Legal Education in India: Reflecting on the Past for a Brighter Future

Legal education in India has witnessed radical changes post-independence, perhaps most notably with the establishment of several ‘national law universities’. However, as a country where the sole aim of higher education for over a century was the production of an English-speaking class to facilitate a colonial government’s administration, India continues to lag in legal research and scholarly output. This lag points to systemic problems which, I suggest in this article, can only be addressed through a deeper understanding of the colonial legacy and its dissonance with the goals and values of modern India. Hence, I explore the sustained impact of colonization on our legal education by discussing the changes (or an unfortunate lack thereof) in the years immediately following independence from the British raj. The discussion in this article delves into three specific concerns, namely, the purpose and objectives of legal education, law school governance structures and methods of teaching and evaluation. I also consider possible alternatives to our current system which has long oriented law graduates more towards practice than academia, by briefly reviewing ancient and medieval pedagogical philosophies and practices which prized knowledge, and efforts in other parts of the world to decolonize legal education. Much has already been written globally about how Eurocentric education models can obscure other forms of learning, and in India, about the decolonization of higher education in general. This article seeks to further this inquiry in the specific context of Indian legal education, to identify directions for its future growth and improvement.

Introduction

The history of formal legal education in India can be traced to 1855, when the Government Law College was established in Bombay under British colonial rule. ² The sole aim of such education appears to have been to produce an English-speaking class to facilitate government administration and practice in the courts set up under the colonial scheme for the administration of justice. ³ The landscape of Indian legal education has radically changed since then, particularly post-independence, and perhaps most notably with the establishment of several ‘national law universities’. However, the perception of legal education as primarily involving professional training for legal practice persists. The nation has produced many eminent lawyers but, unfortunately, not as many jurists. ⁴ It also continues to lag in legal research and scholarly output. ⁵ Such a lag points to a wide variety of systemic problems, most of which, I venture to suggest in this article, can be addressed by law schools through a deeper understanding of the history of legal education in the country. ⁶ That is, in order to improve the future of legal education in India, it is necessary to reflect on its past.

With the above goal, this article explores the period soon after India’s independence from colonial rule. I analyse the changes (or an unfortunate lack thereof) that took place in Indian law schools in three specific concerns. These are, the purpose and objectives of legal education, law school governance structures, and methods of teaching and evaluation, explored in Parts I, II and III, respectively. For each of these, my endeavour here is to identify the state of affairs at the brink of independence, the problems which emerged, if any, the steps taken to address them, and how that has shaped the legal education system as it stands today. Thereafter, Part IV conducts a brief comparative analysis with other jurisdictions, as well as with another discipline, to consider if lessons can be drawn from these for the future of Indian education.

Much has already been written about how Eurocentric education models can obscure other forms of learning globally, and in India, about decolonization of higher education. This article seeks to further this inquiry in the specific context of Indian legal education but with the sole aim of identifying directions for its growth and improvement. My motivation is certainly not one of fault-finding or of blaming any one historical event or chapter for all that might be problematic today. Instead, I aim to highlight, through this article, some of the assumptions that underlie the goals, practices and values which guide present-day legal education in India, along with the origins of these assumptions. In writing the article, I have discovered that this can be a delicate balance to strike but I have attempted, in all sincerity, to strive for this balance.

Part I: Purpose and Objectives of Legal Education

As noted in the Introduction, the goal of Indian legal education has almost always been restricted to instrumentalist bases. In other words, the goal has been to produce professionals who are trained to read, apply and practice the law. This emphasis on professional training is possibly a direct outcome of British-style legal education that was meant to cater to the new dispute resolution framework instituted under colonial rule. This proposition is discussed in the following pages, along with the nature of legal research output, and availability of intellectual tools, which are arguably directly connected with both the purpose and the objective of any law school.

