Constitution Is My Home

In The Constitution Is My Home, Jaising looks back upon a life spent on the frontlines of law and activism. In conversation with Ritu Menon, she reflects on the cases and causes that have defined her career: Mary Roy and the fight for equal inheritance; Rupan Deol Bajaj and the pursuit of justice in the face of sexual harassment; Olga Tellis, which recognized the right to livelihood for pavement dwellers; Shayara Bano and the challenge to triple talaq; her long advocacy for the victims of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy; and the Sabarimala case, where she argued for women's right to worship. She also offers sharp observations on the present, marked as it is by rising Hindu nationalism, a judiciary in retreat and a democracy growing brittle by the day. Through it all, she unfailingly returns to the Constitution--as scripture, argument, shelter and home ground.