LEGAL LITERACY: A TOOL FOR EMPOWERMENT

Shalu Nigam

Introduction
Law is a double edged instrument that may be used to enhance people’s access to justice
as also to sanction regressionary trends or to legitimise practices that marginalise a set of
people within a democratic set up1. The beneficial aspects of law lie in the fact that it
provides a platform to the marginalised people in society to raise their concerns. People-
centered legal system empowers the marginalized in a manner to use the justice delivery
mechanism effectively and efficiently in order to establish the rule of law and in long run
may acts to establish people’s faith in law and governance. However, to utilize law as an
instrument to social transformation it is essential to disseminate basic knowledge about
the concepts and procedures of law. Legal literacy is a tool to empowerment that helps to
demystify law besides enabling the process of law reform as well as social change. This
paper focuses on the legal literacy efforts being carried out to empower people to
participate in the process of law making, its implementation and looks at the significance
of the role of law and legal literacy in bringing out social transformation. It explores the
author’s own engagement with the law as an advocate, as an activist and as a trainer and
delves on her personal experiences with various sets of people ranging from bureaucrats
to social workers working at the grassroot level to illiterate women and their perception
of law as well as legal system.

State’s Initiatives to Promote Access to Justice

Article 39A of the Constitution of India provides for equal justice and free legal aid. It
laid down that the “State shall secure that the operation of the legal system promotes
justice, on a basis of equal opportunity, and shall, in particular, provide free legal aid, by
suitable legislation or schemes or in any other way, to ensure that opportunities for
securing justice are not denied to any citizen by reason of economic or other disabilities”.
In order to achieve this goal several efforts have been made like establishment of
Alternative Dispute Redressal Mechanisms as Lok Adalats and provisions for free legal
aid to poor through Legal Aid and Advice Committees formulated under the National
Legal Service Authority Act. Also efforts are made to look at the traditional concept of
justice like nyaya panchayats, jati panchayats among other traditional systems of justice
delivery. The concept of Public Interest Litigation has also played a significant role in
providing a platform to the sections of society to raise their concerns utilizing the
instrument of law. Right to health, education, environment, civil rights, livelihood issues,
gender concerns, are several of the concerns that have been raised utilizing the tool of
social action litigation. Several of these programmes have helped to successfully raise the

1
For instance the law like TADA or POTA which have been used against certain sections of society

1
voice against state’s apathy and unjust practices adopted by the ruling elites. Human
rights concerns have been negotiated utilizing legal platform and judicial as well as social
activism has helped to raise issues that have been neglected for years since independence.
Efforts are being made to make justice accessible, affordable and people’s friendly.

More recently the Tenth Five Year Plan strongly recognises the linkages between the
improved justice system and poverty reduction. The Common Minimum Programme
(CMP) of the recently elected UPA government states that: “The government will take
the leadership role to drastically cut delays in the High courts and lower level of
judiciary. Legal aid services will be expanded. Judicial reforms will be given a fresh
momentum”. This recognition to bring out the transformation in the existing legal
structure may, if operationalised could help in bringing the desired changes that will help
to ensure justice to common people. For instance, the Government of India’s commitment
as evident in the CMP which is “Complete legal equality for women in all spheres will be
made a practical reality, especially by removing a discriminatory legislation and by
enacting new legislation that gives women, for instance, equal rights of ownership of
assets like houses and land” may help to ensure gender equality through enhanced access
to justice for women. These commitments if realized may act to ascertain the goal of
justice and equality as enshrined in the preamble of the Indian Constitution.

Lacunae in the State Efforts to Strengthen the Access to the Legal System
However, it may be said that in spite of commitments made by the successive
governments in independent India, the goal of accessible and efficient justice could not
be achieved in reality. Reason being that the government spend a large amount of
resources in creating huge infrastructures for delivering justice while overlooking the task
of making people legal literate or aware. As happened in health or education sector,
money is allocated in building `ivory towers’ within the legal system too. Efforts are
directed to formulating more and more complex web of law and the legal system rather
than involving the beneficiaries or the clients in the process and making the system user
friendly. This is not to underestimate the need of investing resources in establishing
courts, appointing and training personnel etc. yet, the compelling need to spread
awareness among people about their rights and responsibilities has been neglected. Often
the state’s initiatives have focused on the supply side of justice rather than the addressing
the issues relating to the demand side of justice. Therefore, frequently efforts to make
justice accessible ended up in creating a set of forums which again are either non-
functional or failed to provide easy, speedy or efficient justice. For instance, under the
Consumer Protection Act, 1986, hierarchy of forums was created to provide speedy
justice to consumers. However these forums could not achieve the desired result. Often,
consumers approaching these forums for justice are compelled to hire a professional legal
help thus lead to increasing cost. Consumer courts like any other civil courts being

