Book Title: The Constitution Is My Home: Conversations on a Life in Law by Indira Jaising with Ritu Menon
Books Corner
The highly anticipated memoir by Indira Jaising is set to be released on 20 May 2026.
Talking about the book, Indira Jaising says, ‘The history of a nation is also the history of law. But there comes a time when a nation makes a sharp break with its past. The adoption of the Constitution of India was one such moment. I stand here now as a daughter of the Constitution, and I hope that those who read this book will find in it something of value to take away.’
ABOUT THE BOOK ‘I may not have been one of the founding mothers of the Constitution, but I am one of its founding daughters. Founding a nation is a continuous process, one without end. This is where I have lived, loved and worked—and that is where home is. The Constitution of India is not just a text … [It] is where my home lies.’
Few lawyers have shaped India’s constitutional landscape as consistently and fearlessly as Indira Jaising. For over five decades, she has led some of the country’s most consequential legal battles, compelling the law to reckon with the realities of gender, inequality, state violence and institutional neglect. In The Constitution Is My Home, Jaising looks back upon a life spent on the frontlines of law and activism. In conversation with Ritu Menon, she reflects on the cases and causes that have defined her career: Mary Roy and the fight for equal inheritance; Rupan Deol Bajaj and the pursuit of justice in the face of sexual harassment; Olga Tellis, which recognized the right to livelihood for pavement dwellers; Shayara Bano and the challenge to triple talaq; her long advocacy for the victims of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy; and the Sabarimala case, where she argued for women’s right to worship.
As a lawyer for over sixty years, Indira Jaising has fought some of India’s most landmark cases, each of which has helped transform citizens’ rights. From the unforgettable case for women’s right to inherit property and justice for the victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy, to the triple talaq case and the still hotly argued-over Sabarimala case, her work has been led throughout by the guiding light of the Constitution.
In this memoir-in-conversation, she takes readers behind the scenes of these long, arduous battles, showing how some of the rights we often take for granted were painstakingly argued for and won. These and other accounts make for a vital read not just for anyone interested in Indian law, but for any concerned citizen.
