western law and the love of the lie

Dr. Suneel Mehmi (LLB, LLM, PhD & Published Academic Author in Law and Literature)

05.10.2026

In my analysis of King Solomon’s legal judgement, which you can download as a short booklet on my ‘About’ page, I wrote about how this legal icon was a liar. How the law is supported by lies. Fiction. Untruth. Sleight of hand and deception. The legal hero of the West is a liar. The lie, it will be noted, was to go against a woman. And for exposing this truth? They had no place for me in Western academia. Funnily enough, in a world of stench and corruption, the truth teller and the one who cares for justice is not supported.

The judgement of Solomon is not just the root of Western law. The figure of the King Solomon legal hero permeates the whole jurisprudential structure. This is the inheritance of Western law. We can see it in the fictional legal heroes of the West, from Victorian times to more modern literature. The legal heroes of the West are all liars. And the lies oppose women. The law is a misogynistic lie.

Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Impersonates Charles Darney to deceive the French legal system and to have himself executed by guillotine. Here we have this lie which actually subverts the legal process and justice. Note that the lie thwarts a woman, Madame Defarge who thirsts for justice and revenge against the class that Charles Darnay represents. The lie is an evasion of the justice of a woman. And the result? Sydney Carton is celebrated in Western culture as is his final speech in the novel. He even figures as a hero in philosophy, as a ‘secular Christ figure’.

Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

This supposed legal inspiration lies at the end of the novel so that Boo Radley is not imprisoned for killing Bob Ewell. Rather unconvincingly, he agrees that Bob Ewell fell on his knife. Note that Bob Ewell represents his daughter who lied to make up a rape case to prosecute an innocent, Tom Robinson. Bob Ewell represents a woman’s voice and place in the law (where she can only be seen as a liar). Therefore, one can surmise that the lie of Atticus Finch (The Father in the novel, and The Father as The Law) is attempting to oppose a ‘lying’ women’s justice with its own lies. There is a competition for the law, for untruth and deception. The concept is of woman as deception and the law wants to be deception. And the result? Atticus is an inspiration for men to go to law school in this legal culture of injustice and lies.

Elle in ‘Legally Blonde’ by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith

Elle impersonates a lawyer to get her friend Paulette’s dog back from Rufus. She makes made up legal threats to Rufus to intimidate him and presents a fiction about common-law marriage and property rights. Obviously, Elle is a woman law student that becomes a lawyer in the movie and she is representing a woman, Paulette. The misogyny of the law is embodied in Elle: she is a lying woman. She is deception. Obviously, Elle takes on misogyny and prosecutes Chutney Windham in the murder trial, who she exposes as a liar (since, according to legal logic, women are liars and woman herself is deception). And the result? Elle is an inspiration for women to go to law school in this legal culture of injustice and lies.

How can you expect any justice in a legal culture which celebrates the lie and liars? How can you expect any justice in a culture of legal misogyny? These are the legal heroes of this culture. These are the fictional characters that are driving students to go to law school in the first place, as anyone that knows anything about Elle and Atticus would know. This is what this culture worships. The lack of reality in law. The lack of reality in personhood. The covering up of the truth to achieve an end.

freedom is always a question

05.10.2026

Freedom is always a question. Am I free? What is freedom? How can I be free?

Yet how many of us ask this question? The West likes to trumpet how it is ‘free’. That it has a ‘free’ market and that is it’s greatest strength. This is an empty boast. Our lives are locked into this capitalistic and exploitative financial structure. Every decision has to be made based on getting money in this economy. Conformity reigns. As Rousseau observed, we are born free but everywhere we look we are in chains. As Blake said, the mind-forged manacles permeate society.

How then, can one become free? How then can one become the Revolutionary?

Action is curtailed and controlled. Thought is curtailed and controlled. There is a system of order that dominates and oppresses. Where is the seed of resistance? Where is the spark of the fire?

Is it in criticism of all that there is? Is it in independent thought outside of the institutions? But then, how free are we when all we can do is to react against what is? There is no way out of what is. It is determinative of everything. But if we did not believe in criticism, if we did not believe in campaigning against exploitation, hate and injustice, if we accepted our loss of freedom, what would we become?

We would become those who not only tolerate but thrive in replicating this system, that live as slaves within this system and that only accept others that are slaves. Freedom consists in this: the assertion that I am not a slave. Perhaps the real question of freedom is ‘Am I a slave? Or am I a man?’

