Legal Pluralism

A Hindu, a Muslim and a Christian couple in the same Mumbai building can each be governed by an entirely different law of marriage and succession, while a village panchayat nearby resolves a land dispute through its own customary process a state court never formally authorised. India does not run on one single law for everyone — it runs on several coexisting legal orders at once, and that is exactly what legal pluralism names.

In two minutes

Legal pluralism is the coexistence of more than one legal system or source of legal authority within the same society, and India is a striking example — state law operates alongside religious personal laws, customary and tribal law, and informal dispute-resolution bodies, all recognised or tolerated to different degrees.

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