Dispute Resolution

One of the most notable impacts and legacies of British rule in India was the transformation of the entire dispute resolution framework. Previously, from ancient times through the Mughal rule in the medieval period, disputes had been resolved largely through mediation, conciliation and settlement relying on community intervention. ⁷ Even though rulers organized courts of justice, there is no record of formal practice of the law, let alone an adversarial system as instituted by the British. ⁸ Even the well-developed Mughal court system in the late eighteenth century existed primarily on paper. Instead, most cases were settled by the people’s popular bodies, that is, panchayats. These councils typically consisted of village elders who resolved disputes based on local usage and customs. ⁹ There was no concept similar to the doctrine of stare decisis, and decisions were made on a case-to-case basis. In short, it was a highly complex and pluralistic system which accounted for the diverse society and its socio-cultural and religious complexities. ¹⁰

To the British, however, the Indian legal system appeared to be ‘chaos’ and ‘vacuum’, in need of a ‘formal’ legal system. ¹¹ And though some Indians soon started to see their history through the imperialistic lens, the first impression of British-established courts was not very positive for the majority of the local populace. Instead of a mechanism for justice delivery, these courts were perceived as another tool for oppression with their high access cost, requirements of technical and specialized knowledge and frequent instances of corruption. ¹² Unfortunately, such impressions of Indian courts and the legal system overall continue to persist even after independence, to date, and are compounded by issues relating to delays in justice delivery and large backlogs.

Other steps taken by the British administration also had unanticipated and undesirable effects. For instance, the colonial application of ‘Hindu law’ and ‘Muslim law’ to personal matters through courts was challenging due to the oversimplified assumption that there was a Hindu law or Muslim law that could be generalized and applied across the entire country. ¹³ Similarly, the civil and criminal laws were a shock to the country’s social and cultural value systems. Previously, panchayats had relied on mediation or other forms of dispute settlement with the goal that societal ties be protected and that people continue to live together peacefully. ¹⁴ Achieving this goal often proved difficult in the British-instituted systems of justice administration that relied on the letter of the law and precedents as understood in the Western construct, without factoring in individual circumstances and potential conciliatory approaches. ¹⁵ Despite these issues, courts established by the British continued to be the main forum of dispute resolution even post-independence. Consequently, legal education in India continues to be aimed at serving these institutions by supplying lawyers trained for adversarial litigation.

As mentioned above, panchayat-based mediation and alternative forms of dispute settlement have traditionally been a part of Indian society and governance. Though disrupted by colonial rule, these mechanisms could have been revived post-independence. Furthermore, attention could have been paid to local practices and customs, which had formed the basis for the aforesaid alternative dispute resolution mechanisms and the neglect of which had caused much societal discontent. Certainly, the Indian Constitution recognizes the presence of a variety of local customs and practices that exist even today and requires that they be given due regard in all matters, including in dispute resolution. ¹⁶ However, this constitutional recognition does not seem to be very evident in the Indian legal landscape today. In the law school curriculum, arbitration and alternative dispute resolution are typically discussed in a brief manner, in many cases all together in one single course, and local practices and customs are almost entirely ignored. Ideally, the constitutional promise should have resulted in an impetus for law students and practitioners to develop a strong foundational understanding of the traditional dispute resolution methods. However, the focused purpose of law schools still remains training lawyers for British-style legal practice.

Types of Research Output

Renowned legal scholar Rajeev Dhavan has argued that the Indian research landscape remains unimpressive for two reasons; first, the tendency to rely entirely on the civil service and parliamentary draftsmen for legal development, and second, the ‘reforming zeal’ where reform is understood in imperial terms. ¹⁷ Both of these reasons are evidently linked to the nation’s colonial past. In other words, such attitudes towards legal research are a continued reflection of the colonial administration which had consolidated powerful functions like law-making, in contrast to the previously pluralistic and customary development of the law. Further, faced with the diversity and pluralism in Indian laws and jurisprudence, the British constantly strived for reform through codification and standardization of the law. ¹⁸ To be sure, the critique here is not intended to be one that overstates or romanticizes pluralism and diverse approaches to the law but instead hopes to serve as a reminder to keep these in mind as the law continues to develop and grow in post-colonial India.