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overburdened and follow the complicated procedures thus failed in providing efficient
justice. Similarly, Family courts established under the Family Court Act, 1984 suffers
from the major lacunae and failed to achieve the goal of providing justice in a gender
sensitive manner. Thus often solutions to provide accessible justice was sought in
formulating complicated version of the existing formal legal system rather than paying
attention to improvising the delivery mechanism by creating a cadre of para-legals or
making people aware or sensitize of their rights and duties and therefore raising legally
informed generations of citizens across the country.

Moreover, much of time and energy is invested in the determining the content, procedure
or the technicalities of law however a little is spend in eliminating the legal illiteracy that
exist among masses. Thus there exist a plethora of law on papers however; in practice it
failed to address the justice issues because either people are not aware of the content and
technicalities of law or the process of implementation of law is complicated.
Contradictions inherent in the law further complicated the issue. Thus there are
constitutional provisions which guarantee equality on the basis of sex, caste, religion etc.
yet there are laws which dissents this provision2. Often law reinforces oppression by
legitimizing hierarchical relations, unequal division of labour and power over allocation
of resources. Several mechanisms are key to this process. These are unjust laws that are
discriminatory and limited, prejudicial enforcement of laws, or biased judgements.
Ignorance of the significance of the law and of law making processes by ruling elites who
also tend to be unaware of concerns of marginalised, of the rights they possess, or the
effects of law on them, or the role they might play in changing the law perhaps act to
sanction unjust and regressionary trends through law.

Another major problem with the law is that vast majority of people remain outside the
system because they do not think of themselves as having any rights, or any relationship
with legal system. They are outside the system partly because they don’t know what it
offers them, but partly because the system doesn’t offer them very much. When a woman
is raped, the only response she gets from the legal system is an accusation making her the
guilty party, how can she possibly think that law offers her anything? While the system of
justice and of law protects the rights of citizens they do frequently fail and the message of
their failure penetrate deeply. Those who feel betrayed by the system could not value it or
may not become part of it. Often people also stay outside the official legal system not
only because the laws and procedures are complicated, expensive and incomprehensible,
but also because informal remedies seem to work better than formal ones. However, as
law is an instrument of legitimacy and social order, staying out of the official system also
means being marginalized by the same.

2
For instance, personal laws are considered as the set of laws that reiterate gender discrimination and
therefore deny equality on the basis of sex.

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Further, like medicine, the professionals in the legal set up acted against demystification
of the law and the legal process. The justice delivery system thus remained inaccessible,
alien and unconcerned about the masses. Majority of people could not obtain benefits of
the formal legal system because of lack of awareness, resources, geographical access or
because of lacunae and contradictions within the system. Reason for this also lies in the
fact that the state defied its role in taking law to people. It has been said that the
independent Indian followed the similar rules of administration of law as followed by the
Imperial rulers thus taking it further away from the people to who it is supposed to
govern. Thus efforts initiated by the state to make justice accessible ended up in paying
lip services to the goal of `access to justice’ rather than tackling the issue in practical
manner. The existing situation therefore justifies the need for developing policies that
would cater to the yearning for legal literacy and awareness programmes.

Need for Legal Literacy Programmes

The democratic system of governance is based on the presumption that people are aware
of various facets of law and governance which is far from reality in our country. This
justifies the need for taking law to people’s doorstep. Also, the diversity of Indian
population clubbed with vicissitude of laws associated with the absence of political will,
all adds up to formulate a legal system which is unrelated to common life in the existing
socio-political structure rationalise the need to initiate efforts for making people legal
literate and develop programmes keeping in mind existing diversity. The need for legal
literacy and awareness programmes and policies also becomes significant in the context
of the existing formal Indian legal system which is impermeable, incoherent and alien in
character. One of the reasons for its alienation from the masses is it remains
incomprehensible and complex and therefore inaccessible to most of the people. The
concept of formal institutionalised law as given by Britishers remains extraneous to
majority in India. With its top-down approach the formal legal system could not permeate
the distinct social structure existing in the country.

