Muslim Women | SabrangIndia

Ex-Muslims observe ‘No Hijab Day’

sabrang — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 12:34:21 +0000

As a challenge to World Hijab Day on 1 February, No Hijab Day aims to confront the dominant narrative that packages the hijab as a symbol of women’s ‘empowerment’ and ‘choice’ and any opposition to it as ‘Islamophobia’.

On the day, Ex-Muslims International, a coalition of ex-Muslim groups and activists, is calling on women to remove their hijab and for men to wear it as a humorous way of highlighting a serious violation of women’s rights.

Of course, adults who want to wear the hijab should be able to. (Child veiling is a different matter and nothing less than child abuse.) But it’s important to recognise that on a mass and global scale, innumerable women and girls are coerced into wearing it in order to comply with Islam’s modesty rules. Acquiescence to coercion or religious directives is not the same as choice. Until women are allowed to refuse or remove it, there is no real choice involved. Choice must be preceded at the very least by legal, social, and sexual equality for it to have any real meaning.

Algerian sociologist Marieme Helie Lucas says that the use of the word ‘choice’ regarding the wearing of the hijab is reminiscent of an old debate on

workers’ ‘freedom to work’ at the time of Britain’s industrialisation, i.e. a time when in order to not actually starve and die, workers’ only ‘free choice’ was to work 14 hours a day in hellish circumstances that also killed many of them, including women and children under the age of 10.

Islamists and the religious right always gift-wrap their rules as ‘choices’ and ‘rights’ to manufacture consent and legitimacy when they are not in power. When they are, their imperatives on women are always backed by threats of hell, shunning, violence, morality police, and even imprisonment and murder. The killing of Jina Mahsa Amini in Iran, which sparked the Woman, Life, Freedom revolution in 2022, is a clear example of the level of violence used by the religious right—and also the contestation of and resistance to it that exists there and everywhere.

Anti-government protests in shiraz, Iran, following the death of mahsa amini. attribution: Fars Media Corporation. CC BY 4.0.

To defend the hijab, apologists and Islamists even use the slogan ‘My Body, My Choice’, which came out of the feminist movement in the 1960s during the fight for abortion rights. A more accurate slogan would be ‘Woman’s Body, Man’s Choice’.

The call for men to don the hijab on No Hijab Day is to show that modesty is always the remit of women. How many times have we seen a woman in full burqa walking behind a man dressed in shorts and a T-shirt? This is because men will apparently not cause fitnah, or chaos, in society if they show their hair. Rivers will not run dry. Earthquakes will not follow from seeing men’s bare heads. And men certainly don’t fill hell; immodest and ungrateful women do. Hence why there is never a men’s modest clothing line sold at M&S and Dolce & Gabbana.

Modesty culture sexualises girls from a young age and puts the onus on them to protect themselves. In her 2005 book Bas les voiles! (Veils Off!), Chahdortt Djavann argues that the psychological damage done to girls from a very young age by making them responsible for men’s arousal is immense and builds fear and feelings of disgust for the female body. It also removes male accountability for violence, positioning men as predators unable to control their urges if faced with an unveiled or ‘improperly’ veiled girl or woman. It feeds into rape culture. Women are to be either protected or raped depending on how well they guard their modesty and the honour of their male guardians. Many an Islamist has absurdly argued that modesty is an important deterrent for society’s well-being: if unveiled women mix freely with men, women will lead men astray and will need to be stoned to death for adultery, so better to prevent such an outcome from the get-go by imposing modesty rules on women!

It is important to note that the hijab is the most visible symbol of a broader, all-encompassing system of sex apartheid that uses systematic violence and terror to oppress, persecute, and kill women in order to deny them equality and autonomy and exclude them in every field, including education, employment, health, the law, and the family and from public and political life. It means, for example, that a woman’s testimony is worth half that of a man’s, that she cannot travel or work or study without her male guardian, that she must use a separate entrance to access government buildings, that she must sit at the back of the bus… In Afghanistan, this system is so heinous that the International Criminal Court Prosecutor has announced this month that he will seek arrest warrants against Taliban leaders over the persecution of women and girls.

Diane Nash, a leader of the 1960s US Civil Rights Movement, once said:

Segregation was humiliating. Just the reality of signs that said you couldn’t use front doors or you couldn’t use this water fountain implied that you were subhuman… Every time I complied with a sign, I felt like I was acquiescing to my own inhumanity. I felt outraged and hated it.

