

Gautam Bhatia: It was a comradely and collegial space, which is very important when you’re working together.

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Megha Mehta graduated from NLS in 2019. She currently practices as a capital markets lawyer with Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co., New Delhi.

Dhruva Gandhi graduated from NLS in 2018. He is a currently a practicing advocate at the Bombay High Court.

Gautam Bhatia graduated from NLS in 2011. He is currently a practicing lawyer and law scholar, based in New Delhi.