The influence of the saviour lens seeking to codify and standardize the law, and ‘improve’ it through comparisons with the Western world, seems to have persisted after independence. As such, the main purpose of legal research in India too continued to be codification, and very often, legal digest or textbook writing. As a result, the black letter tradition initiated by the British has been preserved, and for the most part, has been insulated and projected by law schools as being politically neutral. ¹⁹ However, the laws consolidated and promulgated under the colonial rule, and the common law principles used in their interpretation, were heavily influenced by British constructs and social norms. ²⁰

Apart from being popular due to the continued influence of colonization, digest writing has been considered important in India as it caters to legal practitioners. Therefore, the contents of these digests and the research leading up to them, are guided by the dispute resolution and court framework prevalent. It typically comprises precedents and does not give adequate attention or credit to interdisciplinary, theoretical or comparative research. ²¹ Closely following behind the popularity and prevalence of textbook or digest-style research has been the reformist or ‘planning commission model’ of research. ²² Named thus because its output was intended to contribute to the work of the planning commissions of India, this approach to legal research focuses on reform and, in the early years post-independence, almost entirely dealt with land and agrarian practices. ²³ In both these approaches, therefore, legal scholarship can be seen as remaining within the grips of legal practice and the instrumentalist approach to education. ²⁴

Intellectual Tools and Nature of Study

Scholar Upendra Baxi has identified several problems that may have contributed to the current lacking state of legal research in India. ²⁵ The list can be reformulated and expressed as relating to two aspects of legal education: (a) institutional problems including limitations of time, law teachers’ perception of their role in the university and in society, as well as the lack of conducive facilities and environment for research; and (b) inadequacy of intellectual tools, foundational literature and scope for interdisciplinary work. ²⁶

While the first set of issues is discussed in Part II below, here we consider the second limitation identified by Professor Baxi, because it has a direct connection with the purpose and objectives of legal education. As discussed above, the primary purpose of law schools in India has been to train lawyers and to prepare them for legal practice premised on the common law system. Therefore, coursework and classrooms have essentially centred around expounding the law and doctrinal patterns. Legal research in India can thus be seen as stuck in a ‘positivistic rut’. ²⁷ Though jurisprudence was one of the only subjects taught in depth when the process of formalizing Indian legal knowledge began, its importance later drowned out under the plethora of other courses including those on Roman law. ²⁸ Today, what remains in most law schools’ curricula is a single, short course on jurisprudence, often supplying students with a half-baked understanding of Western ideas without adequately accounting for their connection and relevance to Indian society and systems. ²⁹ Absent the development of Indian legal thought, jurisprudence and foundational literature during the colonial period, teachers as well as students are mostly unable to perceive substantial connections between the law they study and the social and cultural systems to which they belong. ³⁰ In other words, the lack of development of intellectual tools during the colonial period impacted and decelerated the holistic development of legal research in India.

At this juncture, I note that other social sciences also seem to be plagued by similar challenges, and their research quality and output too have been found to be unsatisfactory. For instance, a couple of decades after independence, the report prepared by a review committee of the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) observed that research in this field was negatively impacted by its micro-level orientation, that is, research conducted without situating it suitably in the ‘contemporary social and national problems’. ³¹ Even though the said report dealt generally with social science as a broad field, its observations were equally applicable to the legal discipline.

These observations are made relative to the pace of advancement of research in other fields such as science and technology, which benefited through relatively greater state support. Therefore, while authors like Baxi attribute the lack of standards of legal research in some part to the ‘preoccupation or the inertia of the Indian law teachers’, ³² the reasons are unlikely to be as simplistic. A further inquiry into the institutional reasons that curtail law teachers’ capacities thus becomes necessary and is dealt with in the subsequent part of this article.

Part II: Law School Governance Structures

Since formal law schools in India were first set up by the British, one may have assumed that the institutional structures would mimic some of the traditional patterns prevalent in England, where at least four distinct institutional forms and governance structures could be seen. ³³ However, the structures and format of legal education in India appear to have been guided almost only by the goal of achieving professional training for students enrolled. Therefore, legal education was offered through part-time and evening classes by law practitioners who were considered best placed to deliver the training. ³⁴ There had also been much debate, soon after independence, about the duration of the law programme; it had been two years since the start of the twentieth century, even though many law teachers considered this inadequate. ³⁵ Nonetheless, it was only when courts stipulated a minimum of three years of legal education as an eligibility condition to practice that law schools modified their curriculum and programmes, starting to move in the direction of full-time university degrees. ³⁶ In these ways, legal education in India, for a long time, differed from higher studies at traditional universities. It was perceived as a professional course, typically offered at law colleges or through correspondence courses, and not at universities. The functioning of these law colleges and their bleak financial conditions were a direct outcome of a lack of linkages with traditional universities, and in turn, impacted the quality of education as well as opportunities for research and intellectual growth. These impacts are discussed below.