Similarly, sex apartheid is humiliating and deems half the population subhuman. This is why a global campaign is calling for sex apartheid (also known as gender apartheid) to be considered a crime against humanity like racial apartheid.

Despite the cost to the lives of women and girls, criticism of the hijab is often labelled ‘Islamophobic’. But as Egyptian feminist Aliaa Magda El Mahdy has put it, ‘Hijab is sexism, not anti-racism’.

In a recent submission to the Women and Equalities Committee’s session around ‘Gendered Islamophobia’, Southall Black Sisters, One Law for All, and Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain stated:

The term Islamophobia…carries a problematic history. Anti-racists may use the term to refer to attacks on Muslims but the term Islamophobia has the effect of moving these experiences from an analysis of structural, systemic, and institutionalised racism to an irrational individualised fear or ‘phobia’ of Islam. It erases the connections with other forms of racism, which are often manifestations of exactly the same axis of power, violence, ideology and policies [thus shutting down much-needed conversations about women’s rights].

No Hijab Day’s theme this year is #HijabSilences (as a subversion of World Hijab Day’s theme #HijabisUnsilence), which speaks directly to the hijab’s role in erasing and silencing women and girls.

As the Ex-Muslims International statement says:

A symbol that has been used to shame, control, and suppress women cannot be used to combat intolerance and racism. A sexist tool to control and erase women is antithetical to women’s empowerment and visibility. Whilst anti-Muslim bigotry and xenophobia are undeniable, racism cannot be combatted with sexism and the hijab, rooted in modesty culture and oppression.

No Hijab Day stands in solidarity with women who resist… [and] calls for global recognition of the struggle against sex apartheid and the hijab and a commitment to supporting the fight for women’s freedom, equality, and rights.

How to take part in No Hijab Day

We are calling on women of all beliefs and backgrounds to take off their hijabs and put them on a man on 1 February. Men should also feel free to don a hijab in solidarity.

Use this opportunity to spark meaningful conversations about purity culture in Islam, challenge sex apartheid, and show your solidarity with ex-Muslim, Iranian, Afghan, and other women around the world who refuse to wear the hijab.

Share your thoughts, experiences, and support using #NoHijabDay and #HijabSilences.

Let your voice inspire real change for women’s rights.

Maryam Namazie is an Iranian-born campaigner, writer and Spokesperson of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain and One Law for All. Author photograph: Emma Park.

Courtesy: The Freethinkers

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Bijnor: Muslim family harassed on Holi, attackers claim its tradition

sabrang — Tue, 26 Mar 2024 11:09:10 +0000

The incident has gone viral and has sparked outrage on social media. The viral footage shows a group of men forcefully applying colours and throwing water on a family as they were riding on a motorcycle through the Dhampur area of Bijnor on March 20. The victims consisted of a Muslim man and two women, who were harassed by men carrying buckets of water and colours. Despite the family’s pleas to stop, the perpetrators continued their aggressive behaviour, and also shouted chants of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and ‘Har Har Mahadev.’

In response to the incident, the Bijnor Police have launched an investigation, which has led to the arrest of one person, named Aniruddha, and the detention of others, which consists of three juveniles. Charges have been filed under various sections of the IPC and CrPC, including wrongful restraint, causing hurt, and assaulting a woman. Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Neeraj Jaduan, in a video statement, assured that the police are trying their best to identify the perpetrators with the help of CCTV footage.

SSP Neeraj Jaduan, in the released video statement, also went ahead and talked about the need to celebrate the festival in peace, urging people not to engage in any form of harassment during Holi celebrations, “Please do not forcibly apply colours on people. Police will take action against anyone who breaks the law.” He has also directed the Circle Officer (CO) of Dhampur to personally assist the affected family in filing a complaint and assured the public that the investigation would be conducted under his supervision.

#BijnorPolice
थाना धामपुर क्षेत्र से संबंधित सोशल मीडिया पर वायरल वीडियो के संबंध में स्थानीय पुलिस द्वारा की जा रही वैधानिक कार्यवाही के संबंध में पुलिस अधीक्षक, जनपद बिजनौर की बाइट ।
#UPPolice pic.twitter.com/TBPpgVTIvY

— Bijnor Police (@bijnorpolice) March 24, 2024

A complaint was filed by the family following the identification of the victims by the police. So far, the accused involved in the incident have been charged by the police under several sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including Section 153A for promoting enmity between different groups based on religion, race, place of birth, etc., Section 340 for wrongful restraint, and Section 354 for the use of criminal force against a woman with the intention to outrage her modesty or with the knowledge that such actions are likely to do so.

