By M D NALAPAT
Nehru’s diktat still holds sway that changes in Hindu personal laws are kosher, but changes in Muslim laws should be avoided in the name of ‘secularism’.
Modern
competitive communalism did not begin in 1992 or 2014, but after the
1919 support of the Congress Party to the Ali brothers and their fanatic
devotion to a dead cause, that of reviving the Turkish caliphate.
Confining support to the radical fringe within the Muslim community is
an error that is being repeated over and over in India, even to the
present. Triple talaq, nikah halala
and polygamy are clearly discriminatory to women, given that it would
be close to impossible to find a human being on the planet who would
have the capacity to treat entirely equally more than a single wife. It
has become fashionable for some to label India “fascist” because its
ruling party calls for a uniform civil code. However, they refuse to
affix that label to the United States or the European Union, where laws
do not permit more than a single spouse (in some countries, of whatever
gender). Several parties object to the passage of legislation banning
triple talaq, nikah halala and polygamy, as being “opposed to
Muslim personal law”, while simultaneously asking for women of
childbearing age to be permitted into the Sabarimala temple, overturning
aspects of longstanding Hindu personal law. Nor do the “secularists”
back the return of temples to civil society (as is the case with all
other faiths) rather than remain with the state, or equalise across all
communities participation in the education of the underprivileged
through the Right to Education laws. Clearly, Jawaharlal Nehru’s diktat
still holds sway, that changes in Hindu personal laws are kosher, but
that changes in corresponding Muslim laws should be avoided in the name
of “secularism”. Television talk-time and printers’ ink have been
expended on perceived deviations from “secularism” in Gujarat since
Narendra Modi became the Chief Minister of that state in 2001, but
little about Jammu & Kashmir, a state where there is palpable
discrimination against the state’s minorities (as also against moderate
elements within the majority population of that border state). Far from
erasing the toxic mindset that enabled Jinnah and Churchill to partition
India on the insane ground that Hindus and Muslims formed “two
nations”, the form of “secularism” followed since the Union Jack was
banished across the subcontinent has kept the mischief of communal
politics alive.
The words “Hindu” and “Muslim” have
recently been reverberating across media outlets and in public discourse
in our country with much greater frequency and vehemence than the
appellation: Indian. For three years, the BJP blocked passage of the GST
Bill while the UPA was in office, with the Congress repaying the
gesture for the same period after the last Lok Sabha polls. Given that
it will take 3-4 years for the wrinkles in such a major reform to get
ironed out, it would have made sense for the BJP to have accepted the
Congress Party’s 2014 suggestion that a flat 12% GST rate get fixed
rather than the multiple rates that were finally decided upon, so that
the measure got passed before the close of 2015. The 2019 elections
would have taken place after (and not as now, before) the GST system
began to work with the features and efficiency only trial and error can
ensure. As for the Triple Talaq Bill, jailing a delinquent husband
mandatorily makes much less sense than (a) leaving such a decision to
the wife who has been the victim of the practice, and (b) that only if
the husband did not make sufficient financial restitution for the spouse
and her children for life. Should he resile from the obligations of (b)
at any stage, only at that point should a prison term get enforced.
This too only when the initiation of prosecution fails to make the
husband (or ex-husband) resume fulfilment of his financial obligations
to the complainant and her children. Prime Minister Modi needs to avoid
the Sibal-Chidambaram path of regarding harsher and harsher penal
provisions as a quick fix “solution” to problems, the way his Law
Ministry is presently recommending with reference to the current law
against molestation of children. The Sibal-Chidambaram tightening of
rape law (and the introduction of laws against molestation of females
that are easily susceptible to misuse by either former romantic or
spousal partners or by policemen looking for bribes) has done little to
reduce the incidence of rape and harassment of women in India. In this
context, it is logically a stretch to entertain the claim that members
of a faith nearing the 200 million mark within the country are in
“imminent danger”, when even the tiny Parsi community in India feels no
sense of threat. Skilfully created perceptions of threat and
separateness are what facilitated an event that has most harmed the
Muslim community in the subcontinent, the 1947 partition. The tiny
proportion of Muslims who are Wahhabi seek to enforce their practices
and mindsets across what is still a vibrant and moderate community, and
seek to label as threats to all Muslims any fight-back against Wahhabi
practices.
As for the Women’s Reservation Bill, this
needs to get redrafted so as to expand the number of MPs by making a
third of constituencies double-member. In such seats, the female
candidate (or candidates, if both the first and second positions are
held by women) getting the most number of votes should also get into
Parliament, even if this number be much below that secured by the male
candidate getting the highest number of votes in the contest. Seating in
the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha should follow the “seamless seat”
system prevalent in the UK, besides doing away with half the exit
corridors. Such alterations would permit the additional MPs to find
seating within the RS and LS chambers. The Triple Talaq, Nikah Halala
and Polygamy Abolition Bills should get passed after suitable amendments
have been made, as should a suitably reworked Women’s Reservation Bill.
Hopefully, a time will come when civil society has at least as big a
role in the drafting of legislation as those who rule over them through
the same laws and administrative practices brought into India during
Queen Victoria’s time.
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