Also one of the characteristic feature of the formal legal system is that it recognises the
maxim that `ignorance of law is no excuse’ while completely ignoring the fact that the
majority of population for whom it is meant is ignorant of the law and its system. In a
country like India this becomes more important where general literacy or 3 Rs itself
remains a goal to be realised, and where the civil society is still struggling to make right
to education a fundamental right in reality, legal literacy remains a dream for teeming
millions. The education system in independent India as gifted by Lord Maculay fails to
make people aware of law and the legal system with exception being those who intent to
become lawyers or judges choose to study law. Teaching of basic law in schools and
colleges or reframing the curriculum to make it practical and sensitive to ground realities

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could not be done. Thus, neither the legal system nor the educational system made effort
to create a cadre of well informed citizens but resulted in breeding population which is
unaware of the gigantic legal system in the country.

Further, in contemporary India, education, class, rural/urban divide all do not make
difference when it comes to attitude toward the law and the legal system. Law is seen as
`complex system’ even by educated urbanites. `It is only when one commits crime the
law comes into picture’ is the common notion that prevails among majority of these
population. Interestingly, for an illiterate woman from a rural area `law is a curse’ as she
shares with the author during an interview 3, “In my place, people abuse others saying
`tumhe kachehri lage’ (may you get involved into litigation)”. Thus law holds different
connotations for different set of people. For a person hailing from rural India kachehri, or
daroga manifest as a symbol of law and for a student from a non-law college in lawyers,
judges or courts symbolizes law. Thus, the system itself operates to polarize the process,
determines its own hegemony and perpetuates its own alienation from the concerns of
common people. On the one hand the law and its system remained resistant to the needs
and concerns of people and on the other hand it never allowed people to become the part
of the system thus isolating itself from the concerns of the masses. These arguments
illustrate the wide gap that exists between the law, the legal system and the common
people and rationalise the need for legal literacy in the country.

Civil Society and Legal Literacy:

With the emergence of concept of human rights as also promoted by international
organisations, the concept of human rights education also began gaining ground in India.
It was felt that working on the concept of legal literacy along with the human right
education will help to sensitize people and therefore these may be used as an instrument
to bring about social change. Thus several organizations emerged across the nation
during recent years who took up the daunting task of legal literacy, legal and human
rights research and legal reform. A few of them are involved into providing legal aid and
assistance. Others are demanding and lobbying for more laws. Some are pondering over
the issue that myriad of laws are being formulated and gathering dust in government
departments and libraries when beneficiaries are unaware of the fact that certain rights
are created in their favour. There are a few which are developing programmes to make
both educated and uneducated people aware of law. Among them are few being involved
in creating a cadre of `para-legals’ or `training of trainers’ programmes while there are
others programmes evolved to conducting awareness campaigns for lay people. There are
others involved into sensitising people about various aspects like gender. Each has its

3
This is shared by this woman with the author during a personal interview held in April 2003 which was
conducted with the women coming to Mahila court for seeking justice

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own dimensions, however, the aim is to make justice accessible, efficient and effective
and the basic premise is to use law as an instrument to bring out social transformation.

Legal Literacy Programmes: Aims and Objects

The aim of legal literacy programmes is to make law accessible to all, to shed mystique
surrounding the law and the legal system and to critically analyse the issues in a sensitive
manner. It assumes that once empowered, people may play a proactive role to make law
relevant and may act as social agents who than may mobilize social change. Legal
literacy thus has wider connotations to include strategy that would fit into broader
political struggle for justice. These programmes often consist of simplifying laws and
making it easier for people to comprehend its various aspects. This is done by writing
laws in simple language, at times, by using illustrations, pictures and objects or
translating law in vernacular languages. A number of such simple booklets and manuals
are available due to efforts of various organisations like MARG, ISI and others being
involved into publication. There are organisations using other methods of communication
like the audio-visual medium for communicating about aspects of law besides a number
of them are conducting legal literacy and training workshops. The pedagogy often
includes sharing the basic legal information through use of audio-visual means, print
media and the discussions. Thus lectures, screening of films made for the purpose, group
discussions, work and play activities all form the part of sharing information depending
on the type of programme, duration, the target group etc. The core objective is to
familiarize the people about basic elements and procedures of law.

