Creating a Flawed Art of Government: Legal Discourses on Lie Detectors,Brain Scanning,and Narcoanalysis in India

Abstract

In this article, I analyze the legal discourses surrounding three scientific techniques – lie detectors, brain scans, and narcoanalysis – that are currently being used in criminal investigations in India. I focus on two main themes: First, I analyze the significance of these techniques emerging in a context where custodial torture and deaths occur routinely; Second, I explore the role of the courts in assessing the techniques that were presented as an explicit shift in the mode of state power. I suggest that the legal discourses can be read as indicative both of a liberal state’s desire to modernize as well as its specifically postcolonial nature. I argue that contrary to the contention of the courts that the use of these techniques would replace torture in investigations, the edifice defended by the courts actually reflects a flawed attempt at an art of government.