by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday urged all political parties to pass the Triple Talaq Bill in the Parliament’s Budget Session.
“We could not pass the Triple Talaq Bill in last Parliament session. But I want to urge all the political parties to pass that bill in the Budget Session as it is meant to safeguard the rights of Muslim women,” Modi told the media in Parliament.
The Prime Minister’s remarks came just before the opening of the Budget Session of Parliament.
The government had failed to get the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017 also known as the Triple Talaq Bill passed in the Rajya Sabha during the Winter Session that concluded on January 5.
Modi also said that “the Budget Session is important and the entire world is extremely optimistic about India”.
“Even several credit rating agencies like World Bank have given positive opinion about India,” Modi said.
“The budget will add new vigour to India’s development and will fulfil aspirations of the people,” he said.
He also said that in this session the parties would get a month’s time and they should make most use of our healthy system of parliamentary committees and discuss various aspects of the budget.
“Let us think about the well-being of rural India, our farmers, Dalits, tribal communities, labourers,” the Prime Minister added.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, News
For representational purpose only
By Nivedita,
New Delhi : Hijabs and abayas have been featured on international runways and are steadily making waves online with designer options. From unorthodox colours like pinks, turquoise and bottle green breaching the classic black barrier, fashion-conscious but conservative Muslim women are making different sartorial choices with this outfit.
Suchi Mukherjee, Founder and CEO, Limeroad, says “modest fashion” is going through a big makeover.
“Hijabs and abayas have featured on international runways and are steadily becoming a part of mainstream dressing. Even in India, there is a growing demand fuelled by young women for clothes which are fashionable, functional and comply with their culture and comfort,” Mukherjee told IANS.
The website has seen significant growth in business in the last few years, said Mukherjee, adding that there is huge demand for abayas from Hyderabad, Mumbai and Bengaluru.
“It has grown 6.5x in the last year (2017 vs 2016). Overall, we have had an amazing growth story. We continued to outperform the online fashion industry growth rates,” she said.
Even e-commerce portal ShopClues witnessed a noticeable change in the evolution of abaya, a robe-like dress.
“While staying true to its roots, the abaya has gone through an evolution of sorts over the past few years, transforming from a plain black swathe of fabric to a more elegant piece of attire that women can use to express themselves and show their personality.
“Designers are experimenting with unconventional colours and styles that have been well received by customers,” Ritika Taneja, Senior Director – Categories, ShopClues, told IANS.
Designer Sumona Parekh of the label Sumona Couture also said that the “abaya has evolved completely over the years”.
“It has shown transformation to a more elegant attire that women can use to express themselves and show their personality,” Pareskh told IANS.
“The Indian market has also expanded as the women who wear abayas have raised the demand for trendy yet sophisticated designs and collections. They are very much open to new patterns and colours in abayas to make their look more surreal. Inspired by the Western fashion market, India has evolved to an extent,” she added.
Taneja said that until a few years ago, there were limited options for modest styles, but now major fashion houses and boutique brands are fusing fashion with modesty and launching abaya and hijab lines in an assortment of fabrics and style.
“E-commerce, with its greater reach, has penetrated Tier 2, 3 towns and beyond,” she said.
The Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Srinagar, Jammu, Kochi, Bhubaneswar and Bengaluru are the cities where the makeover of the abaya has been significant, Taneja said, adding: “India’s fashion-conscious Muslim women may not be as affluent, but they are making different sartorial choices. The new generation is open to new styles.”
Some of the hit trends are digital prints and pastel shades.
“Abaya designs are a combination of unique ideas, colours, latest cuts and traditional themes. Unorthodox colour choices like pink, turquoise, bottle green, blue and indigo have breached the classic black barrier and are some of the most popular and selling colours of abaya,” said Taneja.
Also Kaftan abaya, kimono style and A-line abaya with butterfly silhouettes and clinched waist are trending at present in various fabrics like linen, rayon, wool, georgette and chiffon. Embellished collars, sleeves with stone and sequin work up the style quotient on the otherwise simple garment.
(Nivedita can be contacted at nivedita.s@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Tuesday permitted the NIA to continue its probe into any criminality in the marriage of Hadiya, a Hindu woman from Kerala who converted to Islam, with Shafin Jahan but not intrude into their marriage.
