Machibet Bet Not Himanta's, polygamy should be Muslims' top concern

In 2000, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) said that “polygamy violates the dignity of women”, and had called for it to “be definitely abolished wherever it continues to exist”.Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma seems set on bringing about this change. Controversy over the issue of Muslims and polygamy has once again erupted, with him taking the initiative to ban polygamy in Assam.Whether a state can promulgate laws of this nature is still unclear in terms of their constitutional and legal validity. For this purpose Sarma appointed a four-member committee on May 12, to delve into the complex details and arrive at a set of legal formulations, which will entail banning polygamy by the end of this year. The committee has been given 60 days for this purpose. The panel will be headed by Justice (retired) Rumi Phookan. Other members of the committee are Assam advocate general Debajit Saikia, additional advocate general Nalin Kohli and senior advocate Nekibur Zaman. medium100525011What BJP wantsSarma has said, “I expect that by the end of this year, before 2024 we can have a law banning polygamy in Assam.” Adding that the committee will look into Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937, along with Article 25 of the Constitution in relation to the directive principles of state policy for a Uniform Civil Code (UCC). This committee is not meant to usher in a UCC, but the ban on polygamy is one of the components that is on the agenda of a UCC. AIUDF’s reactionResponding to the initiative, Badruddin Ajmal, the leader of All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), has said that his party will not accept a ban on polygamy. Adding that the government has its priorities all wrong and that polygamy is not practised widely as it is made out to be. medium100525082Ajmal went on to attack Sarma saying, "CM Sarma should do some research; polygamy is mostly done by people of other religions, but those figures are not made official.”Ajmal’s response is typical of many Muslim men, for whom issues of Muslim women and their struggle for gender-just reforms are not a priority.Congress’ responseSurprisingly this time the Congress is supporting the move. Welcoming the ban on polygamy, Congress MLA Abdur Rashid Mandal stated, “Polygamy should be banned. The Assam government has taken a good decision and I welcome this." By adding that the ban should not target any one community, he subtly alluded to the political intentions of CM Sarma.Yet for the Congress as a party to take a public position on Muslim reform that calls for a ban on polygamy, is itself path-breaking — something unheard of in the recent past.Mandal must have spoken with the clear backing of the Assam Congress leadership, or even higher up in the party hierarchy. So then, what is really going on here? What is the message that progressive reformist Muslim women and men can draw from this emerging complex socio-political scenario? How polarisation has worked The Assam Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under Sarma clearly sees an advantage in pursuing the issues of targeting child marriage to polygamy. The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) on the other hand, has come out in support of the same and stated that Islamic Shariat allows the marriage of girls at the age of 15 and that the Muslim community does not fall under the purview of the laws pertaining to child marriage. Every regressive position by the Muslim conservative right-wing leads to the consolidation of the Hindu right-wing and we have witnessed the same from the time of the Shah Bano controversy during the 1980s. The Muslim clergy to conservative Muslim organisations and intellectuals stood in opposition to any semblance of reform and thus the slogan of ‘Muslim appeasement’, drew traction and converted into the social and electoral growth of the BJP. medium100525360PM Narendra Modi took all the credit for working towards a law to ban the abhorrent practice of instant triple talaq. Despite opposition from various ‘secular’ parties and ‘progressive’ organisations, the reality on the ground is that today instant triple talaq stands banned and cases have dwindled from negligible limits to none.Modi was trying to emerge as a saviour of his Muslim sisters, but soon attacked those very Muslim sisters and the community by trying to enforce the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR). While the beleaguered community faced hate and lynch mobs, the PM remained silent. As the Shaheen Bagh, Mumbai Bagh and Lucknow Bagh, and thousands of other baghs emerged, he was compelled to withdraw this highly communal and discriminatory exercise. Here, Modi lost out on any support that he may have planned to garner from Muslim women by banning instant triple talaq. But he did win support from the masses swayed by Hindutva, as well as centrist secular sections, who too felt that it was high time the Muslim community undertook social gender reforms for the betterment of their community and the progress of India.The Congress and regional secular parties have largely remained silent on matters of Muslim social reform. The reasons are twofold. Firstly, these parties have a Muslim leadership that is dominated by conservative Muslim men. Secondly, constrained by their ‘vote-bank’ politics these parties do not want to take a position to alienate their voters.The BJP, not being dependent on the minority vote, works on exposing the Muslim conservative right-wing as regressive and anti-women, and in the bargain, seeks to expand and solidify the conservative right-wing Hindutva vote.boxcontentWhat the Constitution saysArticle 13: Laws inconsistent with or in derogation of the fundamental rights — (1) All laws in force of the territory of India immediately before the commencement of this Constitution in so far as they are inconsistent with the provisions of this Part, shall, to the extent of such inconsistency, be voidArticle 14: Right to Equality — The state shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India Article 15: Prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth Article 25: Freedom of conscience and free profession, practise and propagation of religionWhat’s changed?The Congress, at least in Assam, has finally realised that pandering to the Muslim right-wing is leading to the consolidation of the Hindu vote in favour of the BJP. The way to arrest and reverse that trend means the Congress will have to start supporting the demands for gender-just reforms within the Muslim community as well. It is in this context that it has decided to come out publicly and endorse a ban on polygamy. Also, apart from Ajmal, we have yet to see widespread opposition to the proposed ban on polygamy from the AIMPLB and various conservative Muslim organisations.It appears they too have finally realised that taking strident anti-reform positions is harmful to the image of the community, directly helps the BJP and is causing grave damage to the secular parties. The result: The situation creates contradictions within the patriarchal class and creates space for progressive reformist Muslim women, men and their allies, to manoeuvre and formulate strategies towards achieving their goals.With the growing aspirations of Muslim women, thus opposition to gender-just reforms under the garb of freedom of religion granted under Article 25 does not hold water anymore.boxcontentPolygamy’s impact on womenIn their book, Status of Women in Polygamous Marriages and Need for Legal Protection, Noorjehan Safia Niyaz and Zakia Soman explain that depression, insomnia, self-blame, self-pity, silence and withdrawal, anger, fear and hatred are the psychological impact of women facing polygamy. Their study shows that 84% of the Muslim women interviewed oppose polygamy. This is an overwhelming number and these women refuse to be oppressed any longer.Muslim women are demanding their rights as equal citizens of India under Articles 13, 14 and 15 of the Constitution.The recent victories in the case of the Haji Ali Dargah, where women were barred from entering the sanctum sanctorum, to the judgment and subsequent law banning instant triple talaq, are indeed cause of celebration.Way forwardThere seems to be a growing sense of introspection to analyse the reasons why the Muslim community finds itself in this desperate situation. One is that Indian Muslims have to open our minds to both philosophical and legal reformation.The Muslim community must now decide whether the reforms will come from within or through external forces and pressure.