Vrinda Narain

Focus online: Research profile: Vrinda Narain (April 2011)
Download: Publications list [.docx] (April 2013)

Recent media mentions:

• Quebec’s Appeal Court upholds Bill 21, which bans public officials from wearing religious symbols. February 29, 2024
• Montreal Gazette, Saturday March 2 2024.
• CBC News Montreal, March 01 2024. Min 19
• Bill 21 and the recent European Court of Justice ruling on hijab in the workplace - UK Breakfast Show, The Voice of Islam Radio, July 30, 2021
• Iran Releases Homa Hoodfar, a Canadian-Iranian Professor Held Since June - NY Times, September 26, 2016
• Interview about Quebec's Bill 62 - Montreal CBC Radio Daybreak show with Mike Finnerty, October 24, 2017 (13:31 on SoundCloud)

Biography

Professor Vrinda Narain’s research and teaching focus on constitutional law, social diversity and feminist legal theory.

She is the author of two books: Reclaiming the Nation: Muslim Women and the Law in India (University of Toronto Press, 2008) and Gender and Community: Muslim Women's Rights in India (University of Toronto Press, 2001).

Professor Vrinda Narain is the 2017 recipient of the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice’s Charles D. Gonthier Research Fellowship.She was Associate Dean, Academic, at the Faculty of Law from 2016 to 2019.

Community involvement

• Women Living Under Muslim Laws executive board member (www.wluml.org)
• President, Executive Committee, South Asian Women’s Community Centre, Montreal (SAWCC)

Education

• DCL (McGill University) 
• LLM (McGill University) 
• LLB Faculty of Law, (Delhi University) 
• BA (Hons) History (Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University) 

Employment

• Associate Dean, Academic, Faculty of Law, McGill University, 2016-2019
• Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, McGill University, 2015-present
• Associate Professor, Faculty of Law & Faculty of Arts, McGill University, 2015-2016
• Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law & Faculty of Arts, McGill University, 2009-2015
• Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, McGill University, 2008-2009
• Boulton Fellow, Faculty of Law, McGill University, 2007-2008
• Visiting Research Fellow, Asian Institute, Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto, 2006-2007

Areas of Interest

Constitutional law, feminist legal theory, social diversity and law, postcolonial studies and law, critical race theory.

Media

July 12, 2016, Vrinda Narain spoke with CBC's Mike Finnerty on The Current regarding the indictement of Canadian-Iranian scholar Homa Hoodfar, who has been detained in Evin prison since March 2016. Her segment runs from 2:00-9:15.

October 14, 2014, Interview [.mp3] on CJAD's The Exchange with Dave Kaufman on Malala Yousafzai receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.

January 30, 2014, Interview with Global News on Canadian Muslim hipsters defying stereotypes.

Publications

Books

• Vrinda Narain and Mona Tajali, Women and Constitutions in Muslim Contexts. © 2024 Revival Press Limited. All rights reserved.
• Vrinda Narain, Reclaiming the Nation: Muslim Women and the Law in India. University of Toronto Press, 2008, 224 pp.
• Vrinda Narain, Gender and Community: Muslim Women’s Rights in India. University of Toronto Press, 2001, 202 pp. Nominated for the Canadian Women’s Studies Association Book of the Year Award, 2003.

Refereed journal articles

• Vrinda Narain “The Taliban’s war on women in Afghanistan must be formally recognized as gender apartheid” published on The Conversation.
• Vrinda Narain, “What's Love Got to Do with It? Anti-Love Jihad Laws and the Othering of Muslims in India”, published in the UCLA Journal of Gender and Law.
• Vrinda Narain, “Difference and Inclusion: Reframing Reasonable Accommodation,” Supreme Court Law Review, 2nd Series (2021) Vol 102 pp 77-104.
• Vrinda Narain, "Reconciling Constitutional Law, Gender Equality and Religious Difference Lessons from Shayara Bano, India’s Triple Talaq Decision," The Asian Yearbook of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law Vol 5 (2021) pp 345-377.
• Vrinda Narain, "Quebec’s Bill 62: Legislating Difference," Columbia Journal of Race and Law Vol. 9:1 (2018) pp 53-93.
• Vrinda Narain, "Postcolonial Constitutionalism i India: Complexities & Contradictions," Winter 2016. 25 Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal 107.
• Link to Lexis Nexis excerpt.
• Vrinda Narain, “Taking “Culture” out of Multiculturalism”, December 2013, Canadian Journal of Women and the Law.
• LINK: Taking 'Culture' out of Multiculturalism [.pdf]
• Vrinda Narain. "Muslim Women's Equality in India: Applying a Human Rights Framework." Human Rights Quarterly 35.1 (2013): 91-115.
• LINK: Muslim Women's Equality in India: Applying a Human Rights Framework
• Vrinda Narain, “Water as a Fundamental Right: A Perspective from India”, Vermont Law Review, 2010 Vol. 34 No. 4, pp. 917-926.
• LINK: Water as a Fundamental Right: A Perspective from India
• “Muslim Women, Family Law and Equal Citizenship in India”, Journal for Semitics, Vol. 16, No. 2, 2007, pp. 498-517.
• “Muslim Women’s Rights and the Accommodation of Difference”, University of Southern California Review of Law and Women’s Studies, Vol. 1, Fall 1998, pp. 43-72.

