Finding the Ratio between Law as an Instrument of Social Change and Social Changes that Germinated Law: A Unique Indian Scenario

Abstract

The main objective of this paper is to study the way how law and Indian society had interacted with each other during colonial and post-colonial era. While doing so this paper examines why groups seeking social reform have resorted to different movements, litigation which eventually germinated law, and whether and how court-made law has contributed in social engineering. From a sociological perspective, an attempt has been made to treat law in its institutional, historical, socio-cultural, and politico-legal systems and analyze its dialectics with the ever changing Indian society in its broader structural setting. Finally, an attempt has been made to find out the ratio between the spheres where “law changed the society,” and where “society changed the law.”