Meanwhile, Maktoob Media has reported that the attackers can be heard shouting, in the viral video, that “This is a 70 years old tradition!”

Filmmaker Darab Faruqui called the incident an example of rape culture. In his post on the disturbing incident, Faruqi breaks down the incident bit by bit, highlighting the chants such as ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and ‘Har Har Mahadev’ and the body language of the victims featured in the video.

Trigger Warning:

This video is deeply disturbing since it depicts sexual harassment on video. The video is apparently from Bijnor, UP.

Before I proceed, let me point out a few observations.

1. Chanting of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and “Har Har Mahadev”
2. The Hooligans’ bullying and… pic.twitter.com/XYDomjMl4K

— Darab Farooqui (@darab_farooqui) March 24, 2024

It has been often noted how harassment often becomes normalised during Holi. It is often done saying “Bura na mano Holi hai” (Do not mind, it’s Holi). This phrase has been used to downplay or excuse instances of harassment and assault and often led to a culture where such misconduct is silently accepted and excused.

In 2023, the incident related to a 22-year-old Japanese woman named Megumi went viral. She was harassed and molested by a group of men on the streets of Delhi during the Holi celebration. She shared a video of the incident on Twitter, narrating the details, only to delete it shortly afterward, and said that she was in fear and terror as she was heavily trolled on her video. So not only was a woman harassed and violated, but she was also trolled and bullied after she spoke about it online.

Similarly, in 1996, the Gender Study Group at Delhi University released a report highlighting how instances of sexual harassment and assault increased during Holi festivities. The report revealed that about 60.5% of women residing on the campus that year in Delhi reported experiencing increased levels of harassment around this time. This persistent nature of gendered violence and violation under the guise of celebration affects women across religion, culture, and, as seen in the case of Megumi, nationality and race, too. This reality brings our attention to the urgent need for efforts to ensure efficient functioning of legal and also to ensure proactive initiatives to tackle parts of cultures that normalise violating women’s consent.

As the date for the general assembly election approaches, hate crimes in India continue

Badaun, UP: Heinous instance of murder of 2 minors given communal colour to bash a religious minority

T Raja Singh says India will be Hindu Rashtra by 2023

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Muslim women need not move court to register divorce by talaq: Kerala High Court

sabrang — Wed, 17 Jan 2024 12:32:38 +0000

The Kerala High Court ruled recently that a Registrar for Births, Deaths and Marriages need not insist on court order to record a divorce obtained through talaq under Muslim personal law^[1].

Justice PV Kunhikrishnan held that if the divorce is otherwise in order as per the personal law, a Muslim woman need not be sent to court for recording talaq and the Registrar concerned can record the talaq himself. This ruling came after the Court noticed a gap in the Kerala Registration of Marriages (Common) Rules, 2008 which does not provide for the registration of divorces that are obtained under personal laws.

This, the Court said, would put only divorced Muslim woman to a disadvantage and not divorced Muslim men because if a Muslim husband pronounces talaq in accordance with his personal law, he can remarry without removing the entry in the register of marriage maintained under the 2008 Rules, because his personal law permits more than one marriage in certain situations. However, the divorced Muslim woman cannot remarry till the marriage entry as per the 2008 Rules is removed by approaching a competent court of law.

“If a law abiding Muslim couple registered their marriage as per Rule 2008 and subsequently the husband pronounce talaq, can the registration of marriage as per Rule 2008 be a burden to the Muslim women alone? “, the Court asked.

The Court also opined that the power to register divorce is ancillary to the power to record marriage and, therefore, held that Registrars need not wait for court orders to record divorces that were obtained under personal law.

“If there is the power to register the marriage, the power to record the divorce is also inherent and ancillary to the authority who registers the marriage, if there is a divorce under the personal law. A divorced Muslim woman need not be sent to a court of law for recording the talaq if it is otherwise in order as per the personal law. The officer concerned can record the talaq without insisting on a court order,” the Court held.

Taking this further, the Court also, in his ruling, suggested that the Kerala legislature look into fixing the lacuna in the 2008 laws. The judgment was passed on a petition moved a woman whose marriage to her husband (arrayed as the third respondent) was dissolved in 2014 upon his pronouncement of talaq.

