Lawyer, social worker, and educationist, Lotika Sarkar, is a pioneer in the field of women’s rights in India.
Professor Sarkar has a few ‘firsts’ to her name. For instance, she was the first Indian woman to graduate from Cambridge University, and also the first woman to secure a Doctorate in Law from the University[1]. Additionally, she was also the first woman law lecturer at Delhi University[2].
Prof. Sarkar was a member of the Government’s Committee on the Status of Women in India, during which time she published the report, ‘Towards Equality: The Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India (1974–75)’, along with Vina Mazumdar.
Prof. Sarkar’s influence was profound in the reformation of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). In 1979, Prof. Sarkar, along with Prof. Upendra Baxi, Raghunath Kelkar, and Vasudha Dhagamwar wrote an open letter to the Supreme Court, protesting the concept of ‘consent’, as stated by the Court in the infamous Mathura Case, wherein the Court had reversed the Bombay High Court’s judgment, and acquitted two policemen sentenced for raping a sixteen-year-old girl within a police station. Sarkar also formed a ‘Forum Against Rape’, which sparked several protests throughout the country, and eventually heralded the IPC reforms.
She was also a founding member of several organizations such as the Centre for Women’s Development Studies (CWDS), Delhi, that had been founded by Mazumdar; the Indian Association for Women’s Studies; and the Society for Rural Urban and Tribal Initiative (SRUTI).
Scholarly Works of Lotika Sarkar
Books
Law Commission of India: Report Prepared by Lotika Sarkar on National Specialized Agencies and Women’s Equality (1988)
https://www.google.co.in/books/edition/Law_Commission_of_India/WJnkAAAACAAJ?hl=en
Women and Law: Contemporary Problems (1994)
https://www.google.co.in/books/edition/Women_and_Law/RqWRAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0&bsq=Lotika%20Sarkar
Women’s Movement and the Legal Process (1995)
Between Tradition, Counter Tradition and Heresy: Contributions in Honour of Vina Mazumdar (2002)
A Pathmaker: Tributes to Vina Mazumdar (2002)https://www.google.co.in/books/edition/A_Pathmaker/8yzaAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0&bsq=Lotika%20Sarkar
Articles
Note of dissent (1999)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/097152159900600110?journalCode=ijgb
The proper law of crime in international law (1962)
Law and the status of women in India (1976)
https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/colhr8&div=12&id=&page=
Jawaharlal Nehru and the Hindu Code Bill (1976)
Constitutional guarantees: The unequal sex (1986)
https://www.cwds.ac.in/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Constitutional-Gurantees.pdf
National specialised agencies and women’s equality: Law commission of India (1988)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43951223
Rape: A Human Rights versus a Patriarchal Interpretation (1994)
Women’s movement in the legal process (1995)
https://www.cwds.ac.in/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/WomensMovement.pdf
Secularism, religion and minority representation: Constituent assembly debates (2002)
Collateral concerns (2002)
https://www.india-seminar.com/2002/511/511%20lotika%20sarkar%20and%20usha%20ramanathan.htm
[1] Amita Dhanda, LEGALLY INDIA (FEB 26, 2024, 10:50AM), https://www.legallyindia.com/project-finance-infrastructure/lotika-sarkar-obituary-20130308-3499
[2] Id.