Nature of Institutions

Post-independence, law colleges were administered independently of universities and constituted the majority of venues for legal education. These colleges were neither well-regulated to acceptable standards nor well-endowed, and thus the offering of education through them was considered one of the main reasons for the low standards of legal education in India. ³⁷ Some law departments did exist in universities but they were much fewer and less popular in comparison to other social science departments. ³⁸ Similar to governance problems seen in other jurisdictions, the few law departments that existed in universities often suffered from a lack of independence and misalignment of priorities. ³⁹ The autocratic nature of control exercised by university deans prevented faculty members from initiating change or even spending time and resources to understand the alternative methods of teaching and research possible. ⁴⁰

It was in response to these challenges that the idea of single-discipline universities eventually emerged, with the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, being the first such to be established. ⁴¹ These single-discipline ‘national law universities (NLUs)’ have established a strong reputation for themselves today, not only within the country but also across the globe. However, I suggest that two major problems have emerged with such a governance design, potentially indicating that the establishment of single-discipline NLUs may not have been a long-termist solution to the challenges posed by law colleges. Foremost, these universities exist as an intellectual island, given the absence of opportunities to interact with other departments—something that would be possible if law schools were established within the same universities as other departments. This is particularly pertinent now, because it is widely recognized and accepted that legal inquiry cannot be conducted in isolation from other disciplines. ⁴² No doubt, some Indian law schools have proven their academic vigour and are undertaking interdisciplinary research by recruiting suitable faculty members, establishing relevant centres for research and collaborating with other universities. However, possibilities are limited due to the inherently isolated nature of a single-discipline university. ⁴³ The lack of interdisciplinarity has also been noted by the ICSSR and is perhaps one of the key shortcomings of India’s legal research landscape today. ⁴⁴ The second problem posed by single-discipline universities relates to funding and is discussed below.

Financial Challenges

Pre-independence, the expenses involved in running law schools were almost entirely met by student tuition, because the government did not prioritize allocating funds to them. ⁴⁵ Post-independence too, funding of university law departments was markedly lower when compared with other departments. ⁴⁶ Law colleges, on the other hand, were either private with irregular funding or dependent on government grants whose processing was not entirely transparent or straightforward. ⁴⁷ As a national priority, legal education and research were neglected and received less financial support, particularly when compared with the physical sciences. This led Indian law schools to seek support from foreign sources, such as the Ford Foundation, which consequently led to another source of foreign influence beyond the colonial influence, that is, the American model of legal education. ⁴⁸ Methods and practices such as the Langdellian case law method were imported without much regard for distinctive national features. ⁴⁹ Moreover, when the research programme was designed for these law colleges and their research centres, it reflected the concerns of American public law in the 1950s and to some extent, of legal practice in India, but not so much of the Indian society at large. ⁵⁰

On the one hand, the foreign influence described above reflected a constant attempt by Indian law schools (and perhaps India, more generally) to gain external validation. This attitude directed most institutional efforts towards the goal of achieving Western methods, not leaving much space for the development of possible native alternatives. On the other hand, the peculiarities of the society and economy in which these institutions existed prevented them from achieving this goal, and catching up to the idealized Western standards. This can be seen as a double failure of Indian legal education, which continues even today. In this regard, recommendations are now being made for respective state governments to demonstrate greater support by establishing research chairs as well as incentivizing public–private partnerships. ⁵¹ But dependence on such external stakeholders would bring another set of challenges for universities, as states may attempt to foster their own goals through law schools. ⁵² Instead, I suggest that it may be more desirable to accommodate calls made by some law schools to reduce dependence on the state, by setting up a common national-level authority to administer the NLUs and the funds available to them. ⁵³

Here, the global distribution of capital is also important to consider. While research creativity and imagination may be attributable in a large part to factors like genius, logic, spirit or chance, the microenvironment available to researchers is equally important and includes factors like research funding. ⁵⁴ The availability, or lack, of such funding often results in the control and capture of research agendas at a global scale. For instance, today, law journals and educational institutions from some English-speaking states have defined for all others the standards for a good piece of scholarship, for a good scholar or teacher and more generally, for good legal education. ⁵⁵ Defined in selective terms this way, legal education is in danger of becoming globally homogenized. This, however, may not be beneficial for the development and advancement of knowledge for all of humankind. Therefore, Indian law schools (and those in other parts of the world) may benefit more from stepping out of the shadows of the West and paying closer attention to what they can offer uniquely to the global pool of knowledge. For this purpose, it may be relevant to reflect on some of the traditional knowledge and legal history of ancient and medieval India, which is briefly covered in the following part.