The goal of legal literacy programmes is to create legal awareness in order to allow
people to have access to information and to assist them make rational informed choices.
It is to facilitate them to have knowledge and use it appropriately when required. The
significance of legal awareness lies in the fact that law should be used a tool for
empowerment of those who are being marginalised because of various reasons including
lack of information or legal knowledge. The purpose is to empower people to utilise
knowledge against hegemony of those who oppress them and to achieve the goal of social
justice. It is a process of ideological and political analysis. For instance, sharing
information on consumer rights with a group of men and women in a manner to
assimilate with their own experiences of buying goods or services stimulated thought
process to organise around the issue. “We felt cheated but never know what to do against
the unscrupulous shopkeepers but now we know our rights we feel that we can do
something about it” shared a participant in one of the legal literacy classes.

However, the intent of legal literacy programme is not in any way to generate a hope
among people that law provides readymade solutions to their problems. It is to facilitate
them to gain access to information about available legal resources and utilize them

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accordingly. It is not about painting the `win-win’ situation but to present an overall
situation in a manner to understand both the positive and the negative aspects of the law
and the legal system. Thus, for example, as described above, while sharing the
information on consumer rights the lacunae in the content and implementation of
implementation of laws is also made clear so as to enable the participants to think and
reflect on in a critical manner over the issues. What is also discussed is the larger
structure in which law operated, the ideological underpinning that governs the operation
of law and the limitations that operate within and outside the legal system.

Thus these training programmes or workshops are not mere law classes but lively
sessions that help both the trainers and the trainees to share their experiences in the
existing socio-legal framework. These are not simple exchange of rule of law, judgment,
petition or legal text but involve sharing of experiences, a sense of something happening
around, a feeling of achievement and a realization of hurdles involved in the process.
This is accompanied with constant feedback and a great learning process for the resource
person too. The process involves, at times, challenging fundamental beliefs, shattering
the myths, questioning norms or critically evaluating social norms and daily practices.
For instance, while talking about the concept of gender equality in law with the young
group of male and female students who were receiving training at a teacher training
institute in the outskirts of Delhi several questions were raised by the students. These
pertain to their practices of non sharing of household work by the males members in the
family when women go out to work thus questioning the concept of gender equality both
within the private and public domain. A serious discussion between males and females
students led the group to conclude that gender discrimination prevails and to counter this
besides using law as a weapon for social change it is essential that interventions need to
be made at other levels too.

Further the role of law as an instrument of social justice and as a tool to bring out change
has been critiqued by several stakeholders including academics and activists and this is
brought out during discussions in the training sessions as well. The legal literacy
programmes therefore work towards identifying these notions and attempt to link rights
and remedies within the broader framework of politics of rights. These programmes view
law and rights as goals of public policy and political resources and articulate rights within
the framework of entitlements keeping notion of justice in mind. For instance, in a course
on women’s rights and law participants were encouraged to begin with the notion of
gender injustice within their own social set up. After this identification exercise they
relate injustice in broader terms and construe the problem into the right paradigm
suggesting not only legal remedies but also relate their social experiences to seek
alternatives to a problem. When groups acquire words that express and legitimize
demands they begin to tap into and build their own political power. The programme thus

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aims to address the structural obstructions at broader socio-cultural, political level rather
than viewing the problem as an individual dispute that may be solved in the courts. It
does not visualize the problems in terms of lack of knowledge among participants rather
it helps them to analyse the constraints within the larger structural framework and seek
alternatives accordingly.

During such sharing of information about police, law and human rights with a group of
workers working with the grass root level organisations the discussion took an interesting
shape. The group started sharing the experiences they had with police which then turn on
to human rights violations by the police and the issue of corruption. Interestingly one of
the group members shared her sister’s experience who is employed as police personnel in
a town in UP and eventually the discussion moved around the issue of problems within
social structure as a reason of such mal-practices. It is therefore not only the legal issue
which was being discussed but the debate also help the group to understand the social
forces that play significant role in shaping the response of formal and non-formal
institutions. Thus often, discussions reflect on participants sharing their experiences
regarding limitations in law including corruption and malpractices in the system and
dissatisfaction with the law implementing agencies including the role of police, lawyers
or discontent with the court procedures.

