The Big Story: law and reason

Triple talaq is one of the clearest violations of fairness in India’s legal system. It places women – already lacking financial resources – at the mercy of the male spouse, who can end their marriage on a whim by pronouncing talaq thrice in one sitting.

It is also a testament to how India has neglected the rights of Muslims after 1947. The supporter of triple talaq might fall back upon Islam to defend the practice, but ironically almost no Muslim-majority country allows it.

What is heartening, though, is that slowly but surely, India’s legal system is coming around to accepting the injustice of this measure. On Thursday, the Union government decided to oppose the triple talaq measure in the Supreme Court.

This is actually not new. While the media hasn’t covered it extensively, India’s legal system has been slowly eroding the basis for triple talaq for some time now. In the 2002 Shamim Ara case, for example, the Supreme Court took measures to reduce the arbitrary nature of the triple talaq provision in Muslim Law and to regulate it, thereby somewhat strengthening the position of a Muslim wife. In the 2007 Dilshad Pathan vs Ahmadkhan Pathan case, the Bombay High Court went one step further, saying that the arbitrary pronouncement of the word “talaq” wasn’t a sufficient condition for divorce. The court held that clear reasons for the divorce must be provided. Moreover, arbitrators must be appointed to initiate attempts at reconciliation. The Pathan case, in effect, scraps triple talaq, although, given India’s creaking legal system, it will take some time for it effects to reach actual petitioners.

And it’s not only the judiciary. In 2015, a committee set up by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government recommended a ban on the Muslim practice of unilateral, oral divorce (triple talaq), arguing that it makes women “extremely vulnerable and insecure regarding their marital status".

Even the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, one of the most regressive organisations of its kind in the Islamic world, is slowly coming around to reason. It has, for example, accepted that Muslim women are entitled to lifelong alimony – rather than only for three months. This is the issue that lay behind the infamous Shah Bano case.

In the 1950s, while the Indian state was quick to reform Hindu law, it left Muslim law untouched. This, even as Pakistanis and Bangladeshis went on to modernise their laws to various degrees. Being a minority, Indian Muslims were placed in the unenviable position of almost being held hostage by regressive elements such as the law board, even as the Indian state looked the other way. It’s a small beginning, but hopefully the advances in the triple talaq case would be a beacon for Indian Muslims.

The Big Scroll

  1. If Muslim women want to reform personal law, why isn't the Indian state listening to them?
  2. The Shah Bano effect: How India is quietly modernising religious law even without a uniform civil code
  3. The debate on triple talaq and Muslim women's rights is missing out on some crucial facts
  4. Triple talaq: Why the Muslim Law Board’s affidavit in the Supreme Court actually has a few positives for women

Political Picks

  1. The Union home minister Rajnath Singh said that accepting Hindi as India’s national language did not amount to belittling other languages.
  2. The military leadership has fallen in line with the government’s directions to implement the recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission.
  3. India hits out at Pakistan, raises Balochistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir rights violations at the United Nations.
  4. Amar Singh is being blamed for the convulsions wracking Mulayam Singh's family.
  5. Shahabuddin returns to haunt Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

Punditry

  1. By offering land to the Tatas, despite a bitter parting, Mamata Banerjee displays rare pragmatism, says this edit in the Indian Express.
  2. In Open, Srinath Raghavan reviews historian Jon Wilson’s India Conquered, a retelling of the Raj and the chaos of Empire from the vantage point of the rulers.
  3. How India did a “reverse Kargil” on Pakistan and captured an important peak, recounts HS Panag in Newslaundry. 

Don’t Miss

Mahasay Award winner TM Krishna explains why being a proud member of the upper caste is a problem

I celebrate this connection and there is no doubt that it fortifies me. My education, a sense of titular prominence, intellectual ownership, cultural power and social predominance are deeply ingrained in me. They make me who I am. I am born with this wealth of self-worth and to negotiate the complex terrain of civilisation is that much easier.

In spite of all my intellectual understanding of the need to annihilate caste, it lives in everything I do. This natural sense of belonging and entitlements in almost every space that I occupy comes from my caste. I am certainly privileged, not only inside the sanctum sanctorum when I know that the priest has recognised me. It also happens in many supposed secular places, including shops, offices, police stations and hospitals