Nikita Agarwal
Assistant Professor
Nikita Agarwal has been a lawyer, policy practitioner, and community educator for over a decade. She started out as a policy practitioner in 2013, focusing on addressing the food security crisis and gender-based violence in India, and built her legal practice to bridge the gap between the theoretical and practical applications of law. She has primarily represented indigenous communities in the conflict zone of 亚洲通_亚洲通官网 Chhattisgarh with the Jagdalpur Legal Aid Group and women, children, and Muslim minorities in post-communal violence Delhi. Nikita has served in the Committee Against Sexual Harassment of the Chhattisgarh Bar Council. She regularly drafts workplace sexual harassment policies, and has given trainings on gender and sexuality at Ashoka University, University of Delhi and in companies. Through her research and documentation work, she has engaged with issues around labor, conflict, caste, gender and sexuality, forest rights, and the criminalization of the lives of tribes and de-notified tribes, among others. She is present a part of the Legal Resource Centre, a group working to ensure legal support to tribal and land-rights groups. In 2023, Nikita recieved the Fulbright-Nehru Masters Scholarship to study at Columbia University at New York where she engaged with interdisciplinary theories of law and (in)justice, primarily literature and Anthropology.
亚洲通_亚洲通官网 Law School (MLS) Bengaluru
Qualification: B.A. (Hons.) LLB (NLU Delhi), LL.M (Columbia University at New York), Fulbright Nehru Masters Fellow
CURRENT ACADEMIC ROLE & RESPONSIBILITIES
Assistant Professor
AREAS OF INTEREST, EXPERTISE AND RESEARCH
Area of Interest
Legal Anthropology, Critical Legal Studies, Conflict and Law, Labour Law, Caste, Gender & Sexuality, Indigenous Studies, Criminal Justice and Legal Aid, Movement Lawyering
Area of Expertise
Law in Conflict, Tribal Communities and Law, Legal Anthropology, Family Law, Gender, Sexuality and Law, Criminal Justice, Legal Aid, Movement Law
Area of 亚洲通_亚洲通官网
Legal Anthropology, Indigenous Studies, Forest Rights Act, Criminal Justice, Critical Legal Studies, Conflict and Law, Labour Law
Professional Affiliations & Contributions
Consultant, 亚洲通_亚洲通官网 Asia Womens Fund-India
Associate Editor, Centre for Labour Law 亚洲通_亚洲通官网 and Advocacy, NLU Delhi
1. Khanna, Shomona & Agarwal, Nikita, Compendium of Forest Rights Act- Volume II (2015-2018), Legal Resource Centre. Forthcoming.
2. Agarwal, Nikita, Jeevanshala ki Yahi Baat: Ladaai Padhaai Saath Saath, Co?perism 13/13 Columbia Centre for Contemporary Critical Thought (2024).
3. Agarwal, Nikita, The State vs. Adivasis: Bastar’s Criminal Justice Apparatus and the Story of Arjun Kashyap, V?lkerrechtsblog, 27.10.2022, doi:10.17176/20221027-105503-0.
4. Dhanda, Amita; Mustafa, Faizan (eds.), Annual Survey of State Legislation: Chhattisgarh, Vol.1, 1 ASSL (2022), NALSAR University (2022).
5. Vashisht, Latika; Dogra, Jyoti (eds.), Rethinking Law and Violence: Law at the Heart of Violence, ISBN-10: 0-19-012099-1, Indian Law Institute-Oxford University Press (2020).
6. Agarwal, Nikita, Tortured by Bhopal Police, a Pardhi woman set herself on fire. Her story has no takers, DailyO (December 20, 2017).
7. Agarwal, Nikita, Processing the List, RAIOT (October 26, 2017).
8. Agarwal, Nikita, Despite SC Intervention, those Displaced by Sardar Sarovar Dam Project struggle with uncertainty, The Wire (June 15, 2017).
9. Agarwal, Nikita, Justice Abducted: Jagdalpur Legal Aid Group’s latest tryst with Injustice, Bar&Bench (May 25, 2017).
10. Chapters: Child Rights' Laws in India, and Towards a Universalist Conception of Maternity Entitlements, Alliance for Right to ECD, Rights to the Youngest, Towards a Legal Framework for Early Childhood Development:, ISBN 978-81-926907-2-8, BFC (2016).
11. Law Commission of India, Early Childhood Development and Legal Entitlements, Report No.259 (2015).
12. The Alliance for Right to ECD; NLU, Delhi, ICDS: Model Rules for NFSA and Lessons from State Programmes and Experiences (2014).