When will there be justice for Shayara?

A long-festering issue has raised its head again with Shayara Banu, a postgraduate in sociology and mother of two, being dumped after a decade of ill-treatment by her husband who just sent a letter to her at her parents’ home where she was staying, with three ominous words — talaq , talaq , talaq .

And this, according to her testimony in the Supreme Court which she has boldly moved asking for a radical verdict, after she was physically and mentally tortured for 10 long years, and repeated forced abortions. Significantly, her plea is not limited to begging maintenance for herself and her children. She has courageously asked the court to end the suffering of other Muslim women who are subjected to such tortures by declaring illegal and unconstitutional not only triple talaq , but also polygamy and halala .

Of course the first thought that comes to mind is why she endured the abuse for 10 long years, but then, not all women trapped in abusive and unhappy marriages have the option to walk out. Forget family, societal and cultural disapproval, the basic issues of rozi roti , education for the children, and so on come into play and thousands of women, irrespective of their religion, caste, class or region, suffer such marriages.

Predictably, Shayara Banu’s case has caught the media’s imagination and women activists, both Muslim and non-Muslim, have supported her case, and urged the Supreme Court to ban not only triple talaq , but another disgusting practice, at least as followed in India, called halala . Halala is the process by which a man who wishes to remarry a woman immediately after he has divorced her, say, in a fit of rage or for some flimsy reason, can do so only after she then marries another man, consummates that marriage, and divorces that husband.

Islamic scholars argue that neither triple talaq nor halala have the sanction of Islam or the Quran. Eminent jurist and distinguished scholar Tahir Mahmood, among many others, argues that this practice is not Islamic, but it was rampant in Arab society. “There is nothing in Islamic law that suggests the husband is free to pronounce talaq in an irrational or unreasonable manner. It allows talaq , subject to several conditions that are of a dissuasive nature, to discourage the husband from exercising his right without careful consideration,” he argues.

Apparently, Muslim countries such as Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, the UAE and even Sudan and Yemen, have outlawed both triple talaq and halala . It is high time India followed suit and saved countless Muslim families from devastation. Significantly, a Chennai-based lawyer and activist, Bader Sayeed, is representing Shayara Banu in court.

As expected, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, whose stance and policies have invariably been anti-women, has urged the Government not to share its opinion in response to the Supreme Court in this case. But hopefully, the Government and the apex court will take a bold and historic decision in this regard.

Whatever the outcome of the case, what is disturbing and amusing is that even the most progressive Islamic scholars who make a strong case for the banning of triple, and so on, argue passionately that there is nothing wrong with Islamic laws. Some even say that wronged women such as Shayara Banu have access to a double tier of the justice system — the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act 1986, and Section 25 of the CRPC under which any Indian woman can seek maintenance after divorce.

They argue that Islamic laws, based on the sharia, have several safeguards beneficial to women. One such is as the mehr , a protection given to women at niqah , under which the husband sets aside money and/or property for the woman. But it is common knowledge that this is rarely done. One can imagine how hard the families on both sides will come down hard on a woman who demands the money be placed on the table.

So it’s a Catch 22 situation for Muslim women. Sharia, it is argued, can’t be reformed because it is divine — a combination of diktats from the Quran and Prophet Mohammed’s teachings, loosely known as the Hadith. The argument is that Islamic laws are favourable to women. But the reality is that the male maulvis and mullahs and community leaders who interpret these laws, invariably turn them against women. Successive governments have shied away from a Uniform Civil Code, fearing a backlash from India’s Muslims. Maybe the Modi government could get one half of the community on board — Muslim women!

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