They intimated the Mahal Khazi of the same and he issued a divorce certificate. The petitioner approached the Local Registrar of Births Deaths and Marriages, the same one that had registered her marriage, seeking to make necessary entries in the marriage register regarding the dissolution of marriage.

However, the Registrar refused to do the same pointing out that the 2008 Rules, under which the marriage was registered did not have any provision that would allow it.

This prompted the petitioner to approach the Court seeking directions to the registrar to record the divorce. Since there is no provision in the 2008 Rules to record the divorce, the High Court held that the principle in the general power under Section 21 of the General Clauses Act, 1897 can be adopted.

Section 21 of the General Clauses Act says that, where by any Central Act or Regulation, a power to issue notifications, orders, rules or bye-laws is conferred, then that power includes a power exercisable in the like manner and subject to the like sanction and conditions (if any), to add to, amend, vary or rescind any notifications, orders, rules or bye-laws so issued.

Accordingly, it held that Registrars can register divorces obtained by talaq without court orders.

The Registrar in this case was directed to consider the application moved by the petitioner to record her divorce, after issuing notice to the husband. If the husband confirms the divorce, the Registrar shall make the necessary entry in the Register of Marriage, the Court ordered.

The petitioner was represented by advocates KV Pavithran and Jayanandan Madayi Puthiyaveettil. Government Pleader BS Syamantak appeared for the State.

^[1] Neyan Veettil Behsana v. Local Registrar for Births and Deaths & Marriages

IMSD condemns the Taliban’s shutting of university gates to Muslim women

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Being a Muslim in India 2023 | Ghazala Wahab | Teesta Setalvad

sabrang — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 06:07:16 +0000

CJP secretary Teesta Setalvad in conversation with Author, Journalist Ghazala Wahab on practicing Islam, growing up as a Muslim woman in India, the rise in targeted hate against minorities in the country and how does a Muslim woman navigate prejudices in today’s India.

The post Being a Muslim in India 2023 | Ghazala Wahab | Teesta Setalvad appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Muslim Women’s Quest for Gender-Just Laws

sabrang — Fri, 07 Jul 2023 07:07:20 +0000

With Assembly elections scheduled in four states and the general election coming in a year, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has whipped out the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), a tried and tested formula. Accordingly, the 22nd Law Commission has issued a notification seeking views from religious and other organisations on the UCC. No draft of the UCC has been shared for comments, so one understands that this notification simply seeks to serve as a reminder that only the BJP can make the Muslims of India “secular law-abiding citizens”.

The 21st Law Commission had in 2018 stated unequivocally that a UCC “is neither necessary nor desirable at this stage” in its 185-page consultation paper on Reforms of Family Law. Yet, five years later, we have the current notification. While recognising the opportunistic politics behind this move, I argue that progressive groups, Muslims, and feminists who have been advocating gender-just laws should use it to their benefit.

Reforms in family law

In India, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains are governed by the Hindu law while Parsis, Christians, and Muslims have personal laws drawn from their respective religious texts or an understanding of the texts. Also known as family law, these laws cover issues such as marriage, divorce, child custody, and inheritance. Personal laws as we understand them today were conceived under the British Raj.

Women from every community – Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Parsi, or Adivasi – have at some point challenged the unjust personal laws in their communities or approached the courts for redress.

The Constituent Assembly of India deliberated on the many laws required to govern the country. These included laws related to family laws such as marriage and inheritance. One assumes that effecting changes in Muslim personal laws at a time when memories of the Partition were fresh must have seemed a difficult proposition. The UCC was added to the Directive Principles of State Policy in the Constitution with the hope that it would be enacted in the future, while reforms for Hindus, who were the majority, were sought to be enacted through the Hindu Code Bill.

Women from every community – Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Parsi, or Adivasi – have at some point challenged the unjust personal laws in their communities or approached the courts for redress. These struggles are compounded by that women have had to challenge the institution of family, often the only support system they have in the country. So gaining equal rights in law and custom has been a long and arduous struggle for women.

When Rukhmabai, a child bride, challenged her marriage in 1885, one of the many opponents to reform in the Child Marriage Act was nationalist Bal Gangadhar Tilak. Mary Roy had to fight her siblings against blatant discrimination in the inheritance laws of the Syrian Christian community in Kerala. Shah Bano had to take her former husband and the father of her five children to court, opening up a controversial (albeit much needed) debate and discussion of Muslim Personal Law. Goolrukh Gupta took the Valsad Parsi Panchayat to court against its decision to disallow Parsi women married to non-Parsi men from attending the funeral of their parents. Ho women in Bihar and Adivasi women in Maharashtra have taken on their community panchayats for their rights to property and sexuality, respectively.

