Who Is in Justice? Caste, Religion and Gender in the Courts of Bihar over a Decade

Bihar is widely regarded as one of India’s poorest and most divided states. It has also been the site of many social movements that have left indelible marks on the state’s politics and identity. Little is currently known about how structural inequ...

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Main Authors:	Bhupatiraju, Sandeep, Chen, Daniel L., Joshi, Shareen, Neis, Peter
Format:	Working Paper
Language:	English
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2021
Subjects:	CASTE RELIGION JUSTICE SYSTEM GENDER JUDICIAL PERFORMANCE BIHAR INEQUALITY SOCIAL CATEGORY
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/384061614260524872/Who-Is-in-Justice-Caste-Religion-and-Gender-in-the-Courts-of-Bihar-over-a-Decade http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35195

id	okr-10986-35195
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-351952022-09-20T00:09:56Z Who Is in Justice? Caste, Religion and Gender in the Courts of Bihar over a Decade Bhupatiraju, Sandeep Chen, Daniel L. Joshi, Shareen Neis, Peter CASTE RELIGION JUSTICE SYSTEM GENDER JUDICIAL PERFORMANCE BIHAR INEQUALITY SOCIAL CATEGORY Bihar is widely regarded as one of India’s poorest and most divided states. It has also been the site of many social movements that have left indelible marks on the state’s politics and identity. Little is currently known about how structural inequalities have affected the functioning of formal systems of justice in the state. This paper uses a novel dataset of more than one million cases filed at the Patna high court between 2009 and 2019 together with a variety of supplementary data to analyze the role of religion, caste and gender in the high court of Bihar. The analysis finds that the courts are not representative of the Bihari population. Muslims, women and scheduled castes are consistently under-represented. The practice of using “caste neutral” names is on the rise. Though there is little evidence of “matching” between judges and petitioners or judges and filing advocates on the basis of names, there is evidence that petitioners and their advocates match on the basis of identity such as the use of “caste neutral” names. These results suggest that the social movements that disrupted existing social structures in the past may have inadvertently created new social categories that reinforce networks and inequalities in the formal justice system. 2021-02-26T16:47:51Z 2021-02-26T16:47:51Z 2021-02 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/384061614260524872/Who-Is-in-Justice-Caste-Religion-and-Gender-in-the-Courts-of-Bihar-over-a-Decade http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35195 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9555 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper South Asia India
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English
topic	CASTE RELIGION JUSTICE SYSTEM GENDER JUDICIAL PERFORMANCE BIHAR INEQUALITY SOCIAL CATEGORY
spellingShingle	CASTE RELIGION JUSTICE SYSTEM GENDER JUDICIAL PERFORMANCE BIHAR INEQUALITY SOCIAL CATEGORY Bhupatiraju, Sandeep Chen, Daniel L. Joshi, Shareen Neis, Peter Who Is in Justice? Caste, Religion and Gender in the Courts of Bihar over a Decade
geographic_facet	South Asia India
relation	Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9555
description	Bihar is widely regarded as one of India’s poorest and most divided states. It has also been the site of many social movements that have left indelible marks on the state’s politics and identity. Little is currently known about how structural inequalities have affected the functioning of formal systems of justice in the state. This paper uses a novel dataset of more than one million cases filed at the Patna high court between 2009 and 2019 together with a variety of supplementary data to analyze the role of religion, caste and gender in the high court of Bihar. The analysis finds that the courts are not representative of the Bihari population. Muslims, women and scheduled castes are consistently under-represented. The practice of using “caste neutral” names is on the rise. Though there is little evidence of “matching” between judges and petitioners or judges and filing advocates on the basis of names, there is evidence that petitioners and their advocates match on the basis of identity such as the use of “caste neutral” names. These results suggest that the social movements that disrupted existing social structures in the past may have inadvertently created new social categories that reinforce networks and inequalities in the formal justice system.
format	Working Paper
author	Bhupatiraju, Sandeep Chen, Daniel L. Joshi, Shareen Neis, Peter
author_facet	Bhupatiraju, Sandeep Chen, Daniel L. Joshi, Shareen Neis, Peter
author_sort	Bhupatiraju, Sandeep
title	Who Is in Justice? Caste, Religion and Gender in the Courts of Bihar over a Decade
title_short	Who Is in Justice? Caste, Religion and Gender in the Courts of Bihar over a Decade
title_full	Who Is in Justice? Caste, Religion and Gender in the Courts of Bihar over a Decade
title_fullStr	Who Is in Justice? Caste, Religion and Gender in the Courts of Bihar over a Decade
title_full_unstemmed	Who Is in Justice? Caste, Religion and Gender in the Courts of Bihar over a Decade
title_sort	who is in justice? caste, religion and gender in the courts of bihar over a decade
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2021
url	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/384061614260524872/Who-Is-in-Justice-Caste-Religion-and-Gender-in-the-Courts-of-Bihar-over-a-Decade http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35195
_version_	1764482525574463488

Who Is in Justice? Caste, Religion and Gender in the Courts of Bihar over a Decade

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