In the Aarushi-Hemraj double murder case, the popular campaign to challenge the convictions of Aarushi's parents emphasized the results of narcoanalysis despite the lack of scientific validity and legal inadmissibility. The Truth Machines examines the emergence and use of three scientific techniques—lie detectors, brain scans, and narcoanalysis (the use of truth serum)—in the Indian criminal justice system. The postcolonial Indian police have often been accused of using torture in both routine and exceptional criminal cases, but together with forensic psychologists, they have claimed that the three techniques represent a paradigm shift away from physical torture.

The book considers the nature of state power and legal violence in liberal democracies by focusing on the interaction between law, science, and policing in India and analyzes two primary themes. Through case studies and the results of extensive fieldwork,the book first questions whether existing theoretical frameworks for understanding state power and legal violence are adequate to explain the constant innovations of the state. Second, it explores the workings of law, science, and policing in an everyday context to generate a theory of state power and legal violence based on a study of both state and non-state actors such as lawyers and activists.

Jinee Lokaneeta argues that the attempt to replace physical torture with truth machines in India fails because it relies on creating just another site for coercive confessions . Her work also provides insights into a police institution that is founded and refounded in its everyday interactions. Theorizing a concept of contingent state, this book demonstrates the disaggregated and decentered nature of state power and legal violence, creating possible sites of critique and intervention.

This book will be of interest to Political Scientists, Legal Scholars, South Asian Study Scholars, Human Rights Scholars, and Critical Theory Scholars.