Description

Women Rights, Law and Justice
Editor: Prof. Dr. Yogesh Kumar Gupta
Published by Universal Academic Books Publishers and Distributors,
New Delhi (India)
ISBN: 978-81-686113-2-0, 2026

Chapter 12

Shakti, Silence, and Justice: Re-reading Feminist Jurisprudence in the Indian Legal Imagination through Indian Epics and English Literary Texts

Savita
Assistant Professor, Applied Science (English), HMR Institute of Technology and Management

Abstract

This chapter offers a dialogic exploration of feminist jurisprudence within the Indian legal landscape through the interpretative lens of Indian epics and English literary works. Drawing upon the concept of Shakti in Indian Knowledge Systems and the recurring motif of women’s silence in literary traditions, the study examines how cultural narratives have shaped evolving understandings of women’s rights and justice. Figures such as Sita and Draupadi are re-examined as complex embodiments of resilience, moral strength, and resistance rather than passive symbols of suffering. These representations are placed in dialogue with selected English literary texts that interrogate patriarchy, voice, and female agency. The chapter argues that law and literature function as interconnected domains of social consciousness, where legal interpretations of equality and dignity are often influenced by inherited cultural imaginaries. By re-reading feminist jurisprudence through literary discourse and indigenous epistemic frameworks, the study seeks to bridge constitutional ideals of gender justice with deeply embedded narrative traditions. It ultimately proposes that such interdisciplinary engagement can foster a more nuanced and culturally grounded understanding of women’s rights within the Indian legal imagination.

Keywords

Feminist Jurisprudence; Indian Knowledge Systems; Gender Justice; Literary Discourse; Women’s Rights

1. Introduction

Law is often presented as neutral, rational, and objective. Yet, when we look closely, we realise that law does not exist in isolation; it grows out of the culture, stories, and moral beliefs of a society. Feminist jurisprudence emerged precisely to question this illusion of neutrality. It asks a fundamental question: Whose voice does the law truly represent? For centuries, legal systems across the world have reflected structures of power shaped largely by patriarchal assumptions. Feminist legal scholars therefore challenge not only unjust laws but also the cultural imagination that sustains them.