It ramps up my capacity to seek justice, is what TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People 2022 recognition means to Supreme Court lawyer Karuna Nundy
'Most deeply honoured' is how advocate Karuna Nundy described feeling after the recognition. Pic/Getty Images
Karuna Nundy could very well have been a journalist. After graduating in Economics from Delhi’s St Stephen’s College, she knew she didn’t want to be an economist. Broadcast journalism had caught her eye and she realised that even if she chose not to do it for the long haul, it would help her build the right set of skills. At NDTV in 1996, she was assigned an investigative story that changed the course of her life. The Institute of Cytology and Preventive Oncology, funded by the Indian Council of Medical Research [ICMR], examined thousands of women, including those suffering from cervical dysplasia, a potentially precancerous condition. Out of about a thousand women who were followed up with for four years, a few women developed cancerous conditions. Since they were participating in the study, they were not offered immediate treatment neither were they informed. Some died before the study ended.
ADVERTISEMENT
“It led to a real impact when ICMR changed its policy and that made me realise that I want to be where the impact is,” Nundy says to mid-day over a phone call from Delhi, “While a professional journalist is meant to shine light on a problem and care about the news for its own sake, I realised this was not my role. I thought of going to law school and see if it feels right. When I walked into class for the first time, I felt like a fish sliding into water.”
Nundy later studied law at Cambridge University and pursued an LLM from Columbia University, New York, where she was awarded the prestigious Human Rights Fellowship. In her professional life since, the Supreme Court advocate has been associated with landmark cases that sit at the intersection of human rights, gender equality and inclusiveness. Nundy represented Adapt, an NGO working to help people with intellectual disability, in Jeeja Ghosh Vs SpiceJet Airlines after the passenger with cerebral palsy was offloaded because the airlines staff claimed she didn’t look well. Nundy continues to represent victims and families of those affected in the 1984 Bhopal Gas Tragedy, and played a significant role in demanding the reform of anti-rape laws after the 2012 Delhi bus gang rape case. Her current preoccupation includes challenging India’s rape law which contains a legal exemption for marital rape, and legalising gay marriage.
Edited excerpts from the interview.
After your television journalism stint, you applied to film schools. What interested you about cinema?
My father [a surgeon] was deeply interested in cinema. Just like Barry Norman [British film critic] would host shows for the BBC where he discussed films, my father did this at home. I grew up watching Autumn Sonata and Pather Panchali. Besides, I saw the transformative power of films, whether it was Queen, where a young woman finds her place in the sun or Lipstick Under My Burkha, which depicts marital rape quite vividly. These films have transformed people a little; stories do that, not data. The medium is still very dear to me. But since I am dealing with people’s difficulties in cases during the day, I watch difficult content only when it is really good. Otherwise, my film taste in the everyday have become far lighter and more middlebrow.
What does the latest TIME magazine recognition mean to you?
It shines a light on my work. The values I stand for, the cases I have fought, the court systems that I represent, and the constitutional and international human rights values that I work to further. This ramps up my capacity, somewhat. One important thing I have learnt from some of the survivors of the Bhopal disasters is that even though you have deeply suffered, there is a lot of power in choosing how you respond to a stimulus. One can pursue justice from a vision that must include hard law, but also love and healing, and where possible, seek the remedies that bring people together.
How have the big cases shaped you as a professional and person?
When you succeed in having the first blockchain legislation implemented to prevent telecom fraud, bringing safe drinking water to survivors of the Bhopal gas leak who were drinking carcinogenic and neurotoxic water; when you bring damages to a disabled person who is taken off a flight for no good reason; and you work on the right to food bill, strengthening criminal laws… victories are of course deeply satisfying. But the important thing that the Bhopal cases and our court systems, have taught me is not to shy away from the big hairy challenges that take years of your life, that persistence is vital in litigation of any kind in India and that is a muscle you have to build if you want to get anything done.
While many see you as inspiration, who are the women you admire?
So many… Justice Ruma Pal, she was on the bench at the Supreme Court when I started litigation. Her very presence cast sunshine on all the women in the court system because of the way she conducted her court—she had a reputation for brilliance and integrity. I clerked for Judge Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, a black woman, who was one of the first 11 judges elected by the United Nations to serve on the Yugoslav Tribunal [she went on to become its president between 1997 and 1999 and the only woman to occupy the position since its founding in 1994]. We worked on the comfort women tribunal together. I also find Rebecca John [Senior advocate at the Supreme Court of India who works primarily in the field of criminal defence] inspirational because she cuts through the patriarchy in a way that is non egotistical, one that doesn’t lose support. I have always found Brinda Karat deeply inspirational, she has mentored me at important times, and stuck to her ideals, through ups and downs, through forming central governments and state governments and now at age 74, standing in front of a bulldozer [when authorities razed buildings in Delhi’s Jahangirpuri last month]. Standing for justice between the force of the bulldozer and the people who were hugely disadvantaged… that’s exactly what we need today.
What are your founding philosophies?
They keep evolving, around justice of course because that is the work we are all engaged in. The root is to help create healing, wholeness and joy, from which emerges justice, equality and a flourishing environment. There is no peace without justice, but I also think that justice in itself does not bring peace. What we need today, in this country and around the world, is the spirit and possibly even the mechanism in some cases of truth and reconciliation commissions. The way social media is structured, it has powered divisive politics and incentivises lighting little fires everywhere rather than raising people up from eating roti and namak for dinner, and being ground to dust by deteriorating health and education systems and slow justice.
You are social media savvy. What are its pros and cons?
Through public lectures and other engagement, I seek to share the constitutionality of vision and thought in citizens’ everyday lives. If a woman can say to her boyfriend, you can’t rape me because it’s criminal, even if she willingly engaged in other sexual acts, and he backs off [that’s justice]. When that boyfriend doesn’t even try because he knows it’s criminal, that is where justice is. More recently, I have been taking a break from social media. It can be toxic and divisive too, though legislations like the Digital Services Act in Europe will help.
Law firms often escape the clutches of redressal systems like Prevention of Sexual Harassment at Workplace. How can we effectively implement laws like POSH?
The most important thing is for the Local Area Committees envisaged under the POSH Act to be set up. These government committees can help implement the law where there is no in-house committee. And because they will provide an alternative, they will make in-house workplace committees more robust. While the in-house committees can be helpful, they can also be structured in favour of the oppressor. So, a local area committee, which has absolutely nothing to do with the workplace, providing a civil remedy would be a really important check.
Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!" Click here!