Observing that the probe into the criminal aspect has to be segregated from the marriage, a bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud said “…otherwise we will be creating a bad precedent in law”.
“We can’t go into the marriage. Whether the person she is married to is good human being or a bad human” — the bench observed, noting that Hadiya is 24 years old and has made an independent decision and choice to marry. Hadiya was known as Akhila Ashokan before she converted.
Making it clear that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has to stay away from the marriage of Hadiya with Shafin, the court observed that the agency could probe into “all other aspects except her marriage”.
Hadiya was set free and allowed to pursue her studies in the last hearing of the matter on November 27 as she had told the court that she wanted to pursue her internship in the Sivaraj Homeopathic College and Research Institute in Salem in Tamil Nadu.
Hadiya had told the court that she wanted “freedom and release”. She was put in the custody of her parents by a Kerala High Court order.
Having told the NIA not to intrude into their marriage, the court said that the only question it was concerned with is whether the High Court could have annulled the marriage of Hadiya with Shafin in the wake of a habeas corpus petition, a concern the court had expressed in earlier hearings also.
The court also made Hadiya a party in the matter, which will now be heard on February 22 when the apex court will examine the validity of the High Court’s order that annulled the marriage.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Opinions
By Alison Saldanha,
In its urgency to push through the Triple Talaq Bill, the government appears to have overlooked five criminal laws relating to women and marriage identified in 2015 by a government committee as needing immediate political attention.
These are: Criminalising marital rape; clarifying the definition of “cruelty by husband and his relatives”,;plugging a loophole in the anti-dowry law; ensuring the same age of marriage for women and men; and outlawing khap panchayats that impinge on the right to choose whom one wants to marry.
In its assessment of women and criminal law, the committee, formed in 2013 — 25 years after the last such panel — lists several recommendations, not restricted to Muslim personal laws alone, to help women through legislation and the justice system.
Less than a handful of these recommendations have been initiated.
“Improving the legal status of women involves a multi-pronged approach that looks first and foremost at the legislative inadequacies and state policies and schemes closely, followed by addressing the inadequate implementation of laws by the State, police and courts,” the report said.
Criminalise marital rape: Currently, there is no legal recourse for victims of marital rape as section 375 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860, provides an exception to marital rape.
“The exemption of marital rape stems from a long outdated notion of marriage which regarded wives as no more than the property of their husbands,” the report observed, adding that “the relationship between the perpetrator and the victim should be irrelevant in evaluating consent”.
Supreme Court advocate Karuna Nundy, who has argued for criminalising marital rape, pointed out that cases of marital rape may be filed under section 498-A of the IPC relating to “cruelty by husband and his relatives”.
“However, these laws treat victims of marital rape differently from other victims and also limit their access to compulsory free healthcare and legal aid otherwise provided to victims of rape,” Nundy told IndiaSpend. “The justice served in these cases is also limited as the perpetrators of this kind of rape are subjected to non-rape penalties that are much lighter in comparison.”
Expand definition of marital cruelty: Under section 498-A of the IPC, which refers to “cruelty by husband or relatives of husband”, the law seeks to punish the husband or his family for harassing a woman to the point of driving her to suicide or for coercing her to meet unlawful demands. If found guilty, the accused can be jailed for a term extending to three years or be fined.
Over a third, or 34 per cent (110,378 cases) of 325,652 serious crimes against women reported in 2016, were filed under section 498-A, showed National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data for 2016. This was the most among all categories of crimes against women reported that year.
“These numbers are still low compared to the number of cases where police turn away victims of various kinds of abuse that are not merely physical,” said Flavia Agnes, women’s rights lawyer. “Since it is not clearly defined under the current law, these cases are often not registered.”
The committee has recommended that the definition of cruelty be reviewed to include “the varied forms of violence against women in the home and to ensure that it is in line with the definition of ‘domestic violence’ given under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (PWDVA), 2005”.
The Act seeks to protect and shelter women who report to be facing any kind of abusive behaviour by her husband/male partner or their relatives (male and female). It clearly defines and expands the concept of abuse to include not only the physical but also verbal, emotional, sexual and economic.