Part III: Teaching and Evaluation Methods

In ancient and medieval India, the conceptions of law and religion were not very distinct. To generalize for simplicity, dharma and sharia were understood to guide the standards of conduct and for law and order, under Hindu and Muslim law, respectively. Rules governing such conduct were contained in the Vedas, Upanishads and Quran, or were passed on through customs and traditional practices. ⁵⁶ Instead of substantive law as understood today, only a broad set of duties and general guidance were offered, which was said to lead individuals towards righteous conduct and, ultimately, enlightenment. ⁵⁷ These texts built on the socio-cultural values of India and focused on supporting an environment for individuals to develop a clear mind, balanced emotions and a mature intellect. ⁵⁸ Therefore, in addition to knowledge of the law and cultural traditions, higher education emphasized holistic psychological development such that those studying the law may embrace the intellectual tools necessary to contribute to a prosperous and harmonious society. ⁵⁹ In the West, such an approach to legal education would likely have found support from scholars like J. B. White ⁶⁰ and Immanuel Kant. ⁶¹ However, these goals were not adopted into the colonial education institutionalized in India.

Rote Learning vs Independent Thinking

As highlighted previously, the colonial goal in setting up law colleges was to produce an English-speaking populace to assist in colonial administration. But the more powerful positions such as those of judges were not made available to the locals, who were expected to be subservient. This mindset and educational outcome appear to have continued post-independence in indirect ways, as discussed below.

From records of law classrooms immediately after independence, it appears that independent thinking and research creativity were not encouraged. ⁶² Class meetings were dull, students appeared to ‘sit with folded and submissive minds’, and rote learning was considered important to achieve high grades. ⁶³ It cannot be denied that learning through memorization did take place in India even before its colonization; in fact, the practice dates back to ancient times, when smritis (literally, memories) were one of the most important sources of knowledge, particularly jurisprudence. ⁶⁴ However, teaching and learning practices in the past also encouraged intellectual curiosity and freethinking. This is evidenced by the flourishing of various schools of thought, and critiques of previously well-established vedic laws, along with parallel advancements in religion and philosophy. ⁶⁵ This proposition is further supported by the fact that there was no single authoritative text of vedic or sharia laws, and, relatedly, strict adherence to any one interpretation was never the goal of education. ⁶⁶ However, these practices and attitudes seem to have been lost in the years spent under foreign rule. Instead, similar to some other colonized states, rote learning has become ‘one of the most regrettable aspects of the colonial legacy’ for Indian law schools. ⁶⁷

Lectures and Examinations

In ancient India, learning primarily took place at gurukuls. These were residential schools where the shishya [student] had an opportunity to learn from their guru [teacher] not just substantive knowledge, but also the latter’s perspectives and ideas about the world. ⁶⁸ The guru–shishya relation was revered, but knowledge was relayed in a dialogic fashion. Similarly, in the medieval period, madrasas were the centres of learning, where conversation and dialogue were important parts of the pedagogy, with hadith and sunna [collections of oral traditions guiding Muslim conduct] being integral to the curriculum. ⁶⁹ Teaching at madrasas has even been characterized as ‘a joint venture of the teacher and students (emphasis added)’. ⁷⁰ All of this changed under colonial rule, with the establishment of British-style universities and colleges, and the traditional Indian forms of learning and knowledge exchange were never revived.

Specifically, post-independence, the number of law schools as well as students therein increased substantially. This was not matched by a corresponding increase in the number of full-time teaching staff, which meant that teaching through dialogue was no longer practicable. The resulting lecture-style pedagogy, and rote-learning emphasis mentioned above, led to a decline in the quality of teaching standards and evaluation methods. ⁷¹ Even where some full-time faculty were recruited, beyond the typical part-time appointment of practitioners as lecturers, they did not have adequate resources in terms of time or funding to develop creative pedagogies. Relatedly, these faculty members had very limited time to pursue their own independent legal research and writing.

