Presently pursuing her BA LLB (Hons.) from Symbiosis Law School, Hyderabad, Amulya Anil is a writer, social worker, Research Director, Assistant Strategist, and the list goes on. She describes herself as a self-motivated law student who believes in multidimensional, interactive and pragmatic learning. Here’s her interview with Desi Kaanoon-
Q. You are currently serving as the Additional Executive Director of The Juris En Project (The Colloquiums). What is it about and what are roles and responsibilities?
A. The Juris En Project is a brainchild of the Indian Society for Artificial Intelligence and Law. The organization/ project focuses on imparting a multidimensional approach towards Artificial Intelligence Diplomacy and basic legal relevances. The project hosts a series of colloquiums which usually are a combination of an international panel discussion and paper presentations. My role as an Additional Executive Director involves handling the communications between the Organising Team, the Resource Persons, and the participants. Further, the editing of the book of abstracts is overlooked by me, subsequently followed by the review of the final papers. We focus on qualitative quantity and therefore we work together towards making our vision statement a reality. However, the most important duty I hold is strategising the next ventures with the team. At this point, it would be evident to say that strategising also includes acceptance of customer feedback subject to rationality and logic. Therefore, when I work for an organization, I deem my official work profile to be my definite operating procedure, but that however doesn’t stop me from pitching my inputs in the other areas too.
Q. Having previously assisted the Karnataka State Police, Shimoga as an Assistant Strategist and Research Analyst, you had introduced the Police Cadet Project which received a commendation from the then Superintendent of Police. To what extent was teamwork instrumental in achieving this? What do recruiters look for in a candidate to work as a research analyst?
A. Faith in collaboration, diplomacy, humility, mutual respect, and inquisitiveness are the facets of interpersonal skills. While each of us is ambitious enough to stick on to our ideals and goals, it is also equally important to be able to negotiate them for a larger good. The Police Cadet Project was a nation-wide project which I was working on and had a coverage of almost 60 schools per district. Working in an atmosphere that is quite different from that of a civilian was an enriching and engaging experience. I was working with senior officials who were ahead of me both in terms of professional authority and age. And interestingly, I also had to coordinate with members who are older to me but not ahead of me in terms of professional authority. It’s situations like these that seem to be a challenge. There is a need to accept each other’s suggestions and also be open to criticism irrespective of the age, work profile, or hierarchical positions. This dignity of labour we adopted was one of the key ingredients which led to the inception of the project. If it was not the importance of bestowed to the spirit of teamwork, the police team wouldn’t have been generous enough to consider 16 years old me in the project. Therefore, teamwork is important in making any project successful. This teamwork and inter-dependency is what makes people stand up for you
Research is a domain that demands knowledge, wisdom, clarity of thought, and courage. However, there is a fallacy that the higher the number of publications, the better is the credibility of the researcher. Unfortunately, this ideology is an illusion. A good researcher needs to have the courage to formulate his inferences and ideologies and not resort to mere paraphrasing, it is important to be patient and invest a reliable amount of time in any research and base your arguments on primary data and not commentaries or others’ opinions. And above all, the researcher must be able to conclude logically which relevant substantiations, which is free of any personal biases. Hence, research is more about quality, originality, and its scope.
Q. What do you find the most challenging part of a law school?
A. On a personal note, I find conventionality and resistance towards persuasion to be the most challenging parts of law school. Conventionality here represents the fact that the legal education system often forces a law student to provide his judgments and analysis based on age-old precedent. If the persuasion skills and legal temperament is not encouraged, it would destroy the very purpose of having a system of Judicature. It is therefore important to pay due attention to the flow of the arguments and justifications and not mere conclusions while answering an academic legal problem. Unfortunately, these legal questions become an important criterion for numerical grading which is then directly linked with the credibility of the student’s performance. Apart from this, there is a preconceived notion that a long Curriculum Vitae would ensure good placements. However, in reality, it’s not the Curriculum Vitae alone but the work efficiency and pragmatic applicability that matters. And a student can prove his work efficiency by practical performances which are not restricted to the walls of their educational institutions. i.e., you may not necessarily have to consider winning a moot competition. The fact that you have been imparting legal awareness in the rural civilian areas which have delivered affirmative results must be construed with equal significance. To cut it short, while it is important to learn the basics and the interpretations of Law through the academic curriculums, a law student also needs to break the barriers and accept the dynamism and multi-approaches towards law.
Q. Tell us something about your initiative-Internationalism.
A. Internationalism is a personification of legal innovation through entrepreneurship. We are a research-think tank trying to focus on International Relations and International Law. We also host the series “Global Hint” and “Indian Integrals” which feature proficient speakers’ inputs and approaches towards a specific area of interest. We are committed to publishing policy briefs and position statements. We aspire to reach a larger section of society by equipping the population with basic knowledge on research methodology and International Relations through our Internship Programmes. As a Chief Knowledge Officer of the Organization, there is an immense responsibility on me to keep learning the laws and the recent legal developments and also guide the interns and the juniors in the team. With the support of Abhivardhan and Aryakumari, the founding Chief Executive Officer and the Chief Operating Officer respectively, we also managed to come up with many publications that are available on our official websites.
Q. It is often found that many students get involved with charitable organisations and philanthropic work because of the spotlight. Having been conferred with the Best Active Citizen Award by Children’s Movement for Civic Awareness, what is your take on this?
A. I was conferred with the Best Active Citizen Award by the Children’s Movement of Civic Awareness when I was 13 years old. Having been engaged in Civic Awareness Movements and the NGOs since the early years, I would confidently say that there is some amount of struggle that goes into social service because even when you aspire to be a volunteer in the perimeters of social service (which is mostly institutionalised in the present) you still have to fight corruption, authority, prejudices, and flawed communication systems. While it is true that charitable engagements are mostly adopted to gain popularity in the present day, it is also true that such an act is capable of helping someone who is really in need. Irrespective of the intentions of the social servant, if at the end of the day the society is benefitted, there are no major objections we could hold except a few contentions based on ethics. However, the problem arises when the popularity sought is an eyewash without the delivery of practical results. It is a complex situation to curb, but it could be said that these instances could be discouraged if the society starts perceiving social service as a responsibility bestowed upon every human rather than considering it to be a dutiful act of only a few which demands popular coverage. The response of the civil society as a whole is of prime importance in such circumstances.