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Don’t Kill Wife, Divorce Her: The Double Damnation of Muslim Women

We have to acknowledge the need to correct gender bias in Muslim law without saddling up high, heroic horses.

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Opinion
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Hindi Female

Take a cup of systematised, ancient, near-universal patriarchy.

Add a spoonful of religious persecution, marginalisation.

Sprinkle generously with the dictates of a biased religious authority.

Stir.

Congratulations, you have on your hands the fate of India’s Muslim women.

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The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), a non-government organisation that oversees Muslim law, recently defended the practice of triple talaq by telling the Supreme Court that it was a better option than to have a Muslim man resort to murder to get rid of his wife.

They added that this God-like power – uttering a word thrice and radically changing the life of another person – is safe from misuse in the hands of men because they are “more likely to control emotions and not take a hasty decision.”

Ironically, triple talaq faces legal challenge in the first place for displaying bias against women.

The board then, in a weird attempt to mollify the outrage these medievally sexist sentiments are sure to arouse, points out in its counter-affidavit that divorce is not just the Muslim man’s prerogative; women can initiate divorce proceedings too, through khula, talaq-e-tafweez and mubarah.

They conveniently forget to mention the part where all three divorce proceedings require mutual agreement, with khula and talaq-e-tafweez requiring the husband’s written consent to kick into effect.

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We have to acknowledge the need to correct gender bias in Muslim law without saddling up high, heroic horses.
The triple talaq system treats women unequally. (Photo: iStock)

As to AIMPLB’s assertion that emotionally stable, maritally conscientious Muslim men spend hours introspecting before initiating divorce: Pish-posh.

The data gathered by Census 2011 showed that 65.9 percent of total divorces in the Muslim community happened by way of triple talaq. Of these, 76 percent divorced through letters, 3.4 percent over the phone and 0.8 percent via SMS AND EMAIL. You thought a break-up text was bad? Imagine having your marriage dissolved through the same media Ola and Uber use to spam everyone.

The practice of triple talaq, a sham board’s self-interested defence notwithstanding, is legally and morally indefensible, evident from the fact that it is banned in more than 20 Muslim countries.

This list of countries includes Pakistan, a yardstick against which we measure our own nation’s progressiveness when we want to bask in the warm light of self-congratulation.

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We have to acknowledge the need to correct gender bias in Muslim law without saddling up high, heroic horses.
Shayara, a Muslim woman, who has been fighting for a ban on the triple talaq. (Photo altered by The Quint)

The Muslim woman, caught between the rock of religious discrimination and the hard place of institutionalised patriarchy, is doubly damned: Oppressed and rendered impotent by biased interpretations of religious texts, subjugated by male-dominated institutions, discriminated against by fanatics from other religions scrutinised for ‘provocation’ by supposedly secular voices, or seized upon as an object of pity needing rescue.

As conscientious feminist allies, let us provide community support by magnifying their voices, instead of hijacking the conversation, in real life and on social media. Let us recognise and acknowledge the need to correct gender bias in Muslim law without saddling up high, heroic horses.

Until that’s done, Muslim women will continue to be used as ammunition by both Islamophobes and self-appointed white knights with hidden agendas.

(The views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)

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