by Ram Puniyani
While
on one hand a PIL has been filed for UCC, there is another significant
development in this direction. This relates to the personal laws of Muslim
community. That ‘Muslim women are subject to more domination and gender
injustice’ has been a widespread perception. While as such the Personal laws of
different religious communities are not giving due justice to women, the popular
focus is mainly on the Muslim community. This despite the fact that there are
number of Muslim women’s groups who are striving for gender just civil codes
within Muslim community. The recently released Nikahnama (Marriage Norms) by
Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) is one such leap by Muslim women to
overcome the shackles of patriarchal grip on the Muslim women. Model Nikahnama released by BMMA (June 23,
2014) is an important step in this direction, in the direction of empowering
Muslim women This tries to give the solution to various problems faced by
Muslim women. It outlines the various steps for which the large section of
Muslim women is longing for.
This
Nikahnama calls for registration of all marriages, calls for denial of second
marriage unless there is a valid ground like death of the first wife etc, calls
for minimum age of marriage for girls to be 18, (for boys 21), wife should have
due place in the household even after the death of husband, divorce should be
permitted in the physical presence of husband and wife both and it should be
supported by legal documents, and in case of women demanding divorce, her voice
should be respected and she should be allowed to keep personal belongings.
The
notion that the present plight of Muslim women is due to Islam holds no water.
Islamic scholars and reformers like Asghar Ali Engineer contributed
tremendously to the many basic points of this Nikahnama, which is a sort of
Muslim Personal Law. The major highlight of this draft is that it represents
the opinions of thousands of Muslim women due to whose participation the drafting
of this one took final shape. The future challenge is that this Nikahnama has
to be made the basis of the personal laws and a major campaign has to be launched
in support of this. While the directive principles of our Constitution call
that state should attempt to evolve a Uniform civil code, the issue as such
came to the forefront in the wake of historic Shah Bano judgment, where a
Muslim divorcee women was granted the maintenance by the court. The opposition
to this court judgment came from the orthodox section of the community and the judgment
was reversed by an act of Parliament by Rajiv Gandhi Government. This was a
serious mistake.
The
women’s movement has been asking for gender justice and many a concerned groups
have been struggling for this. As we know the personal laws have been a
continuation of what British had introduced and pertain only to marriage,
divorce, custody of children and inheritance. While the civil and criminal laws
are the same for all the religious communities, the personal laws have been
based on the traditional customs, primarily patriarchal. The severe flaw in
these laws is that they are heavily weighted in favor of men. While initially
there was some lack of clarity about the concept of Uniformity, the women’s
movement in due course called for gender
justice as the basis of these rather than mere uniformity.
Uniformity
can very well be an amalgam of unjust laws picked from different traditions and
put together. That’s not something which women’s movement wants, that’s
something which is not in consonance with the concept of gender parity. That’s
not what a civilized society should have. The twin aspect of the need for newer
personal laws has been the gender equality in front of law and their
introduction through a process of social reform rather than imposition by
dictat from the top.
The
efforts of Muslim women’s groups face obstacles due to the domination of orthodox
elements in the community. This situation is worst confounded due to the sense
of physical insecurity following the communal violence. During last several decades
the percentage of Muslims getting killed in the communal violence is close to
90%, while their percentage in the population is close to 14%. Communal
violence is also the ground where women from minority community are subjected
to serious sexual and physical abuse. This is what creates the sense of social
insecurity, weakening their movements in a serious manner. It’s not that Muslim
women don’t want reforms or parity in social matters; it’s not that Muslim men
are able to hegemonize the situation due to religion or due to what Koran says.
The issue at stake is the physical insecurity due to which Muslim women’s groups
have remained comparatively weak and unable to assert themselves within the
community and society. There surely are number of groups from amongst the
Muslim community asking for equality, their movement is unable to get strength
due to the cancerous phenomenon of communal violence and its soial-psychological
aftermath.
The
Hindu right wing’s cry for Uniform Civil Code (UCC) is not because it is
seeking for gender parity. It has been seen that this UCC can be used as a
political tool to beat the Muslim community with so it has been made as a basic
part of the so-called ‘Hindutva’ agenda. This also needs to be seen from
another angle. As a matter of fact the term Uniform has to qualified in proper
perspective. It should not be a compilation of different unjust laws from
different religious customs. What we need is an overhaul of the personal laws in
all the religious communities and that the new laws have to be formulated on
the grounds of gender justice. And secondly, they have to be evolved through
the process of discussion and debate within the communities, where the women,
who are the major sufferers of the prevalent laws, should have a major role in
formulating them.
The
step by BMMA shows the way for the communities to march in the direction of
change in personal laws. On one hand this Nikhnama has been evolved through an
extensive process of community participation, on the other it articulates the
aspirations of Muslim women at large. Surely the laws pertaining to other
religious communities also need to go through the process of similar exercise
where women have a major say and the laws then act as a major mechanism for
overcoming the patriarchal norms on the society. Such positive steps by social groups need a
welcome modification to further broader participation to make it more
representative in character.
--
response
only to ram.puniyani@gmail.com
