Changes from within

As compared to the supine provisions of the nikahnama floated by the AIMPLB last year, the Shia body has taken a more progressive step by making the nikahnama a legally enforceable document.

In a week when the Rajinder Sachar Committee report on the status of Muslims will be presented to Parliament, we find a sliver of light breaking through the gloom. A breakaway body of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) has come up with a model nikahnama that will go a long way to ameliorate the condition of Muslim women in this country. It is not a closely guarded secret that Muslim women in India are a marginalised group — educationally, economically and socially. In fact, they form the infamous ‘minority within a minority’. The plights of Gudia and Imrana have given us a sad perspective on the status of Muslim women in their own homes. It is thus comforting to find that the All-India Shia Personal Law Board (AISPLB) has given women more rights and powers of assertion in its version of the nikahnama.

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As compared to the supine provisions of the nikahnama floated by the AIMPLB last year, the Shia body has taken a more progressive step by making the nikahnama a legally enforceable document. This is a radical step given that the AIMPLB not only failed to reform marital and divorce rules enough — refusing, for instance, to do away with the triple talaq — but it also did not attempt to make any of the provisions of its model nikahnama mandatory. Above all, there was a distinct absence of encouragement to approach courts to settle marital disputes. Considering the hold such bodies have on the Muslim community, this was nothing short of encouraging the kind of authorities that made a mockery of the lives and rights of both Imrana and Gudia.