So, to be free, one must criticise. One must attempt to do things differently. In thought and action, one must appreciate and value difference from what is. There is another world, a world of freedom. Every religious figure and activist has tried to bring this other world of freedom to life. But then, what do the people do? They attempt to make this world of freedom into a world of oppression and tyranny, a world of the lack of freedom.

The woke generation, they attempt to force their views on others, just like the conformists who rail against the woke generation, those conformists who created their own unfreedom. They have created the cancel culture. It shows you that people seek out unfreedom, not freedom.

Every morning, every day, every night, the scholar in the war ponders on how unfree he is. And he ponders upon a world of freedom. Is it possible? Can we all be free? And is this freedom to be found in the dreams of India and the Independence movement? The answer to exploitation, racism and capitalism? What would a truly free man look like? Is he possible in this world?

The V&A Illustration Awards 2026

Review by Dr. Suneel Mehmi

04.10.2026

All it took was two wonderfully capacious rooms to put this exhibition together. The work ranged from museum gallery installations inspired by flora and fauna to an animation about the International Court of Criminal Justice. Along the way were picture books, illustrated book covers and posters. Here are some of my highlights from the exhibition.

Annabel Wright – Winner of Advertising and Commercial and the Moira Gemmill Illustrator of the Year

annabelwright.net | @awri6ht

Vibrant and varied, this poster illustrated the theme of community which was developed through a collage or patchwork making circle and a crowd of young activists. A bench features as a patchwork of colours mirroring the collage circle’s interest and perhaps how the poster was composed and put together in different sections of interest, just like a collage or patchwork, so there is this postmodernist self-reflective aspect of the work. What resists the theme of the community is the red robin derived from a picture book by the artist that flies in the solitary sky and is discrete and individualised while all the humans are connected and form a group. This is the informing foil to the idea of community, the human versus the animal, the group versus the individual. The Robin is engulfed in a void, white field to exaggerate the contrast between colour and relation, the bird and the humans.

Julie Pereira – Winner of Adult Factual

Julie-pereira.work | @juliepereiradg

An explanation of the work of the International Criminal Court, Julie Pereira’s animation addressed the grim reality of the prosecution of genocide and other such crimes. The style was created to address such horrifying concepts. It was stark or minimalistic and had the power of black upon white, with a concentration on the central subjects on a white background so as to avoid distraction. The animation was fluid and the texture of the grain of the pencil work seemed to convey the idea that this was reality that was being reflected, that this was something with a tactile feel, solid like the world and its happenings. Drawings were abstract so as to channel attention on facts and not the terrible crimes being discussed. It was a case of style perfectly matching subject matter and in a very fluid and attention grabbing way.

This animation video here:

https://vimeo.com/1058256495?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ci

Grace Easton – Illustration for Children Runner Up

@higraceeaston

Utterly charming picture book illustration. All of the loveliness of the features of gouache painting were captured, with all of its variations of texture evident on the picture plane. What struck me particularly was the the luminosity of the colouration and how satisfyingly full and detailed the compositions on each page seemed to be. The simplicity of the subjects was immensely inviting for a younger reader and having about one subject on one page readily allowed for identification and investment in the characters.

Kaori Tokunaga – Emerging Illustrator Runner Up

kaoritokunaga.com | @kaoritokunaga.art

An entrancing painterly style. Such great atmospheric effects created through such an elegant simplicity. In particular, there was such a beautiful capture of landscape and the environment. A true bringing of the artistic to the world of the child.

SEE ALL THE ARTWORKS DISCUSSED HERE:

https://www.vam.ac.uk/info/va-illustration-awards?srsltid=AU7gw4U9drlM0YhWKeoluuh4YgUuM1pGyYtSsGtRROK2jKu1DS5_85QB#slideshow=4968671&slide=0

for every work a story

04.10.2026

It is our stories that get us through our lives. Whatever disappointments and prejudices that I have faced, whatever variety of jobs I have done, I have always told myself a story to perform. As a result, I have garnered praise in every single job that I have done. It is that voice inside that tells you to believe and to do.

Here are the stories that I have told myself in each of my roles:

Leader (Gandhi) – that I am a natural leader. That I was born to be a leader and a role model for my community, for the community of The Oppressed, the Dalits and the low castes. That they unfairly took the positions of leadership from us when we were the most worthy. That I am fitted by intellect and capability to be a leader and this is what my community expects from me. RESULT: Manager in my current and last position.