The problem of paucity of time and resources perhaps drove further the attitude in favour of merely conveying legal rules and doctrine. The premise that ‘one who knows the articulated rules can predict the result of litigation’ became increasingly reinforced, and naturally then, the teacher’s effort was primarily expended towards harmonizing legal rules and concepts instead of valuing and exploring the complexities in the law. ⁷² This might have also been the opening for extensive adoption of the Langdellian case method. Similar trends and emphasis on applying the case law can also be traced in the examination and evaluation methods. With reliance on rote learning and neglect of the value of discussions and independent research, the key method for evaluation in law schools was primarily through closed-book written examinations. Questions were frequently repeated in papers and would often be framed very similarly to the theoretical proposition on which they were based. ⁷³ The exams rarely required much thinking, and teachers often recommended students to consult ready-made answers from textbooks or digests. ⁷⁴ It would not be incorrect to say that this practice continues to exist even today in many law schools, and needs to be reviewed and reconsidered. While closed-book written examinations certainly carry some value, placing them at the heart of the evaluation process does little to encourage students to independently explore and reflect on the law.

Language

Post-independence, English was adopted as one of India’s official languages and became common in central government offices, higher courts and legal documents. Therefore, it remained relevant for law students to learn the law in English even after the end of the colonial rule. However, the high number of entrants to law schools were typically trained in vernacular languages, creating an impetus for teachers to adopt regional languages as their media of instruction and examination. ⁷⁵ Therefore, the tension between the choice of regional languages and English was not easily resolved.

In making a decision on the language to use in law school instruction, several factors were important to consider. For instance, while the adoption of the mother tongue as a medium of instruction in early education has been found to be more advantageous than the use of a second language (and was thus common in India), ⁷⁶ it may not necessarily be beneficial at higher levels. ⁷⁷ This is because higher education, particularly post-globalization, is often expected to meet standards set at a global level and the metrics for comparison require knowledge of a common language. Moreover, with the adoption of English as one of India’s official languages, it became increasingly entrenched in society and acquired a ‘linguistic habitus’. ⁷⁸ In other words, the language had become essential not only for acquiring social capital within the country but also for finding a voice and representing India on a global scale.

While a decision was ultimately made in favour of continuing the use of English, repercussions thereof subsist to date. Many entrants to Indian law schools even today have received all their prior education in regional languages. For these students, it is not only challenging to communicate and learn in English, but so is the task of thinking in the language. ⁷⁹ Similarly, the use of English in law entrance exams proves to be a challenge, creating an access barrier which often only those with more privilege—and having access and exposure to the English-speaking world—are able to cross. These challenges are reflected in the academic records of students during law school, and eventually also in their recruitment and job placement patterns, demonstrating an unfortunate reality for the state of Indian legal education today. Moreover, where part of a law student’s education has been in their vernacular language and their legal education in English—and on legal theories often disconnected from their socio-cultural reality—it could be quite difficult for them to meaningfully contribute to the development of Indian legal research or to engage deeply with legal scholarship across the globe.

Part IV: Some Comparisons

Learning from Other Sciences

While the challenges discussed in the preceding parts plague the field of law and, to some extent, other social sciences, higher education in India has certainly advanced on a variety of fronts, including in the field of medicine. Therefore, just as some Western scholars have made comparisons between legal education methods and those employed in medicine, ⁸⁰ Indian law schools too could learn from their medical counterparts. Presently, medical schools and research departments in India offer an opportunity to study and explore AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha, Homeopathy) systems of healthcare, each of which originated in ancient or medieval times. ⁸¹ While there may still be many problems in Indian medical education, tapping into its history has enabled it to make unique contributions to medical research and practice at the global level. Today, Ayurvedic medical practices are a subject of much attention and research across the world. ⁸² The Indian legal fraternity would be able to make a similarly unique contribution too, if law schools were to offer at least optional courses on customary Indian law, practice and traditions, and encouraged the research of their utility in the present-day context.

