Centre for Criminology, Criminal Justice & Victimology
Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Punjab
Narratives
What is a 'Narrative'?
CCV’s ‘Call for Narratives’ is a unique concept aimed at collecting and publishing stories, accounts of circumstances faced by victims of both serious and petty offences, particularly in times of COVID-19. Submissions are invited from all over the country regarding people’s experiences with respect to violations of their rights and general difficulties in accessing those rights or forums for remedy to such situations.
What should be included in a 'Narrative'?
Consider an instance where you know someone who was cheated out of money or a product that they bought. They may have shared the experience with you, just to let you know what they have gone through, and as a reminder to be careful. CCV’s ‘Call for Narratives’ aims to codify and publish these experiences/stories into a uniform format in the larger public interest. There are experiences which can be disseminated for the benefit of every person, and the CCV’s project is hoping to collate those experiences with the hope that they may be instrumental in changing the thought process of each and every person reading it, for the better.
Hence, the narrative should include an account of all the events that happened with regards to a
particular situation where a person or a group of persons suffered inconvenience at the hands of private citizens or government authorities, and such inconvenience consisted of a violation of rights granted by the Constitution of India as well as basic human decency. If such a matter was pursued before any judicial or quasi-judicial body, that must be mentioned too, along with the status of such a case.
Emotional context must be avoided as much as possible, since the narrative is a factual account of ‘what happened in this case/with this person’. With respect to more serious offences, care must be taken to approach the subject with regard to the victim’s state of mental health. For any narrative submitted to the CCV, two declaration forms must be attached with it: (i) a declaration form of authenticity which includes the consent of the victim for publishing the narrative and (ii) an author’s declaration regarding authenticity of facts, opinions, or views stated in the submitted manuscript.
Themes
The center invites submissions on any of the following themes-
● Crime against women through social media
● Fraud through e-commerce website
Rules for Collecting and Publishing Narratives
1. The main body of text in all submissions should be typed in the ‘Times New Roman’ font, size-12, Line Spacing 1.5 and ‘Justified’ alignment.
2. Word limit for each submission is 500-3000 words (exclusive of endnotes).
3. The Narratives should:
● Explicitly mention timeline of the incident that happened;
● Include details regarding the courts in which the case has been filed, eg-Sessions Court, High Court, Supreme Court, tribunals, commissions, etc.;
● Include summary of laws concerning a case and hyperlinks for relevant legal sources and other information, including any laws, facts or other legal documents which are mentioned.
4. The narratives should refrain from:
● Mentioning the names of the concerned parties, especially where serious offences are concerned (Use pseudonyms);
● Including emotional context as much as possible.
5. The entries should be submitted only in a uniform format (.doc/.docx).
6. If there are any references which are required to be given alongside the submitted narrative(s), please use endnotes. For endnotes, any standard and uniform citation style shall be followed.
7. The manuscripts should be accompanied by a cover letter specifying the author’s name, designation, institute, contact details, and email for future reference [Authors are requested not to put their names anywhere in the main manuscript, unless the author(s) is/are the victim(s) themselves].
8. The author should attach a declaration form of authenticity which includes the consent of the victim for publishing the narrative as well as an author’s declaration regarding authenticity of facts, opinions, or views stated in the submitted manuscript.
9. Submission of the narratives shall be reviewed on a rolling basis and the receipt of submissions shall be conveyed at the earliest. The Editorial board may take upto 02 weeks for the review of the submissions.
Submission Process
All entries should be submitted in .doc or .docx format and the manuscripts must be e-mailed to convo.ccvrgnul@gmail.com and the subject of the email should be titled “Submission for CCV NARRATIVES – NAME OF THE PERSON”.
Intimation of acceptance or suggested changes shall be conveyed within a weeks of the submission.
The last date for submission of the manuscript is 31st January 2023.
For any queries, feel free to drop us a mail at convo.ccvrgnul@gmail.com or contact the following:
Student Members
● Aviral Mishra - +91 7985026095
● Vansh Bhatnagar - +91 9460433706
Faculty Coordinators
Dr. Ivneet Walia
Dr. Shruti Goyal
Dr. Gurneet Singh
Dr. Ankit Kaushik
