Ranjita Biswas

Being a woman can be tough in patriarchal India but to be a Muslim as well can be truly trying. Yet Muslim women across the country are learning to stand up for their rights in several different ways. Last week, the All-India Muslim Women Personal Law Board (AIMWPLB) did the unthinkable by rejecting a ‘fatwa’ issued by the powerful Dar-ul-Uloom at Deoband in northern Uttar Pradesh state, a seminary considered to be the final arbiter of Islamic law across South Asia.

The seminar’s fatwa ordered Imrana Bibim a 28-year-old mother of five, to separate from her husband after she was allegedly raped by her father-in-law because it deemed that the sexual act had made her like a mother to her husband. But the AIMWPLB rejected the order. Its president, Shaista Amber, was quoted as saying that Imrana should have the right to live with her husband and her children, and that her father-in-law should be tried according to the secular laws.

Amber was bold enough to say that she considered the scholarly edict a “wrong interpretation” of the Quran and of Shariah. Recently the AIMWPLB, together with the Muslim Women’s Rights Network, (a coalition of 25 organisations formed in 2001 to challenge Muslim orthodoxy) joined to formulate a model code on Muslim marriages and divorce, frowning particularly on the “triple ‘talaq’. Though members of AIMWPLB, as well as many other women activists, feel the model code does not really safeguard the interests of women, it is hailed as a step forward.

This new boldness is reflected across India, which has 150 million Muslims, with women now actively trying to change their cloistered lives. This year has seen Muslim women divorcing abusive husbands and going back to school or college, while others have been more radical and fought orthodoxy by setting up parallel mosques or even taking to boxing.

Many of these changes are occurring in Marxist-ruled West Bengal state, where a group of rebellious married teenagers from the rural backwaters of Nadia district recently decided to walk out on their abusive husbands. “Increased literacy has changed the outlook of rural women. Many of them are more modern in their outlook than the men,” commented noted sociologist DP Bhattacharjee.

Packing even more punch are Muslim women in southern Tamil Nadu state’s Pudukottai, who hit the headlines when they got together to establish a women’s mosque. In India, Muslim women usually pray in buildings adjoining mosques, secluded from male congregations. “Our women don’t have the space to laugh, cry and share thoughts like the men do in mosques. This is not a religious struggle. This is a power struggle,” Daud Sharifa, leader of the Pudukottai women, said in an interview. The ripple effect of education and awareness among Muslim women is already picking up momentum in the quiet streets of India and the tide may yet help women who have been kept under the veil for ages. — IPS