Discourse Analysis and Feminist Jurisprudence: Dissecting Goolrokh Gupta for Judicial Reforms

This article embarks on feminist critical discourse analysis of the Goolrokh Gupta case to propose a strategy for combating majoritarianism and socio-religious discrimination by the Parsi Zoroastrian community against Parsi women who have married non-Parsis. The article analyses judicial precedents to identify existing discourse in the final judgement of the Gujarat High Court, the interim order of the Supreme Court and other relevant materials. It proceeds to classify the discourse into dominant grand narratives and feminist counter narratives and highlights how there is a disjunct from the lived experiences of Parsi women. The conventional strategies for addressing this disjunct are elucidated and their lacunae highlighted, and a new strategy proposed: reframing the dispute as between equivocal groups rather than an individual pitted against an unequivocal community. The article concludes by hoping for the creation of more inclusive judicial decisions by utilising the proposed strategy in tandem with existing strategies.