Triple Talaq: Insistent Calls From Within For
Reform
Barely a week before the start of the Muslim Holy month
of Ramadan meant for fasting, reflection and prayer, the Muslim women of India
are up in arms. The patriarchal practice
of ‘triple talaq’, is under attack.
Muslim women, who naturally constitute half or more of the
nearly 200 million strong minority in this country, have had enough. The call for change is with specific reference
to the manner in which the provision of ‘triple talaq’ is used exclusively by
Muslim men, mostly in conjunction with polygamy.
Typically, a younger wife is
taken, and an older one retired unceremoniously, without alimony or means of
support, and sometimes along with all her children.
The present contention is encapsulated in the Shayara Bano petition
of 2016, challenging the constitutionality of ‘triple talaq’, at the Supreme
Court of India.
Shayara Bano is a post-graduate in sociology, 37 years old,
mother of two, forced also to undergo multiple abortions by her husband. She
was then instantly divorced via a posted triple talaq, and separated from her
children.
The Supreme Court has taken suo moto notice, and
there promises to be a long-drawn legal battle. But Bano believes, it will, if
successful, not only vindicate her stand, but benefit all Muslim women in India,
going forward.
Another lawyer/activist from Tamil Nadu, the 70 year old
Bader Sayeed, has impleaded herself into the Shayara Bano case.
In addition, highlighting the gender divide on the issue,
the first woman qazi of Uttar Pradesh, Hina Zahir Naqvi, has also called for an
immediate ban on the practice.
Another Muslim woman advocate, Farah Faiz, of Muslim Womens’
Quest for Equality, an NGO in UP, who is also honorary national president of
the RSS associated Rashtrawadi Muslim
Mahila Sangh, has moved the Supreme Court too. She is asking for codification
of the Sharia’h based Muslim Personal Law and wants an end to practices such as
polygamy and triple talaq.
A simultaneous broad demand for change has come
spontaneously, from Muslim women at large. It is, of course, supported by the
Sangh Parivar, well aware of its political and vote catching potential, and
long demanding the establishment of a codified and transparent Uniform Civil
Code.
Some 50,000 Muslim women have signed a petition sponsored by
the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) via its co-founders Safia Niaz and
Zakia Soman, against the ‘unQuranic practice’ of triple talaq.
The BMMA says it is striving for ‘equal citizenship…as
enshrined in the Constitution, as well as justice and equality for Muslim women
based on the Quranic tenets’.
The BMMA insists that: ‘the Quranic method calls for a 90
day process of dialogue, reconciliation and mediation’ before divorce can take
place.
The organisation has asserted 92% of Muslim women, per a
survey they have conducted involving nearly 5,000 respondents, want the
practice ended forthwith.
Their petition has been submitted to The National Commission
Of Women (NCW). The NCW, in turn, led by its chairperson Dr. Lalitha
Kumaramangalam, has announced its support.
The BMMA, in the interim, has also launched a country-wide
signature campaign, in most of the states of the union, to enlist the support
of lakhs of Muslim women.
The BMMA is backed by the women’s wing of the Rashtriya
Muslim Manch (MRM), another RSS affiliated body. Its head, Shehnaz Afzal, has
called for a registration of all Muslim marriages and divorces to prevent the
practice of instant ‘triple talaq’.
The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), established
in 1973, to oversee the workings of the pre-independence Muslim Personal Laws
(Sharia Act), enacted in 1939, however, is vehemently opposed to any change in
the prevailing practice.
So are all its affiliates, such as the Darul Uloom Deoband,
The Jamiat-Ulama-i-Hind,the Barelvis, plus the predominantly male qazis, and
most of the other Muslim clerics.
The AIMPLB is also calling the move unconstitutional, and is
challenging the very jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in matters concerning Muslim
Personal Law.
However, this issue in its various ramifications, points to
the possibility of self-driven reform. The extremely patriarchal ways will have
to give way, and the AIMPLB may prefer to change rather than have the Supreme
Court force/mandate them. The broader efficacy of Muslim vote bank politics
also, is not, after all, what it used to be.
Muslim women too are unlikely to be cowed down this time.
They are today more politically and socially aware, and often much better
educated, and many practice birth control in defiance of the Mullahs. And some
Muslim men, particularly the educated ones, are tacitly standing with them in
support.
These women are clear that the Supreme Court is the final
legal arbiter in the land, notwithstanding the orthodox AIMPLB attempt to ring-fence
the matter.
Besides, more than 20 Islamic countries including Egypt,
Sudan, Morocco, Iraq,, even Pakistan and Bangladesh, are updating Sharia’h laws,
as is Buddhist Sri Lanka, and have imposed an injunction against the use of
‘triple talaq’ by husbands. In Turkey and Cyprus, unilateral divorce even needs
court intervention.
For: The Quint
(829 words)
June 3rd 2016
Gautam Mukherjee
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