Upendra Baxi: a tribute.

• Author: Twining, William

I first met Upendra Baxi at a conference on law in multilingual societies in Hong Kong in 1992. I had read some of his writings and heard many stories about him. His reputation was intriguing, indeed confusing: on the one hand, an outspoken commentator on the Indian Supreme Court, actively involved in social action, public interest litigation, and law reform; a powerful voice in condemning violence to women, opposing dam projects, and securing justice for the victims of the Bhopal disaster. Yet, in tandem with this, he was a respected scholar of Indian constitutional law and Western jurisprudence and influential on legal education. He had been Director of Research at the Indian Law Institute, and Vice-Chancellor of not one, but two universities, South Gujerat (1982-85) and when we met, still in charge of the University of Delhi. To Western ears a radical activist as Vice-Chancellor is an oxymoron. Small wonder that Julius Stone categorised Baxi as a Marxist natural lawyer. Others have called him a post-modernist with passion. No label quite fits him..

In Hong Kong I immediately recognized him by his mane--the wonderful head of flowing white hair that makes him stand out in any crowd. I approached him, introduced myself, and almost at once asked: "Do you enjoy being a Vice-Chancellor?" He smiled, paused and then said: When the gentlemen of the press asked me what my goals were for the University of Delhi, I replied: 'To make more people smile on campus'". He paused and grinned: "I have succeeded." We immediately became friends. I cannot, of course, swear to the exact words (1).

Upen's sustained interest in theoretical aspects of human rights is quite recent. During the past four years he has been one of my "subjects" in a project to make the ideas about human rights of some "Southern" jurists better known to Anglo-American legal audiences. I have chosen four individuals, mainly for their significance, but also because I know all of them and their work quite well. Francis Deng, Abdullahi An Na'im, Yash Ghai, and Upendra Baxi are common law-trained jurists who have kept in touch with their roots as scholars and activists, but whose writings are accessible to Western audiences. All four have been both scholars and activists each of whom has a quite distinctive perspective on human rights. They all belong to the immediate post-colonial generation in their own countries. This project has the advantages of intimacy and the inhibitions of...