Lawrence Liang | Photo: Shaz Mohd

Manipal: Lawrence Liang is a legal researcher and the one of the founders of Alternative Law Forum (ALF). He was one of the experts at the Manipal Media Student’s Convention (MMSC) held at Hotel Valley View on the 18th and 19th April.

Q: What is Alternative Law Forum? With what intention was it started?
A: Law schools produce a lot of corporate lawyers. We need to reform legal practice as the legal situation is very bleak in India. It’ll take over 360 years for the number of cases that are backlogged to be solved. What is a ‘question of right’ is now a ‘privilege’.  Alternative Law Forum provides legal support for people marginalised on the basis of class, race, caste, gender, disability or sexuality. It is a multi-disciplinary forum where we teach, do research and do litigation for those who can’t afford lawyers. Why is it that only the rich afford good lawyers? The lawyers appointed by the government for those who don’t have any are not interested in their cases. We at ALF want to provide the same quality that top law firms provide to the people who can’t afford lawyers.   

Q: What are your views on piracy?
A: It is complicated to summarise what I feel about it in one sentence. I completely endorse and support piracy. What it does is, it opens out a world of knowledge and culture.

Q: Why do you think that there is such a high rate of piracy in India and other parts of Asia?
A: It is simple and straight forward. It is because of the sharp inequalities in our society and there is a constant production of desired movies. A multiplex ticket on a weekend costs around Rs 200 and the average income is Rs 14.  We have both the richest and the poorest people on earth. I can have a 40 billion dollar film on an Rs 40 DVD. In India, we have an economy of recycling; for example instead of throwing a mobile away they give it to someone else and that person gives it to someone else. So on and so forth. The pirate market has an informal economy of job generation. The industry thinks that piracy equals lost sale which implies loss of revenue, which is completely not true.

Q: What is your book “A Guide to Open Content Licences” about?
A: It is a book which guides artists, musicians, on how to use different practices like open content licences to bring out their work into the public domain. If you take an average musician, he doesn’t make much. You don’t make money unless you are Madonna or Britney Spears.

Q: Are you planning to write any more books? If so what is it about?
A: Yes I’m writing a book called “Kanoon Ke Haath Bahut Lambe Hote Hai”. It’s about how ideas of legalities come from watching popular cinema. It will deal with how Hindi films can serve as legal texts.

Q: But how can cinema be used as a legal text? Isn’t it fiction?
A: Well I believe in the Calvin and Hobbes philosophy in life. To Calvin, Hobbes is someone who he can talk to and discuss anything with. But to outsiders Hobbes is just a stuffed tiger. Stories are not about real versus imaginary. You learn through stories. In films you get the ideas of how justice works. How do you know what a court room looks like if you haven’t actually entered one? You get a sense of how it is through watching movies. It is narrative justice. When you watch a movie there is a relation that is happening between you and the text.

Q: Is there a rise or fall in the number of people taking up law?
A: There is a rise in the number but a decline in the reason that they join it.  

Q: What made you choose law as a profession?
A: Nothing, I just talked a lot. One thing I loved was reading. The ability to be in a profession which constantly made intellectual demands also was a reason. You get to see life at its frailest. This is something you get to see only in two profession i.e. medicine and law.

Sub-edited by Ruchika Sharma