Muslim women challenge Shariat laws

They say the laws are against the basic concept of Muslim religion of justice & equality, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Jan 10, 2007, 22:16:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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A group of Muslim women under the banner of Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan on Wednesday challenged the Shariat laws and the Muslim Personal Law Board's regulations on marriage and termed them discriminatory.

Sona Khan, a Supreme Court lawyer, questioned the legal tenability of Shariat laws by saying that they can't be above basic tenets of Quran. Dr Asghar Ali Engineer of the Institute of Islamic Studies said, "The basic core of the Quranic message was that of justice, a comprehensive concept that included gender justice as well. Quran says men and women have equal rights but Shariat laws are against the basic concept of Muslim religion of wisdom, compassion, social justice and equality". Others also agreed with them.

Before fighting against discriminatory laws, Khan urged Muslim women to be aware about their rights in the present legal system. The Constitution and the Supreme Court has provided protection to women from such discrimination, she said and added that they should fight for their rights. Giving a specific example, she pointed out, that the law provides that Wakf Board would arrange for expenses of separated women, who have no means of earning. "It is seldom done as women are not aware about their rights," she said.

Muslim women from different walks of life urged the government to allow women representation in different Islamic bodies like the personal law board and madarsas to make it more gender sensitive. Quoting the findings of the Sachar panel report, the government also asked to initiate special schemes to ameliorate the marginalised and backward Muslim women.

The andolan launched with the help of Action-aid, an NGO has formulated a vision statement for Muslim women with an idea of equality and bringing them into the mainstream of education and politics. "The idea of Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan was born out of the necessity for the Muslim women to speak for themselves and demand social, economic, political, civil, legal and religious rights for the realisation of equal citizenship", said Zakia Jowhar of ActionAid.

"We want a platform which can counter the hegemony of kazis and men", said Naz, one of the participants. "The campaign seeks to create a national entity with a formal democratic structure with a system of accountability duly in place", said Dr Razia Patel from Pragati Vikas Pune and one of the founding members of the Andolan.

Email Chetan Chauhan: chetan @hindustantimes.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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