The ‘law’ is an enterprise that seeks to rule us all from cradle to the grave, whether as constitution conferring citizen, or as citizen confronting constitution, or the wider linked role of law within society, such as of how the ‘law’ seeks to eradicate wrongs made endemic, such as caste-based oppression as well as human rights failures or institutional evils like female foeticide. At the same time, the failure of legal institutions to fulfill their constitutional objectives is pointed to as the need to engage law’s multiple failures. ‘Law’ is not fully constructed and defined, nor equally hoped to be obeyed as that we may be willing to trust all citizens or ourselves equally with such laws given, and to obey them. It is in this area of ambiguity, especially when the failure of legal institutions is deeply political, that the citizen may take recourse to a politics of reinterpretation or civil disobedience. Hence, citizens and citizens’ education in a plural society need to be premised on understanding law not as rule-following, nor as rule-breaking, nor as inevitable submission to rules. Citizens should be able to see law as a terrain of contestation, where ideas of justice, ethics, and care are shaped constantly. A good citizen is one who constantly seeks to engage with law, not just obey it. The notion that law and justice must always mean the same thing is an important learning outcome for any understanding of multiple sources of law in India, both statutory law as well as customary law. It is this literacy, and awareness, that is much more empowering than rote learning of legal terms. Legal literacy now needs to encompass not just how to file an FIR or read laws, but genuinely evoke what sources of justice all of us can refer and care for or reject. According to the author, legal literacy needs to

The ‘law’ is an enterprise that seeks to rule us all from cradle to the grave, whether as constitution conferring citizen, or as citizen confronting constitution, or the wider linked role of law within society, such as of how the ‘law’ seeks to eradicate wrongs made endemic, such as caste-based oppression as well as human rights failures or institutional evils like female foeticide. At the same time, the failure of legal institutions to fulfill their constitutional objectives is pointed to as the need to engage law’s multiple failures. ‘Law’ is not fully constructed and defined, nor equally hoped to be obeyed as that we may be willing to trust all citizens or ourselves equally with such laws given, and to obey them. It is in this area of ambiguity, especially when the failure of legal institutions is deeply political, that the citizen may take recourse to a politics of reinterpretation or civil disobedience. Hence, citizens and citizens’ education in a plural society need to be premised on understanding law not as rule-following, nor as rule-breaking, nor as inevitable submission to rules. Citizens should be able to see law as a terrain of contestation, where ideas of justice, ethics, and care are shaped constantly. A good citizen is one who constantly seeks to engage with law, not just obey it. The notion that law and justice must always mean the same thing is an important learning outcome for any understanding of multiple sources of law in India, both statutory law as well as customary law. It is this literacy, and awareness, that is much more empowering than rote learning of legal terms. Legal literacy now needs to encompass not just how to file an FIR or read laws, but genuinely evoke what sources of justice all of us can refer and care for or reject. According to the author, legal literacy needs to