A way out must be found to ensure gender justice for Indian Muslim women
With consensus between the Government and Opposition including the Congress over the fate of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill remaining elusive, Parliament's winter session ended on Friday without the Bill's passage by the Rajya Sabha. Neither the Government nor the Opposition backed off from their respective demands - the former pressing to get the Bill cleared by the Upper House, the insisting it be referred to a select committee. The proposed legislation, despite being passed by the lok Sabha on December 28, has now lapsed and the Government will have to go through the process of having it cleared by both Houses of Parliament when it decides to move the Bill next, possibly in the forthcoming Budget session.
The Congress has to realise that the objections to the Bill from Opposition ranks is rather incoherent and that its stated position of support for the Bill "with modifications to make it stronger" will fool nobody. The first, is the argument made mainly by the left parties that instant triple talaq is a civil matter which is being criminalised. This is laughable because on a parity of reasoning they should then be arguing that mental and financial cruelty to women under the Domestic Violence Act or extant anti-dowry legislation too should not be subject to criminal law! No, the Indian left is only doing what is does best which is to put dogma before common sense and sticking to its puritan ideological position which dictates that any measure, even if it is one aimed at securing gender justice, proposed by an administration it characterises as fascist and/or authoritarian (the commies are still debating which) must be opposed. So, let's not waste any more time on them. The second objection, coming from within Congress ranks and one which Ghulam Nabi Azad put forth with a lot of grandstanding in the Rajya Sabha, is that aggrieved Indian Muslim women subjected to triple talaq who take recourse to the proposed law will end up "on the road with their children" because the "breadwinner" i.e. the man who commits the illegal act of pronouncing triple talaq will be jailed and the Government will not pay maintenance to the victim for the duration of his imprisonment. Honestly! Apart from this highly objectionable infantilization of Indian women, have those who make this argument thought about the logical outcome of this line of reasoningIJ Tomorrow, will they ask the state to provide maintenance for crooks, assaulters or rioters charged under the criminal law of the landIJ A crime is a crime and must be punished or not as the appropriate judicial authority sees fit; this business of maintenance is a red herring that even sensible elements in the Congress, or so one hopes, can see through.
lastly, and this is where there is a case for the Government to apply its legal mind before it reintroduces the Bill, there's an objection to making triple talaq a cognisable offence to the extent that it would mean anyone and not just the aggrieved party can lodge a complaint. A clause providing for salutary punitive action against those making a false complaint under the proposed law could take care of that concern.