By M D Nalapat
Muslim women will be doubly happy were polygamy to get abolished.
Since
the British era, the obsession of the Ministry of Finance has been to
slice away as big a share as it can get away with from the national
cake, rather than working out rates that would best grow the cake. An
example is the clumsy way in which GST has been conceived and
implemented. Both the 28% and 18% rates should be abolished, as should
the applicability of GST regulations to small-scale industries and
enterprises. Now comes another hugely consequential legislative
enactment—abolishing the inhuman practice of “instant triple talaq” that
has been used to divorce Muslim women who are citizens of India. The
triple talaq bill can indeed do with modifications, including inclusion
of a new clause that would make the practice of multiple wives illegal
prospectively, rather than be allowed to continue into the indefinite
future. Should any political party in India vote against the abolition
of polygamy, the women of India will not forget or forgive them. Law
Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad needs to press his colleagues for
legislation that would abolish not just instant triple talaq, but
polygamy. This practice is scripturally permitted to Muslims only on the
condition that every wife be treated 100% equally. Except for unique
personalities such as the Prophet himself, such a condition is
impossible to fulfil. There will always be variations in spousal
treatment, whether this be in terms of material necessities provided or
the quantum of affection lavished on each wife. Given such a virtually
impossible condition for taking more than a single wife, it is obvious
that those intent on following the Word of God as revealed by Prophet
Muhammad should not have more than a single spouse. The proposed bill
should enforce monogamy, as is the case in numerous countries across the
globe that have substantial Muslim populations, including in Europe and
North America. In all these states, polygamy is banned, and so should
it be in India.
In the name of protecting the rights of Muslims, what almost all
political parties through their leaders are doing is to continue to
empower the Wahhabi fringe within a community that is overall as modern
and moderate as its Hindu counterparts. Across the country, Muslim women
(save a few in thrall to patriarchy) have welcomed the move to make
illegal instant triple talaq, and they will be doubly happy were
polygamy to get abolished through the passage of a law in this regard.
Those wishing to indulge in such a practice are at liberty to find
employment and a new life in the diminishing number of countries that
still permit polygamy, but they should not in future be allowed to
embrace the practice in India. It is heartening that women in India,
especially those born into the Muslim faith, have been vocal in
welcoming the rolling back of the medievalism that has been left
shamelessly undisturbed (and indeed coddled) by successive governments
since 1947, following on the Congress Party’s failed efforts to woo
religious fanatics in the minority community from 1919 onwards, rather
than stand together with the moderate majority of Muslims. More
recently, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s political fortunes began to fade
once he tossed aside the views of his minister Arif Mohammad Khan in
favour of Wahhabis in the minority community to get passed a retrograde
bill concerning divorce for Muslim women. There are still those in the
Hindu community who favour the practice of “sati”, the burning of widows
at the pyre of a deceased husband. Should this be reason enough to
bring back such a loathsome practice? There are still those in the Hindu
community who believe that a woman should forever be under the thumb of
a man, whether he be her father, her husband, or (later) a son. Those
celebrating such practices and beliefs are acting contrary to the
freedom-suffused and inclusive spirit of Sanatan Dharma. Recent efforts
to force-feed specified diets, dress and lifestyles on the population
are reminiscent of the ravages of the Saudi Muttawa, the religious
police that has been finally been curbed by Crown Prince Mohammad bin
Salman, who has repudiated the Wahhabism that has so crippled his
country’s ability to adjust to the changed chemistry and needs of the
21st century. Those who are taking up the cause of battling Muslim
fundamentalism must be similarly active against fundamentalists of other
faiths as well, including their own, if they are to gain credibility as
a force for beneficial change.
The people of India have finally outgrown the period when they would
passively accept the diktats of the colonial system of governance still
kept in existence by the political class. As for the Mamata Banerjees,
they will meet the political fate of Sonia Gandhi if they pursue a
policy of appeasement of the Wahhabi fringe within the minority
community. Instead, such politicians should recognise the common
interests that bind together the Hindu and Muslim communities and
empower the moderates. This is especially important in Bengal, in a
context where Wahhabism is growing in potency in Bangladesh despite
Hasina Wajed’s efforts at curbing such a tendency. The danger of
contagion is high, given the open border between India and Bangladesh,
whose citizens have been flooding into Bengal and Assam, and from there
to the rest of the country, for decades. The Congress Party under Rahul
Gandhi needs to signal its support for the 21st century by calling for a
legislative ban on polygamy. As for the provision for imprisonment in
triple talaq cases, this should be made conditional on the wife, who
alone should have the right to demand such a punishment.
This, of course, would in effect mean that her marriage was truly
over. The right to enforce a jail term on the husband must vest with the
aggrieved wife rather than with the police. In 1919, a fateful turn by
the Congress Party in the matter of a revivalist movement for the
Caliphate led to other acts of fundamentalist appeasement and a swelling
of the ultimately successful demand for Partition. It is now 2018, and
political parties in India need to do what is right for the many by
ignoring the veto of the few. If they continue to pander to the fringe,
India may enter through political miscalculations into another
stability-destroying cycle of distance and discord between Hindus and
Muslims. Isolating the fringe within all communities and engaging with
and empowering the moderate, modern majority within each must be made
the norm in politics.
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