Talk:Mitra Sharafi

By Sachi Anjunkar

Mitra Sharafi is Evjue-Bascom Professor of Law at University of Wisconsin, Madison as of September 2022. According to her CV, her research interests include South Asian legal history, the history of criminal law and forensic science, the history of legal education and the legal profession, colonialism and empire; the history of contract law, law and society, law and religion law and minorities; legal consciousness; legal pluralism; the history of law books; and the history of science and medicine.

As per her bio, she has published no books, papers, or research pertaining to Hindus, the rights of Hindus, the impact or relationship between Islam and Hinduism / Hindutva, India, or the Indian Government in the context of BJP Government.

In 2021, she endorsed the "Dismantling Global Hindutva" conference and made the allegation

"the current government of India [in 2021] has instituted discriminatory policies including beef bans, restrictions on religious conversion and interfaith weddings, and the introduction of religious discrimination into India’s citizenship laws. The result has been a horrifying rise in religious and caste-based violence, including hate crimes, lynchings, and rapes directed against Muslims, non-conforming Dalits, Sikhs, Christians, adivasis and other dissident Hindus. Women of these communities are especially targeted. Meanwhile, the government has used every tool of harassment and intimidation to muzzle dissent. Dozens of student activists and human rights defenders are currently languishing in jail indefinitely without due process under repressive anti-terrorism laws."

Publications related to India

Books

1. Sharafi, Mitra. Law and Identity in Colonial South Asia: Parsi Legal Culture, 1772-1947. Cambridge University Press, 2014. South Asian edition, Permanent Black, 2017.
2. Sharafi, Mitra. Colonial Parsis and Law: A Cultural History: Government Fellowship Lectures 2009-2010. K. R. Cama Oriental Institute, 2010.

Articles

1. Sharafi, Mitra. “The Semi-Autonomous Judge in Colonial India: Chivalric Imperialism Meets Anglo-Islamic Dower and Divorce Law.” Indian Economic and Social History Review, vol. 46, no. 1, 2009, pp. 57-81.
2. Sharafi, Mitra. “Justice in Many Rooms since Galanter: De-romanticizing Legal Pluralism through the Cultural Defense.” Law & Contemporary Problems, vol. 71, 2008, pp. 139-46.
3. Sharafi, Mitra. “The Semi-Autonomous Judge in Colonial India: Chivalric Imperialism Meets Anglo-Islamic Dower and Divorce Law.” *Indian Economic and Social History Review*, vol. 46, no. 1, 2009, pp. 57-81.

Book Chapters

1. Sharafi, Mitra. “The Imperial Serologist and Punitive Self-Harm: Bloodstains and Legal Pluralism in British India.” In Global Forensic Cultures: Making Fact and Justice in the Modern Era, edited by Ian Burney and Christopher Hamlin, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019, pp. 60-85.
2. Sharafi, Mitra. “Indian Law.” In Oxford Handbook of Legal History, edited by Markus Dubber and Christopher Tomlins, Oxford University Press, 2018, pp. 839-57.
3. Sharafi, Mitra. “Two Lives in Law: The Reminiscences of A. J. C. Mistry and Sir Norman Macleod, 1884-1926.” In A Heritage of Judging: The Bombay High Court through 150 Years, edited by D. Y. Chandrachud, Anoop V. Mohta, and Roshan S. Dalvi, Maharashtra Judicial Academy, 2012, pp. 258-83.
4. Sharafi, Mitra. “Judging Conversion to Zoroastrianism: Behind the Scenes of the Parsi Panchayat Case (1908).” In Parsis in India and the Diaspora, edited by J. R. Hinnells and A. Williams, Routledge Curzon, 2007, pp. 159-80.