Terror Trials - (Thinking from Elsewhere) by Mayur R Suresh (Paperback)

About the Book

In an ethnography of terrorism trials in Delhi, the author shows how those charged with terror engage with legal technicalities. The book shows how the ordinary procedures that lie at the heart of the trial are the mode through which human expressiveness and vulnerability emerge in the face of the law.

Book Synopsis

Honorable Mention, Bernard S. Cohn Book Prize

An ethnography of terrorism trials in Delhi, India, this book explores what modes of life are made possible in the everyday experience of the courtroom. Mayur Suresh shows how legal procedures and technicalities become the modes through which courtrooms are made habitable. Where India's terror trials have come to be understood by way of the expansion of the security state and displays of Hindu nationalism, Suresh elaborates how they are experienced by defendants in a quite different way, through a minute engagement with legal technicalities.

Amidst the grinding terror trials--which are replete with stories of torture, illegal detention and fabricated charges--defendants school themselves in legal procedures, became adept petition writers, build friendships with police officials, cultivate cautious faith in the courts and express a deep sense of betrayal when this trust is belied. Though seemingly mundane, legal technicalities are fraught and highly contested, and acquire urgent ethical qualities in the life of a trial: the file becomes a space in which the world can be made or unmade, the petition a way of imagining a future, and investigative and courtroom procedures enable the unexpected formation of close relationships between police and terror-accused.

In attending to the ways in which legal technicalities are made to work in everyday interactions among lawyers, judges, accused terrorists, and police, Suresh shows how human expressiveness, creativity and vulnerability emerge through the law.

From the Back Cover

"Mayur Suresh's fascinating book is brilliant in its theoretical clarity, ethnographically dazzling, and beautifully written. Where law and the state often effaces those it targets, Suresh makes his subjects visible actors in their own trials."--Jinee Lokaneeta, Drew University

"Terror Trials is an illuminating and novel legal ethnography that engages terrorism not as spectacular, but rather as a quotidian bureaucratic legal terrain that Suresh unknots with keenness and patience."--Sameena Mulla, Emory University

An ethnography of terrorism trials in Delhi, India, this book explores what modes of life are made possible in the everyday experience of the courtroom. Mayur Suresh shows how legal procedures and technicalities become the modes through which courtrooms are made habitable. Where India's terror trials have come to be understood by way of the expansion of the security state and displays of Hindu nationalism, Suresh elaborates how they are experienced by defendants in a quite different way, through a minute engagement with legal technicalities.

Amidst the grinding terror trials--which are replete with stories of torture, illegal detention and fabricated charges--defendants school themselves in legal procedures, became adept petition writers, build friendships with police officials, cultivate cautious faith in the courts and express a deep sense of betrayal when this trust is belied. Though seemingly mundane, legal technicalities are fraught and highly contested, and acquire urgent ethical qualities in the life of a trial: the file becomes a space in which the world can be made or unmade, the petition a way of imagining a future, and investigative and courtroom procedures enable the unexpected formation of close relationships between police and terror-accused.

In attending to the ways in which legal technicalities are made to work in everyday interactions among lawyers, judges, accused terrorists, and police, Suresh shows how human expressiveness, creativity and vulnerability emerge through the law.

Mayur R. Suresh is Senior Lecturer in Law at SOAS, University of London.

Review Quotes

. . . [A]n engaging and interesting read for both ordinary readers and academics.-- "Outlook India"

. . . [A] novel contribution to studying legal technicalities not merely as administrative obstacles, but as avenues of possibility. At the heart of Terror Trials is the stories of petitioners, who like Prometheus stealing fi re from the gods, draw on the law to carve out spaces of hope and agency.-- "Frontiers of Socio-Legal Studies"

The descriptions in this volume are vibrant and are used to great effect, challenging many presumptions of social-legal studies. This is a major contribution with relevance beyond India, important to all who study courts. Highly recommended.-- "Choice Reviews"

Terror Trials is an illuminating and novel legal ethnography that engages terrorism not as spectacular, but rather as a quotidian bureaucratic legal terrain that Suresh unknots with keenness and patience.---Sameena Mulla, Emory University

Mayur Suresh's fascinating book is brilliant in its theoretical clarity, ethnographically dazzling, and beautifully written. Where law and the state often effaces those it targets, Suresh makes his subjects visible actors in their own trials.---Jinee Lokaneeta, Drew University

About the Author

Mayur R. Suresh is Senior Lecturer in Law at SOAS, University of London.