Music, arts and Harry Potter: How top law colleges are using films and fiction to teach legal concepts

NEW DELHI: Every year at least one course connected with film and law is offered at the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bengaluru.

“We have had electives on film and law, courses on narratives heavily drawing on films, and even courses on theatre and law. This has been a consistent feature for the last four years,” said Saurabh Bhattacharjee, associate professor of law and dean - academics at NLSIU.

He explained how cinema has become a key teaching tool: "We have used cinema as a matrix for analysis and comparison, incorporating both Indian and world cinema to explore how art and filmography can help understand legal processes.”

Increasingly, films, art, and books are being embraced as teaching aids in top law schools. The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (WBNUJS or NUJS) Kolkata has an entire series on Harry Potter, launched in 2018. Shouvik Guha, professor and founder of the Centre for Law, Literature, and Popular Culture at NUJS uses the fictional wizard and his world to teach legal concepts, encouraging his students to imagine how legal systems might work in “alternate universes”, in this instance, “Potterverse”.

Perhaps not at the same scale but forms of art – music, theatre and puppetry – are often discussed as ways of explaining laws and legal systems. This forms a component, albeit a small one, in Nidhi Suman’s Bachelor of Social Work - LLB programme at Gujarat National Law University. Students are taught to “curate” music and lyrics and to use them to convey legal concepts and rights to the public. She hopes to pursue a career in public policy.

‘Potterverse’ in legal courses

Guha has been at the forefront of integrating legal education with art and culture. His pioneering initiatives at NUJS include courses that connect law with literature, popular culture, films, and media. “The purpose was to actually help students understand the nuances of law and what purpose it serves,” he explained. “These courses are designed to bridge the gap between the theoretical aspects of law and their practical implications for society.”

And according to students, the approach works. Swagata Mukhopadhyay, now employed at a Mumbai law firm, took the Harry Potter course as part of her LLM studies at NUJS, completed in June, 2024.

“It taught us how a society can normalise second-class citizenship and can normalise discrimination against people on the assumption that they are simply lesser than or they are not deserving of rights. And how we should be wary of these ideas. That is something you can really take away from the Potterverse,” she said, adding, “the other thing is how much law relies on enforcement, and how the bureaucracy and who you have in power shapes your experience with the law as much as the letter of the law itself.”

Guha’s interest also extends to exploring how literature impacts legal writings and decisions and these initiatives and concepts have crystallised into the formal centre.

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Films, novels: Not just a teaching tool

At NLSIU Bengaluru, Bhattacharjee said faculty members employ diverse techniques, such as examining films from different eras, “to understand the socio-political and economic shifts reflected in cinema. For instance, films from the 1950s and 60s are compared with those from the ’80s, ’90s, and the post-liberalisation period to explore the intersection of law, development, and policy”.

“We’ve also had courses where filmography is used directly as a tool for analysis,” added Bhattacharjee, emphasising that these innovative methods enrich the academic experience by connecting the abstract concepts of law with media.

Also at NUJS, Ruchira Goswami, an assistant professor, has developed courses such as “Gender and Law” and “Film and Law”, which analyse how films influence public perceptions of lawyers and the legal system. Here, films are not just tools to help explain laws but are themselves subjects of analysis. Movies like Damini and Jolly LLB, along with modern web series, are used to study the connection between law and cinema. Several law schools now offer programmes that mix art and culture studies with legal education in varying ratios.

Law, art, culture

NUJS has introduced unique approaches, including fantasy fiction, said Guha, adding that West Bengal's culturally rich environment further enhances the relevance of such initiatives. His law school has partnered with foreign universities, such as University of Edinburgh and several in the US to explore how law is portrayed in comics and graphic novels and other media. These collaborations focus on themes like vigilante justice, human rights, and gender issues.

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Law courses: Art in outreach

Not just within the classroom. Like Suman’s group uses music and other art forms, the NUJS Legal Aid Society also employs theatre and visual storytelling in public legal education.

“In India, there is a gap in how the law is perceived and how it functions. By integrating folk traditions and accessible media, we can demystify legal concepts for rural and urban audiences alike,” Taposh Das, convenor of NUJS Legal Aid Society said.

He highlighted successful community outreach programmes that use plays and puppet shows to raise awareness about legal issues like human trafficking and child rights. NUJS has employed comics to talk about workplace harassment laws or constitutional rights and it has a dedicated studio to produce podcasts that demystify laws for the general public.