As many as 31 per cent of ever-married Indian women have experienced physical, sexual, or emotional spousal violence, according to the National Family Health Survey, 2015-16. The most common type of spousal violence is physical violence (27 per cent), followed by emotional violence (13 per cent), while six per cent of ever-married women have experienced spousal sexual violence.
Amend anti-dowry law: Currently, the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961, prohibits the giving or taking of dowry. An offender is subject to a minimum of five years’ imprisonment. The committee reiterated the amendments to the anti-dowry law proposed by the National Commission for Women (NCW) — widen the definition of dowry and lower the penalty levied on the giver of dowry. It recommended that stridhan (all the movable, immovable property, gifts and so on a woman receives in her lifetime) be included in the definition of dowry; and also that the legal provisions that allow a husband to inherit this stridhan be deleted.
However, in July 2017, the Supreme Court of India struck down the use of section 498-A in dowry cases, putting an end to the immediate arrest of the husband and his family in dowry cases. The court’s decision was based on the high acquittal rate in dowry cases reported under section 498-A — a median 81 per cent over the decade to 2015.
However, for a decade from 2005 to 2015, 88,467 women, or an average of 22 each day, died in dowry-related cases, indicating how little has changed despite the existence of an anti-dowry law for nearly six decades. In 2016 alone, 1,354 dowry deaths were reported, NCRB data showed.
Same minimum age of marriage: The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act of 2006 outlaws child marriages — where the a boy is under 21 years of age or the girl, under 18.
The committee recommended that the minimum age be made the same. “Child marriage is not just a social norm but denial of childhood with irreversible consequences, especially for girls,” the report said.
Underage marriages, especially of girls, are rising in urban India and declining in rural India.
Criminalise khaps ordering honour killings: “Unequal economic, social and political status and position of women is an outcome of patriarchy and the deeply entrenched socio-cultural stereotypes about women. This is sometimes perpetuated by laws, regulations and policies which do not sufficiently address the subordinate status of women,” the report said.
“Honour killing is not just a way of punishing the one who has brought dishonour to the family, it is indeed a barbaric murder usually of girls.”
Since 2014 — when the NCRB started recording data on honour crimes — to 2016 honour crimes more than doubled, from 28 cases to 71 cases. In 2015 alone, 192 honour killings were recorded, NCRB data showed.
To address the high rate of such killings and their gender skew, the committee recommended a separate legislation. This would involve the shifting of criminal consequences of the extra-judicial honour killings on the khap panchayats that order them.
The committee also recommended mandatory police and legal protection for couples/women/children/families who approach any institution fearing harm at the hands of family members or community.
“Violence against women has been acknowledged as one of the crucial social mechanisms by which women are forced into a subordinate position compared with men and therefore a violation of women’s equality rights,” the report said.
“Passing legislation however does not indicate judicial or executive sensitivity to women’s rights. Faithful implementation of the laws is thus the essence for good governance.”
(In arrangement with IndiaSpend.org, a data-driven, non-profit, public interest journalism platform, with whom Alison Saldanha is an assistant editor. The views expressed are those of IndiaSpend. Feedback at respond@indiaspend.org)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
By Mohd Asim Khan,
New Delhi : The triple talaq bill, unilaterally drafted and brought by the Narendra Modi government, is politically motivated, feels the Muslim intelligentsia cutting across sectarian lines and schools of thought — but they are happy that the controversy has created awareness in the public mind about the evils of the practice.
Is the saffron party indeed serious about addressing the root issue of the social evil called instant divorce, and wants it stopped, or is it indulging in political posturing? The latter, say an overwhelming majority of stakeholders — from “fundamentalists” to liberals, Islamic clerics and women rights activists.
They think that the bill in its present form cannot stand judicial scrutiny.
“It’s an atrocious piece of legislation which is against the constitution because it discriminates on the basis of religion,” Irfan Ali Engineer, Director, Centre for Study of Society and Secularism, Mumbai, told IANS.
Irfan, son of acclaimed reformist-writer and social activist Asghar Ali Engineer, and a petitioner in the Shayara Bano case, explained: “It is discriminatory on the ground that if a Muslim man divorces his wife in a particular way, he would be jailed. But if a man of other religion abandons his wife, there is no legal action against him.”
He said there is “no doubt” the legislation is “politically motivated”.