The Pioneer (The Great Explorers like Shackleton) – The story is that I am gifted. That I can see things that no one else can see and get the ideas that no one else can get. That I have the courage to get things out there in the world. RESULTS: Setting up of so many projects: newsletters, tours, initiative after initiative in cultural institutions and education.

The Creative Genius (Van Gogh) – I am special. I am an unrecognised genius that can turn his hand to anything, poetry, creative writing, photography, art. RESULT: Published poetry, Published writing, Published photography, Commissioned artist.

The Saint (Guru Ravidas) – Helping others because I am stronger and privileged. From a poor background, I am comfortable. So it is my duty to help those who do not have as much, whether it is education or resources. RESULT: Volunteering in several charities such as teaching English to Refugees and Migrants, Helping underprivileged school children, tackling isolation, helping witnesses in court.

The Teacher and the Scholar (Krishna in the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita) – I know more and therefore it becomes my duty to share what I know with those who do not and cannot know. RESULT: Published book and articles, teaching of all ages in charities and paid work as a teacher and as a Tour Guide.

The Truth Teller (Cassandra) – I will say the truths that others are afraid or not willing to talk about. I was gifted with the truth and the brain to understand it. RESULTS: Lead Editor of a newsletter for Ethnic minority colleagues, Public Diarist and thinker, Scholar with publications. Published journalist.

The Fighter and Activist (Guru Ravidas) – Writer and thinker on racism and ethnicity.

reading versus life

03.10.2026

In a novel that I was once reading, there was this episode. A man who was a bookworm aimed to relinquish books and reading because he wanted life. But then he saw what life was and was disappointed. And then he turned back to books.

There is this opposition. Reading versus life.

A voracious bookworm myself, there has always been this tension between reading and life. When you are living, it is difficult even to find time for reading. It is difficult immersing yourself in a book. It is difficult to be able to take on board what the book is saying.

And when you are reading? Then it is difficult to live. There is the time factor. There is the fact that you are studying, thinking and writing about books and concentrated on that.

In books, you have the best of thought. In life, you have the best of company. In books, you have a direct correspondence with one author, an intimate conversation. In life, you have many people.

Life is like a whirlwind. Reading is like a monk’s cell.

Still, over and over again, this choice comes up in my life. Reading or life?

I did an English literature degree in the past because I wanted to read more. I want to read more. It has been a constant in my life. But how do you balance life with the desire to read? There is no money in reading. They would not let me become an English Literature Professor at the Universities. Reading does not give you any material reward.

Life can give you material rewards. Life can give you relationships. Life can give you experiences.

Perhaps, however, reading gives you experiences and experience too. Are these any less real than experiences in the real world?

There are perhaps over six hundred books on my bookshelves at home that constantly admonish me that I have not the time for them. Because over the past four or five years I have chosen life over books. Every day, I think to myself that I will make more time for reading. But how much time can you put in? An English Literature degree with first class honours. A PhD in English Literature, Law and Art History. Journal articles about major authors such as Charles Dickens. Having read most of the greats. Reading is never ending. Life is never ending. How to reconcile the two?

Holiday 01.10.2026

An eight o’clock start, the day began with sleeping in. Then some chi building and meditation and a leisurely breakfast listening to the songs of the great and late Lata Mangeshkar.

After this, I set out to Valentine’s Park with my trusty pair of binoculars and a microscope. I pottered about by myself observing the birds, the trees and also scrutinising the flowers and plants with the microscope. I wandered in the walled gardens and by the stream. I met up with my friend who came down on his cycle and we walked circuits of the park talking about life. He told me that I had made his day by meeting up. We banged into a lady that he knew from the park run just before we headed back home.

Waiting for me was a lunch prepared by my mother which was hot boiled egg sandwiches which I washed down with water.

I headed off afterwards to the Olympic Swimming Pool Gym in Stratford where I did some heavy weights. It was a good workout. Then I called up my girlfriend.

I popped into work for a quick meeting about a project I was passionate in getting involved in even though it was my day off and then I headed out for some bouldering. It is only the second time that I have done it in my life. I managed to get in a running jump catch which impressed everyone and the video of it has already got 1.5K views on Instagram and many likes.

Bouldering was hard on the fingers but quite enjoyable. I’m always up for a challenge, physical or mental. And this was both because you had to work out the route and the possibilities too, as well as making sure your body could do it.

I called my girlfriend up again coming home and arranged to meet her and my friend later in the week.

