With all pretensions dropped, the dividing line between the ‘secularists' and Islamic fundamentalists has just disappeared. Both are two sides of the same coin
The last week in India once again brought out the ugly warts that cover the face of India’s perverted ‘secularism’. Financial skulduggery by two ‘secular’ icons — lalu Prasad and P Chidambaram — was fully exposed by the investigating agencies. Both of them had no answers for their crimes, and have had their respective kins as accomplices.
Instead of offering any explanation for their acts of omission and commission ,they sought to play the victim card to the hilt, claiming that action against them was in fact ‘retribution’ by the ‘fascist forces’ for their relentless fight against the present regime . The theatre of the absurd was complete when the former Finance (and Home) Minister suggested that he was targeted because of his weekly column in an English daily!
While this drama, with skeletons tumbling down from the cupboards of lalu and Chidambaram was unfolding in the country, a yet another ‘secular’ icon, former law Minister Kapil Sibal, was busy in the Supreme Court exposing the sham ‘secularism’, that ‘secular’ parties have been practising in the country for decades. '
Sibal, arguing in the apex court on behalf of the All India Muslim Personal law Board (AIMPlB), on the issue of triple talaq, proved beyond doubt that for him and politicians of his ilk, secularism in practice means pandering to the medieval mindset of fundamentalist clergy of Muslim society.
In contrast, Attorney-General (AG) Mukul Rohatgi captured public attention in the current discussion about the nature of the triple talaq among Muslim communities by revealing in the highest court that, if the court strikes down the impugned practice, the Government will bring a new law to govern marriage and divorce for the Muslim community. This surely marks a change from the past.
What the apex court in the land would say regarding the validity of triple talaq within the letter and spirit of the Constitution is still in the womb of the future. For the record, the AG’s statement of the Government’s intentions if the practice is struck down, removes any apprehension among the Muslim community that in such a case, the Muslim woman would be left in the lurch.
In fact, it is in response to this apprehension from the court that the AG came forward with the Government’s intentions. So, there is going to be no vacuum.
The AIPMlB, that lays down the personal law for Muslims, is repeatedly holding up the protection that the minorities get under the Constitution. The Modi Government has made it clear that the question in the triple talaq debate is not whether the Islam’s holy book implies in manner the practice is part of what constitutes the core of the religion. That is a matter left to religious scholarship. What it finds unacceptable is that the practice is against human rights, especially the principle of gender equity.
The discussion has raised the question of how the Government of India during the British Raj banned the practice of sati even though the then Hindu orthodoxy had claimed that the practice was sanctioned by what was considered as the divine text for the Hindu conduct, the great Manusmriti. Several Hindu leaders of the early 20th century themselves had emphasised that, irrespective of what the great text by the sage Manu laid down in the hoary past, the practice needs to be banned because it was abhorrent to humanity and against gender equity.
Subsequently, when, in independent India the practice was sought to be divinised and revived, in response to a public outrage, the Government tightened the anti-sati legislation. The point is that in a modern democratic regime there cannot be anti-women practices even if these are fully sanctioned and sanctified by sacred religious texts.
Our self-styled secularists represented by likes of Sibal, who are opposing the Modi Government’s publicly articulated view that the anti-women practices like triple talaq should be banned and that no Indian citizen can plead for the retention of such practices on grounds of religion, are unashamedly trying to divide the country into two, one where gender discrimination is deemed unconstitutional and another where the same practices are protected on grounds of non-interference in the practices of religious minorities.
There are many other practices as well that are sought to be defended on grounds of religion. And it is high time Governments, political parties and social scientists and activists clearly take a stand against them. Should the Government at the Centre or State level let girls be married at the age of below 18 — among any community, minority or majority — because that is the practice sanctioned by its religionIJ
While the practice and promotion of untouchability in the country stands banned and is an offence under the law even if tradition of untouchability remains strong, should an exception be made for religious or other communitiesIJ
From directions to let women enter temples that deny them such entry on the authority of tradition and rights to women’s right to inherit and hold property, there are several hundred other things, the country has marched on ignoring the claim to freeze the clock if not turn it backward.
All these fundamentals are recalled to ensure that the Government’s intended law for Muslim marriages and divorces would be progressive legislations of which the country could be proud of as a modern nation.
The so-called personal law held that divorce ended all personal relations between the husband and wife and all that she was entitled was the money promised by the husband in the marriage contract. The judiciary held that the concept of justice was far above the dictates of personal law and directed that the victim of instant divorce, Shah Bano, with her children, was entitled to proper maintenance.
When the Muslim orthodoxy raised a hue and cry bringing their religion into the discussion, the Rajiv Gandhi Government simply caved in, afraid that its Muslim vote-bank would slip out of its orbit. It enacted a new law restoring what could be entered status quo ante, that is the Muslim personal law forbade alimony — so the Muslim woman would have no claims on her divorced husband. With that law, Rajiv Gandhi, the Gandhi scion projected as the technology-savvy soul of a new modern India, set the reforms clock among Muslims back by several decades.
The post court verdict story now again should not be another disaster for the lndian Muslim with all his expectations of a religion of equality. Expectations of the public, compared to what happened in the 1980s, has been for a self-confident Prime Minister to stand up to the challenge of no changers among Muslims and their so-called secular friends. Meanwhile, with all pretensions dropped, the dividing line between the ‘secularists’ and Islamic fundamentalists has just disappeared. Both are two sides of the same coin.
(The writer is a Delhi-based commentator and former BJP Rajya Sabha MP)