Jamat-e-Islami Hind General Secretary Mohammed Salim Engineer said he could not understand the objective of this legislation.
“If the said bill had held three talaqs (divorces) as one, it would have made some sense. Which would mean that a divorce will not take place no matter how many times a man utters the word ‘talaq’ in one sitting, and which is in consonance with several schools of Islamic jurisprudence,” he said.
All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat Chairman Navaid Hamid had a similar view: “This bill is clearly faulty. In many Muslim sects, talaq pronounced thrice is treated as only one talaq. But this bill would hold a person of any sect guilty no matter if as per his belief irrevocable talaq has not happened.”
The government moved the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill — which proposes a three-year jail term for a man pronouncing irrevocable triple talaq — in the Lok Sabha on December 28 last year and got it passed the same day despite opposition’s pleas to send it to a parliamentary committee. However, the Bill was stalled in the Rajya Sabha where the BJP and allies are in a minority. The government has said it is open to “suggestions” if these are “reasonable”.
Yasmin of Awaz-e-Niswaan, a women rights collective and an intervener in the triple talaq case, said that she and other activists had welcomed the Supreme Court’s August 22, 2017, decision to ban the triple talaq but the legislation brought by the government serves no purpose other than “furthering the BJP’s agenda”.
“We are against criminalistion of talaq. The Domestic Violence Act and the Section 498A of IPC are already in place to deal with any atrocities or violence against women, and which equally apply to Muslim women. So there is no need for a separate law… It looks like a conspiracy,” Yasmin told IANS.
Other women’s bodies such as Bebaak Collective and the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) have publicly slammed the triple talaq legislation for its flaws and inherent contradictions.
Interestingly, the Muslim organisations that are against banning the triple talaq, activists and women bodies which wanted it banned and the opposition parties in Parliament have expressed concerns over the consequences of sending a man to jail for as long as three years.
Who will provide for the woman in her husband’s absence? Shouldn’t the government form a corpus for such women’s financial assistance/pension? Will the marriage remain intact even after the husband is jailed purportedly on the complaint of the wife? Are women’s rights safeguarded through this law in cases of other forms of divorce?
These are some of the questions raised by the critics of the bill and the political opposition inside Parliament. The government hardly attempted to assuage such tangible apprehensions and mostly resorted to an abstract emotional appeal that “the bill gives Muslim women their rights and dignity”.
Shia cleric Maulana Kalbe Sadiq, who is opposed to instant divorce and wants it abolished, could not find a reason to justify the penal provision in the bill.
“In Shias, there no such thing as talaq-e-biddat. The penal provision is not right, but so is not talaq-e-biddat. Even our Sunni brothers say that this is sinful,” he said.
The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), the most vocal body in matters pertaining to Muslim Personal Laws, has already denounced the Modi government’s attempt to “encroach through this bill upon the Muslims’ fundamental rights guaranteed in the Constitution” and has termed the bill as uncalled for and unnecessary after the Supreme Court ruling has rendered triple talaq as null and void.
“In case your government considers it necessary to enact a law in this respect, consultations must be held with AIMPLB and such Muslim women organisations which are true representatives of Muslim women,” the AIMPLB has said in a letter to Prime Minister Modi.
The plea highlights the general grouse — that nobody was consulted while drafting the bill. Let alone the hardline Muslim clerics, even the liberal opinions including those of various women bodies, were not sought by the government.
People like Irfan Engineer feel that a law is required to address the issue, but it should be “comprehensive”.
“We need a comprehensive legislation, one that safeguards the rights of women in case of divorce, but at the same time it should not make the divorce process cumbersome and unendingly long,” he opined.
However, amid the heat of discussion on tripel talaq, Zafarul Islam Khan, Editor of fortnightly Milli Gazette, sees something positive in the whole discourse.
“One benefit of this entire brouhaha has been that common people have got some awareness about the evil of triple talaq. Also, clerics have started accepting that triple talaq is wrong and it should be weeded out. In fact, all of us want this practice banished,” Khan said.
He also advised the Muslims to “not react” to and “ignore” the bill. “Because provoking Muslims to polarise the society precisely seems to be BJP’s objective,” he added.
(Asim Khan can be contacted on mohd.a@ians.in )
—IANS
