Indian students to mug up on legal rights of muggles and elves

A UNIVERSITY in Calcutta will use the examples of muggles and elves in the Harry Potter books to teach students about prejudice and jurisprudence.

The National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS) is offering a course that encourages students to discuss legal aspects of the fictional universe created by JK Rowling – including institutional bias against house elves and muggles – that could be equated to real life, such as caste and workplace discrimination laws.

The course, entitled “An interface between fantasy fiction literature and law: special focus on Rowling’s Potterverse”, will be a non-compulsory module for students taking law degrees. Shouvik Kumar Guha, the module’s tutor, told India Today TV: “This course is meant to be more of an experiment. It will take both me and the students out of our comfort zones.

“In law schools, people get a very

‘The Ministry of Magic uses its representatives to torture children for daring to tell the truth’

specific set of subjects. The curriculum revolves around the hard letter of the law, case laws, etc. Given the fact that this course lasts about five years, students also get bored.”

According to a statement by the NUJS: “In Potterverse, for example, the Ministry of Magic uses its representatives to torture children for daring to tell the truth, and imprisons or even executes its citizens without the benefit of due process of law.

“Freedom of the press in Potterverse is curtailed, and the major newspaper ‘The Daily Prophet’ is used to spread propaganda.”

Rowling’s series of novels about the boy wizard are immensely popular in India and have been translated into more than 30 regional languages.

In 2012, a similar course at Delhi University had to close because of oversubscription.

There are Harry Potter-related courses at many universities, including Yale in the US and Durham in the UK.