Thus these training programmes facilitate people not only to share information but at
time also facilitate them to gain in-depth understanding of the social problems at both
macro and micro level and to utilize the knowledge in innovative manner. This is well
exemplified by the response of a young man who was working with an organisation in a
remote village of Andhra Pradesh when he came second time to attend the same
programme. On asking about the reason for attending the programme again he said, “This
programme has helped me a lot. We had a criminal incident in our village and police
official refuse to register the case initially. Several senior people of our organisation went
but the police refused to register the case because of several reasons. However, after
attending your programme when I went back to my village I though I must try and I was
hopeful. Therefore, I took several law books that I can procure and took them with me to
the police station and impress upon the policemen as if I actually know the law as
lawyers do. Though inside I was afraid but I was confident enough of the knowledge I
gained over here. This helped … and policemen registered the case ... since then I have
gained reputation in the village. I have come again so that I could understand the law
well. Though people in my place are insisting that I should become a lawyer and pursue a
degree in law but I know that after becoming lawyer I will not be able to serve my village
in a manner I am doing now”. The experience shared by him makes every one amused
but on a serious note it shows the impact of the legal literacy programme and the manner
in which law can be utilised as an instrument to empower people.

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However, response of the group varies depending on its composition and often
information has to be tailored accordingly. The content of legal literacy is designed
according to its relevance to the lives of those who will supposedly benefit. For instance
sharing the information on law for domestic violence with the group of illiterate women
generated an excitement among them. It helps them to shatter the myth and the belief that
husbands have rights to beat their wives. Often recipients relate the information with their
existing knowledge and experience as in this case an old illiterate woman immediately
responded “Haan, yeh to Durga or Kali ne bhi kiya tha. Nayaya to yahin hona chhahiye”
(Yes, even Durga and Kali (mythological figures) did the same. Justice ought to be done
in this world only). Thus not only she relates to the fact that violence is undesirable but
also articulate the concept of justice in her own language while referring to the
mythological figures. Thus, what is required is flexibility by the resource person in order
to relate to needs of the group.

Hurdles in the Process

In spite of the positive experiences it may be said that the road to create legal awareness
is not free of hurdles and blocks. There are problems at various levels. Simplifying jargon
of law is not easy. Often, challenging task was to find simple words used in daily
language for complicated legal expressions and more difficult it is to explain these
expressions to the person who has never heard of it before. Besides there are several other
dilemmas that needs to be tackled and among those include that amidst the big pool of
law which one to choose and what to discard? There cannot be fixed solutions to this
situation and choosing of subject relates to need of the groups as one cannot choose to
discuss the Information Technology Act with the group of illiterate people or talking
about Indecent Representation Act to a group of poor women whose prime concern is
fetching water, gathering woods, surviving on bare minimum and bearing the brunt of
life. Thus, a tailored training material or kit often fails to serve the purpose. Also, one
sided of information sharing is unadvisable. What is therefore required is to share
information, adopt participatory approach and involve group in planning the exercise and
the manner in which they want to share information. Besides content what is significant
is the process involved into legal literacy.

Further to impress that for every problem remedy lies with the law is imprudent. What
needs to be ascertained is that law is an instrument or a process to achieve the end and is
not an end in itself. Anomalies within the legal system need to be addressed and looked
into while dealing with it during training programme. These never imply sharing
information only on critics or positive aspects of law but there is a need to develop a fine
line between the two. Also, the effectiveness of legal literacy programmes cannot be
measured in terms of number of cases filed or won. Rather it is a larger domain of

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knowledge dissemination and information sharing which facilitates people to gain access
to knowledge and choose rationally. It is a complex social process, which is beyond the
rights, law and legality and deals with the complex phenomenon of addressing, at times,
social as well as political perspectives and ideologies. Politico-legal understanding of
broader social aspects is imperative to describe the approach towards legal literacy
programme. An in-depth understanding of social structure that may act to permit or to
obstacle a person’s recourse to legal system is included in pedagogical understanding of
legal issues. Attempts are made to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the law,
the legal system and the larger socio-political understanding on which it operates. The
process not only empowers people through a combination of pedagogical skills and
critical analysis, it also becomes a vehicle for examining how cultural definition of
gender, race, class and subjectivity are constituted as both historical and social constructs.
It is a process of self and social empowerment grounded in an ethical and political
framework that permits people to participate in the process of transforming society.

