Mir Laieeq on India’s Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill 2017 which outlaws Triple Talaq. Triple Talaq is a procedure where Muslim men divorce by repeating “I divorce you” three times. As a Muslim, Mir’s criticism of Triple Talaq is not the same as the Indian government’s attempt to pit Muslim women & men against each other, as Heba Ahmed has pointed out.
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“Indian Muslim men in the positions of some power, be it religious scholars, intellectuals, politicians and thinkers, have collectively failed the larger Muslim community in india on the most pressing sociopolitical issues.
On the issue of gender justice, their failure has been colossal, simply because most of these prominent members hide behind thoughtless maxims like “islam has given women all the rights 1400 years ago”, they simply refuse to see the difference between ideals of islam and the practiced realities.
Triple Talaq is one such issue which prominent Muslim organisations dominated by Men did next to nothing to address. Such an openly atrocious misuse of Islamic principles which caused tremendous injustice to Muslim women in india for decades was left untouched in the name of protecting Muslim personal law. Most of these Muslim bodies have always proven tough to reform.
Now that an openly islamophobic regime in india, has criminalised Triple Talaq to corner, push and punish Muslims further, many Muslim men are blaming Muslim women who fought against the Triple Talaq for this cunningly dangerous move of the government. This is nothing but the classic case of blaming the victim (many of these people also blame Kashmiri Muslims for the atrocities committed against them by Indian occupying forces)
Many Muslim countries have decades back banned Triple Talaq on the grounds of it being a violent misinterpretation of Islamic law. What stopped Muslim leadership in india, dominated by men, to do exactly the same for all these decades? Instead of blaming the women, they should do some soul searching, and, stop opposing if not facilitate Muslim women to take the centre stage when it comes to issues of gender justice.”