Thanks to my mother, I had a dinner of chicken curry on the bone, chapattis and a salad waiting for me at home. Afterwards, on the spur of the moment, I decided to watch the Hindi film ‘Alpha’. It was a slick production with some excellent action scenes for the most part. I thought it was an interesting story, although there were many cliches about war and warfare, those kinds of films. The actress Alia Bhatt is a nepo baby that I have never liked but she has given two really great performances in the last two films that I have watched, this one and ‘Jigra’. Both of them flopped. Why? Because they apparently can’t stomach a female action heroine in India. But I can. We worship The Mother Goddess. She is the epitome of the warrior. We from the warrior culture model ourselves and our world upon her. These films were made for me. The teaching has penetrated deeply. Even when I played ‘Street Fighter’ when I was a kid, my favourite was Chun Li.

waiting for life

01.10.2026

Once upon a time, I was a young student. Naive and inexperienced. At home, my mother did not speak English and was locked into the Punjabi community. My father was always working. At school, the teachers would lie that the outside world was a meritocracy. That it was fair. You can tell how much of outside reality was penetrating into this mind and soul. In this existence, I studied and worked part time. There were no women. I was alone most of the time outside of the family. In this existence, I was waiting for life.

What was it that I was waiting for? I was waiting for a job that would take into account that I was one of the most intelligent and imaginative people in the world. A creative and satisfying, well paid and structured career with recognition for myself and the community of The Oppressed, the Dalits, the low castes. I was waiting for a salon. A circle of intellectuals, artists, musicians and writers all around me. We would speak of cultured things. Live an unconventional life. And above all, what was this watcher of Indian films and their romances waiting the most for? It was love. It was The Woman.

And now? I am still waiting for all of those things. I am still waiting for life.

But that is not to say that I have not tried to make all of those things that I wanted from life.

I have been working in arts and culture for about four and a half years. I have made a significant contribution to the institutions that I have worked for, in both employment and in volunteering. I have been the initiator of a tours project, I have been a curator, I have managed events and people in the cultural industries, I have worked to enhance visitor experience. What has been missing here is the recognition and the reward. And that is an ongoing project.

What about the salon? My friends are teachers, psychologists, architects, scholars in Art History, leaders in charities, and doctors. I have cultured friends that come to me to art galleries, that discuss literature with me. That I can have deep conversations with. And the artists, intellectuals and writers? There, friendship has not worked. I have made the effort but they have not wanted to be friends. And that is an ongoing project.

What about love? The one thing that I waited and longed for so many years and sleepless nights? That is an ongoing project. Privacy permits me to say no more. There are some lines from an Indian film, one of my favourite songs ‘Har Funn Maula’ (Jack of all Trades):

Itni haseeno pe kitni dafa yeh dola

He has fallen for many beautiful women

Phir bhi fakeeron ka pehne huye hai chola

But still he’s dressed like a faqir (holy man in rags that has renounced the material world)

In India, they say that the fruit of patience is sweet. This patience has lasted for a lifetime so the fruit should be the sweetest of all. One waits for life. It is the man’s lot. He waits for this woman. Where is she? Rouging her cheeks and lips, scrutinising her loveliness in a mirror, flowing perfume upon her beautiful form. The man waits at the door. He saunters in front of the house. He even tries to walk up and down the block a bit. His life and his love is there and he is here. She is here and he is there. He waits for his life. And she? She is always elsewhere. Always somewhere else. But despite that, the dreamer and the poet tries to make her appear. He dreams of his reunion with life, this life that he imagined. Through work and service, he lives in his dream. This is what it means to wait for life.

is life to answer?

Solutions. Answers. This is how many people think of life. Life as an answer. This is the only way that they conceive of meaning in life. The idea that there is a reason to live.

Some scientists use a computer model image of life. That life is a solution to the problems of evolution and an answer to the environment around us. Philosophers and religious types say they have answers about what is the meaning of life. As though it is a code to be cracked.

Even Camus’s absurdism, which espoused an idea of the meaninglessness of life seemed to suggest that Sisyphus should push the boulder up the hill time and time again and find fulfilment from that. That seemed to be a life as an answer. The reason why we should live and not commit suicide. The reason to live.

How about if life is not an answer? How about if there is no reason to live? How about if there is nothing but brute existence and just one thing after another? Why is it so troubling to imagine that live in this world has no meaning at all? No solution? That there is no code to be cracked?

We want our lives to be meaningful. We want to feel that we are gaining wisdom over the course of our lives, that we are learning something, that we are progressing. We want our lives to have some effect on things. But Camus was right for the most part. There is only emptiness. There is no meaning in life. There is no overarching story that we are part of. What Camus did not want to face was the idea that there is no reason to live.