Legal literacy programmes involve not only familiarizing people with the legal
information but also breaking down barriers of entrenched embedded notions and socio-
cultural conditioning which is a difficult task. Challenging beliefs is not easy. For
instance, organising a legal literacy programme for uneducated women was not easy as
one need to confront the attitude of men that imparting legal awareness to women will
destroy their traditional life in one of the village in Haryana. This notion is not only
prevalent among these men but an element of this is found even among the attitude of top
bureaucrats and officials. A few of the people view these legal literacy programmes
would encourage people to go in for litigation thus an increase in number of reported
cases. This view is expressed by a few top officials in the government and during an
informal conversation with the author with one of them it was opined, “You are making
people aware of the laws and you see a large number of women are coming to seek
divorce”. These offending ideas end up acting as a roadblock for any initiatives for legal
literacy. Like wise in a forum to discuss about domestic violence issues a few of officials
expressed that this law is being misused and abused by women and frequently this is
done without any evidence to substantiate the claim. Thus pre-set presumptions about this
law act as a bias in long run.

Several innovative efforts are being taken up to overcome a few of these impediments.
Recently in a workshop organised by the British council one of the participant who
attended a gender sensitization programme evolved by the experts in a University to
sensitize judicial officers in India shared her experiences. Here in order to sensitise
judges about the gender perspective a trainer asked a group of judges to share their most
recent pleasurable sexual experience with others in the group. The object is not only to
sensitize judges but also help them empathise with the victims of rape who also were

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asked in the court to narrate the incidence which brought them to file the complaint.
These kinds of innovative strategies may help in long run to sensitize officials. Another
approach that is gaining ground is developing a user-friendly legal literacy programmes.
This implies talking about law in a manner comprehensible to the people, to use their
language, styled according to the needs of the participants and using means of
communications that may be adapted by the participants. Planning the programme in
manner that involves participants would help them assimilate information in a better
manner. Reshaping the curricula of schools and colleges in a manner to introduce law is a
desirable exercise that may create legal awareness. Recent drives by few of the
organisations and activists to include teachers and students in college and university
against social evils like eve-teasing and female foeticide4 issue may set an example for
the same. These may not only help generate a public opinion around the issue.

Challenges Ahead:
Law reflects contradictions among visions of ideal society. It is a product of historical
social processes and deserves to be looked as a tool to bring out change rather than as an
end product in itself. It is to be seen as a part of larger social enterprise having its own
social and political dimensions. Law may be seen as a power which has its own
limitations and strengths. Perceiving the law in monolithic terms negates its role as an
instrument of social transformation. Regarding it as a sacrosanct and unapproachable is to
imbue it with extraordinary and undeserved authority. In fact law has a potential in
legitimizing new values and creating new norms and this is a message that legal literacy
campaign may emphasize. The programme of legal literacy is based on the assumption
that making people aware of law is not sufficient. What is required is their involvement in
the process of its formulation, implementation as well as reform - both legal and social.

Political ideology that underpins the operation of law along with social attitudes prevalent
in the larger social structure are the major structural constraints and constitute the hidden
agenda requiring change that needs to be addressed through the goal of legal literacy.
Structures perpetuating the exploitation, feudalism, capitalism and patriarchal norms
leading to subjugation of people needs to be changed and people awareness of law may
act as an effective tool to eliminate such blocks in the path of democracy. It is through a
socio-political approach that legal struggles are placed in the context of larger issues of
social justice and transformative change. Perception of the manner in which the law
functions as an instrument of control has become a keystone for several human right
movements discerning how to create strategic responses with the potential to transform
biased social structures, processes and relations. Legal platform has been utilized to
challenge the hegemony of the feudal forces, patriarchal structures and powerful
multinationals. Anti-coca cola struggle to Narmada Bachao Andolan, Bhanwari devi’s

4
CAFF Campaign

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struggle against feudal and political forces to tribal women assertion to their right to
forest and natural resources all have utilized law as a platform to challenge hegemonical
forces. The legal literacy programme thus may attempt to explore rights as a political
recourse and may aim towards the social change within the broader socio-political
perspective. Further paternalistic approach in the field of law needs to be shed away to be
replaced by right based approach. Legal literacy campaign may aim at making the law as
a `voice of people’ or more specifically `voices of poor and the marginalised’.

References:
Menon Nivedita (1999) Introduction in Gender and Politics in India Edited by Nivedita
Menon OUP, New Delhi

Nigam Shalu (2000) “Empowerment Of Women Through Legal Literacy: Need for a
Movement” Paper presented in the national workshop organized by MARG on Capacity
Building among women through legal literacy from February 17-20

Schuler Margaret and Sakuntala Kadirgamar-Rajasingham (1992) Legal Literacy: A Tool

for Women’s Empowerment, Women, Law and Development OEF International
UNIFEM Publications p.21-22

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