Free Lecture by Flavia Agnes: Women’s Rights Lawyer and Co-founder, Majlis, India

In this talk, well-known Indian women’s rights lawyer, Flavia Agnes, will speak to the feminist possibilities

and perils of what it means to pursue the Indian constitution’s promise of establishing a Uniform Civil Code

(UCC) that will govern marriage, divorce and succession for all religions - in effect eradicating India’s plural

personal laws system. This discussion gains significance at a time when a Hindu nationalist government is

in power, because the passage of the UCC has historically been advocated on the one hand by the Hindu

Right (as its claim to secularity) and on the other by some feminists (as a means to do away with the sexism

of personal laws) - in effect making feminists and Hindu nationalists strange bedfellows. What do feminists

who oppose the establishment of a UCC, and the Hindu Right’s imposition of a sectarian secularism propose

as an alternative?

SPEAKER

Flavia Agnes is a pioneer of the women’s movement, she has worked consistently on issues of gender and

law reforms. As co-founder of Majlis, a legal and cultural resource centre in Bombay, her primary engagement

has been to provide quality legal services to women and children. She is a strong proponent of legal pluralism

and has played an important role in reforming the Christian Personal Laws as well as advancing the rights of

Muslim women. Her more recent engagement has been with issues of democracy, secularism and identity

politics. She has written extensively on these issues, both at academic and popular venues. Her noted

publications include the two volume Family Law and Law & Gender Inequality: The Politics of Personal Laws

in India (both published by Oxford University Press).

ALL WELCOME

RSVP ESSENTIAL: law-alc@unimelb.edu.au

DATE Wednesday 16 December

TIME 10:00am - 11:00am

VENUE Law Boardroom, Level 10

Melbourne Law School

185 Pelham Street, Carlton