What can we say then that we should do in our lives? Camus says to push the rock up the hill time and time again only for it to roll back down. And to find fulfilment in the process. To find something in a meaningless act, a reason to live.

There is no reason to live. Yet we are alive. In my culture, once you are alive, you have to prove that you are alive. You have to serve society. You have to achieve. You have to succeed. Because you have been born in a family and a community. You are in the world. And suicide? That would bring dishonour on the family and the community. You have a duty to others. You have to fulfil your duty.

In a Hindu background, life in this world is punishment. The aim of duty and morality is to escape from life in this world through rebirth. To transcend the ugliness and suffering of this reality.

There is no reason to live. You just have to live. It is the reluctant acceptance of the brute fact that you are alive. And it is this reluctant acceptance of the brute fact that you are alive that no one can really take. They all want to sneak in a reason to live. There is no reason to live. But because of this reluctant acceptance, time and time again, people keep on trying to give themselves a reason to live. Life is not an answer. Life is just life. Life is not a solution. And life is not a problem which begs for a solution. There is just existence in nothingness.

independent thought and the lack of an institution

26.09.2026

All my life I wanted to be a writer. But not like this.

To many, what it means to be a professional writer is to be validated by publication and the publishers. That is what writing has meant in the past.

I have received this validation. I have been published as an academic author with a book and articles in top journals. I have been published as a poet in a poetry magazine. I have written for many websites. On top of this, I’ve written tour scripts for cultural attractions.

However, despite all of this, I do not have an overarching institution which supports my independent thought and academic output. The academic book and journals were written off my own back. There was no money supporting these projects. To get the articles done, I relied on an academic friend lending me a book and for the editors and reviewers from the journals and publishers to make constructive comments in the submission process, rather than having any readers I could turn to.

No resources. No network. No stimulating conversations with anyone about any of these topics.

What independence in thought has meant is absolute loneliness and self reliance. What it has meant to be a writer is nothingness. Nothingness all around me. And others? They have everything all around them. They have the institution. They have resources, conversations, a network. When you are not part of their agenda, you have to forge your own path in life.

What has been my response to this nothingness? I have not given up. Almost every day, I write something in my blog. I have created this blog with my own publishing outfit, THE MEHMI PRESS. I self published a small book entitled ‘Solomon and the Monstrosity of Legal Culture’ just a few days ago (see the ‘About’ page in my blog). With nothing, I create something.

This is not what I thought a writer was. This is not what I thought writing was. But the virtue of isolation and loneliness is that I have truly independent thought. No one can control or censor what I write, my contribution to the world of thought. I embody the freedom of expression which is one of the highest values in this society. And, after all, isn’t this what we prize in the writer? Isn’t it freedom that we prize the most? So, perhaps in this sense, I am writing how I think a writer should write. With absolute freedom. And with the cost of freedom and independence. Nothingness around me.

body dreams

25.09.2026

Whatever anyone’s concept of an ideal body looks like, and whatever other people think, there is certainly a template that I desire for my own body. Which is ironic. Because I have been known for my body and looks since I was a kid. My nickname at home is ‘Sonu’ which is handsome. And at school, I was known as ‘the beast’ because I was so strong and muscular.

I would never get any cosmetic surgery on my body. I am against it in principle. It annoys me when people are getting their teeth straightened instead of leaving them natural. I believe everyone should be happy with what they have.

But the mind is contradictory. The daydream goes like this. An alien brings me up to their spaceship. And then they fix my body. Without any operations. With their wonder technology. What is it that they ‘fix’?

There is a big list. Here it is in order:

– My hair is thinning. They bring all the hair on my head back. With the brown colour it had when I was a kid.

– I’m five foot six. Although I’ve never worried about my height, I know potential partners care about it. So they make me tall.

– Making me lose my short sightedness.

– They make my body and face completely symmetrical.

– Losing weight.

– Making my muscles bigger and more toned. Making my shoulders wider.

– Straightening teeth.

– Getting rid of wrinkles.

Whatever these fantasies of the body in these uncontrollable daydreams, I am secure in myself. After all, I’ve gotten through almost forty four years of life being told I’m handsome and super fit. And in any case, I weight train regularly. I have been sculpting my body since I was sixteen years old.

It just shows you that an accepted ideal of beauty works away at the unconscious trying to do away with the body that you actually have. You want to lose the real you in an imagination and fantasy of the body. Whatever you might think about it with your conscious mind.