Critical Legal Studies and Narrative Ethics in Contemporary Indian `Epic' Fiction

This essay explores contemporary novelizations of episodes from the Mah (a) over bar bh (a) over bar rata, India's greatest epic narrative, as vehicles for critical reflection on the treatment of women and queer individuals in modern Indian law. It argues that some Mahabharata `Epic' fiction places modern Indian debates concerning social justice in a critical, homologous relationship to tales from the Mahabharata in order to problematize the inequity of ancient and modern legal regimes. In doing so, the essay links law and literature, critical legal studies, Indian feminist and queer legal discourses, and Mahabharata scholarship.