Legal muggles to study potterverse problems

No doubt there must be a lot of people exercised over the enslavement of house elves and discrimination against werewolves — especially given the relevance of Harry Potter’s universe in today’s fraught world.

So, the initiative of the National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS) in Kolkata to launcha course on the “interface between fantasy fiction literature and law” with a special focus on the Potterverse from this December should stand its fourth- and fifth-year students in good stead when they begin their careers in the world of muggles.

As all students who wanted to enrol for that course needed to have read the entire series by J K Rowling at least twice, intense immersion and interaction based on incidents from the books at Hogwarts, West Bengal branch, this winter are only to be expected.


The Potter books do point to the limitations of laws and institutions in that fantasy world, with dark despair, abuse of power and extra-legal actions forming the backdrop for the wizard’s adventures.

However, whereas Harry and his well intentioned friends can resort to spells to alleviate miseries, legal muggles — which is what NUJS students presumably are, no matter how juridically talented — will have to depend only on their knowledge of law to help the real life-equivalents of house elves and werewolves rather than any magic wand.