Learning from Other Jurisdictions

India is not the only nation dealing with the aftermath of intellectual subjugation under colonial rule. In African countries, for instance, a ‘caged colonial mentality’ is recognized as being responsible for the inadequacy of educational reforms and the continued ‘decapitation of true African educational curricula, identities, cultures, values, ethos and principles’. ⁸³ In Ghana, specifically, foreign sources inspired much of its post-independence legal development. Educational thinking and priorities were often shaped by the American model, and British sources influenced institutional structures as well as material forms like the architecture of their buildings and classrooms. ⁸⁴

Nonetheless, much progress has taken place in these jurisdictions, starting almost immediately after the end of the colonial rule. Unlike India, where scientific progress became the government’s immediate priority because it had made the most promising advancements under the British, Ghana paid greater attention to legal education because it had been neglected the most under colonial rule. ⁸⁵ Moreover, several debates took place in Ghana over the nature of legal education to be offered—whether it ought to be instrumentalist, humanistic based on the American model, or traditionalist which would also continue British forms. ⁸⁶ In contrast, Indian law schools seem to have continued the instrumentalist approach without much debate or discussion, only making some changes following the receipt of financial support from American sources. So much so, that even where reform measures were proposed and debated in India, the ideas on the table only differed on whether legal education ought to ‘train people for the profession of law’ or ensure that law graduates have a clear understanding of the ‘duties which they may be called upon to discharge’. ⁸⁷ It is unsurprising, then, that legal education in India continues to be primarily instrumentalist in nature. Therefore, I suggest that a need exists for the discipline to engage in debates and reconsider the very purpose and objective of legal education, similar to the debates that occurred in Ghana in the mid-twentieth century.

Another learning lesson could perhaps lie in the emerging pluralist legal environment in Latin America. Through collaborations between the academy and community, Western legal thought has been challenged there, and a counter-narrative to historical practices and institutions has emerged, rooted in diversity instead of homogeneity. ⁸⁸ This is a result of a model of legal education that consciously builds on specific political ideologies, in this case, socialist and communist ideas and indigenous resistance. Law programme curricula in Mexico, for instance, acknowledge the violent past and recognize the indigenous peoples as protagonists in the creation of current legal frameworks. ⁸⁹ Such a critical pedagogical model is very different from Indian law schools, where legal history and the political ideologies that shaped the development of the Indian legal system are mostly glossed over, and actions of the colonizers are often explained as being in the interest of modernization of India and Indian law. The Mexican approach, however, seems to have laid the foundations for ‘community-based legal thinking’ and a pluralist perspective, which can be important for deconstructing Western thought and assumptions in the discipline. ⁹⁰ Therefore, this could be an interesting model for India to consider following, especially in view of the diversity and pluralism in the country, as well as the importance attached to community values in the society.

Canada is another jurisdiction where the echoes of colonization continued to be heard in law schools for a long time. Domination of, or enthralment with, foreign influence was noted in dimensions such as the adoption of foreign theoretical approaches and the lack of indigenous sources in teaching methods. ⁹¹ However, steps have been taken in the recent past to explore the special advantages that the country’s unique historical and political past are able to offer, including in the field of aboriginal legal studies. ⁹² While some foreign influence may still persist as the country remains part of the North American legal tradition, scholarly debates have become attentive to the need to draw on local experience and thoughts. Moreover, it is perhaps this attentiveness which contributed to the development of new, integrated conceptions of teaching and understanding law at universities in the country, for example, transsystemia and bijuralism at McGill University. ⁹³ This Canadian project has been compared to the American Langdellian method in terms of its potential for pathbreaking impact in legal education and is an exemplar for law schools in India and elsewhere to explore how their unique, localized advantages can be tapped into. ⁹⁴ Therefore, even if there exists a variety of different legal education systems to compare with and learn from, it would arguably be most influential and beneficial if the Indian legal field were to look internally and reflect critically on its past in order to carve its path ahead.

Conclusion

This study of legal education in India reveals several challenges which continue to exist to date. It appears that many decisions taken in the years immediately following independence were unsuccessful in achieving the goal of delivering the highest quality legal education possible. Moreover, certain other decisions that could have been taken, and debates that could have been engaged in, are conspicuous by their absence. Most pertinently, an important outcome of these debates—an awareness of the legal field’s colonial legacy and identification of related constraints to the development of legal education—has not been achieved. In fact, despite conscious efforts to find Indian sources for this research and inquiry, I found foreign ones to be relatively more attentive to the colonial influence. In other words, it appears that much of the story about the development of Indian legal education continues to be told through a foreign lens. This article, thus, is an endeavour to provide an Indian perspective on the issues and to disclose some of the constraints plaguing the legal field since independence. The concerns identified above as well as suggestions made are intended to lay the ground for debate, discussion and further scholarly inquiry, and to support the reform of Indian legal education.