Other refereed articles and book chapters

• Vrinda Narain, "Private Inequality and Public Religion: A Comment on Shayara Bano, India’s Triple Talaq Decision" in Muhammad Khalid Masud and Hana Jalloul Muro, eds, Sharia Law in the Twenty-First Century (London: World Scientific Europe, 2022).
• Vrinda Narain, “Difference and Inclusion: Reframing Reasonable Accommodation” in Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice, ed, The Charles D. Gonthier Fellowship 20th Anniversary Collection (Toronto: LexisNexis Canada, 2021) pp 77-104.
• Vrinda Narain, “Difference and Inclusion: Reframing Reasonable Accommodation” in Richard Albert, Paul Daly, and Vanessa A. MacDonnell eds., The Canadian Constitution in Transition (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2019).
• Vrinda Narain, “Law, Gender, and Nation: Muslim Women and the Discontents of Legal Pluralism in India” in Jocelyne Cesari and Jose Casanova, eds., Islam, Gender, and Democracy in Comparative Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017)
• LINK: Islam, Gender, and Democracy in Comparative Perspective
• Vrinda Narain, “Transformatory Jurisprudence: The Supreme Court of India and Maintenance for Muslim Women”, in Leela Fernandes, ed., Handbook on Gender in South Asia Forthcoming (London: Routledge, 2014).
• LINK: Routledge Handbook of Gender in South Asia (Hardback)
• Vrinda Narain, “Critical Multiculturalism” in Beverly Baines, Daphne Barak-Erez and Tsvi Kahana, eds., in Feminist Constitutionalism: Global Perspectives (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2012). View chapter as PDF Chapter 20 – “Critical Multiculturalism”, pp. 377-392.

Research reports

• Vrinda Narain, “The Potential of Human Dignity: Women in Religious Contexts”, p. 47-52, in Dignity: A Special Focus on Vulnerable Groups, F. Mégret & F. Hoffman eds. (Agenda for Human Rights: a Swiss Initiative, Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, 2009).

Non-refereed articles

• Book Review, Hilal Elver, The Headscarf Controversy, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, forthcoming, 2013.
• Book Review, Bipasha Baruah, Women and Property in India (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010), Canadian Journal of Women and the Law: 2012. Vol. 24 Issue 2, p. 496.
  LINK: Women and Property in Urban India (review) pp. 496-501 | DOI: 10.1353/jwl.2012.0018 Download PDF (46 KB)

Media and blogs

• August 15, 2021, “The world must not look away as the Taliban sexually enslaves women and girls” in The Conversation; translated in French (Québec), French (France) and Spanish; reprinted in several international media sources, including The National Post, Outlook India, Huffington Post, The Wire.
• May 19, 2021, "Women negotiators in Afghan/Taliban peace talks could spur global change" in The Conversation.
• Bill 21 and the recent European Court of Justice ruling on hijab in the workplace  - UK Breakfast Show, The Voice of Islam Radio, July 30, 2021
• June 13, 2017. "Indian Court Recognizes Rivers as Legal Entities" I-CONnect, the blog of the International Journal of Constitutional Law and of ContitutionMaking.org.
• July 12, 2016, Vrinda Narain spoke with CBC's Mike Finnerty on The Current regarding the indictement of Canadian-Iranian scholar Homa Hoodfar, who has been detained in Evin prison since March 2016. Her segment runs from 2:00-9:15.
• October 14, 2014, Interview [.mp3] on CJAD's The Exchange with Dave Kaufman on Malala Yousafzai receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.
• January 30, 2014, Interview with Global News on Canadian Muslim hipsters defying stereotypes.
• September 13, 2013, CTV interview (video 2:41) with Toronto news anchor Marcia Macmillan, in response to the Indian Court sentence in the infamous gang rape and murder case of last December.
• Prof. Narain was quoted in The Week, July 2, 2013: Will India finally stop men from throwing acid on women?
• Interview on CBC The National, February 16, 2012 on the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision on Religious Freedom in S.L. v. Commission scolaire des Chênes, 2012 SCC 7, [2012] 1 S.C.R. 235. cbc.ca/news/canada/quebec-students-must-take-ethics-religion-course-1.1239053