In spite of Hindus being a majority, the task of reform through the Hindu Code Bill was challenged by Hindu conservatives who opposed many provisions in it. B.R. Ambedkar resigned as law minister because the proposed Bill related to marriage and inheritance was dropped on the eve of the first general election.

One would imagine that a common gender-just civil code would serve everyone well. But in the vitiated atmosphere following the Shah Bano judgment in 1985, any move to demand a reform in personal law began to be considered anti-minority.

After years of deliberation, Jawaharlal Nehru was able to push through the Hindu Marriage Act, the Hindu Succession Act, the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, and the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act in a piecemeal manner in the period 1955-56. It was only in 2005 that Hindu women were granted the right to ancestral property with an amendment to the Hindu Succession Act.

One would imagine that a common gender-just civil code would serve everyone well. But in the vitiated atmosphere following the Shah Bano judgment in 1985, any move to demand a reform in personal law began to be considered anti-minority. On the one hand, religious leaders within minority communities asserted their “right” to retain their personal laws (no matter how unjust), and on the other, Hindu right-wing groups such as the Sangh Parivar had appropriated the term “UCC” to further their anti-minority agenda.

There was also the concern that a uniform law would not necessarily be gender just. Therefore, some women’s groups continued the demand for gender justice and reforms in the law by abandoning the term ‘UCC’ in favour of an Egalitarian Civil Code or Gender-Just Laws, to differentiate their position from that of the Hindu right (Gandhi, Gangoli, and Shah 1996).

Activism for gender-just laws

It is a myth that serves the political interests of both the Muslim and Hindu right to state that Muslims are against the UCC. Muslims are in favour of gender-just laws and believe that no one religion can provide justice to all women. Repeated attempts by Muslim women to challenge and reform personal laws are evidence of this. Of course, this belief needs the recognition that Muslim women are also members of the Muslim community.

In 1978, Shah Bano filed a petition seeking maintenance from her lawyer husband. The husband, well versed in personal laws, decided to divorce her and refused to pay maintenance beyond the period of iddat. 1 A Supreme Court verdict in 1985 granted her relief but it led to protests by conservative Muslims who believed the court had interfered with the Shariat law.

In 1983, Shehnaaz Shaikh, who went on to start Aawaaz-E-Niswaan, a women’s organisation, filed a petition in the Supreme Court against a number of provisions of the Muslim Personal Law of 1937. In 1999, women’s groups from across the country working with Muslim women formed the Muslim Women’s Rights Network. It had the following four-point agenda for reform of the Muslim Personal Law:

•   Ban on triple talaq
•   Ban on polygamy
•   Equal guardianship and custody rights for Muslim women
•   Maintenance rights of Muslim women

Later discussions of the Network added the right to equal inheritance to its agenda.

Apart from attempting to work within the framework of religion to address the inequality in law, the Muslim Women’s Rights’ Network, along with feminist women’s groups, also sought legal advice to challenge the Muslim Personal Law in court.

The draft of this anti-woman nikahnama by the AIMPLB was condemned by Muslim women, who at a press conference in 2005 tore up a copy of it while branding the AIMPLB a misogynist organisation.

In 2004, some members of the Network worked towards a gender-just nikahnama (marriage contract), laying down the terms of marriage, including for mehr (money or possessions paid by the groom to the bride at the time of marriage), divorce, and rights after divorce. 2 The formulation of this nikahnama forced the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB, a non-governmental organisation often mistaken to be a government body that represents Muslim interests) to formulate its own nikahnama, which also laid out the terms and conditions for divorce. The draft of this anti-woman nikahnama by the AIMPLB was condemned by Muslim women, who at a press conference in 2005 tore up a copy of it while branding the AIMPLB a misogynist organisation that was not representative of Muslims.

In 2007, some Muslim women activists formed the Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) to address the issues Muslim women faced. One of its main objectives was the codification of the Muslim Personal Law, doing away with the unjust practices followed in the name of Islam. When Shayara Bano challenged her triple talaq in court, the BMMA, the Beebaak Collective (founded in 2013 to work for the rights of Muslim women) and other organisations joined the petition, which resulted in the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019. The BMMA has submitted a draft of the codified Muslim family law to the government multiple times but there has been no response to it.

Muslims for Secular Democracy, which was founded in 2003, became Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy in 2016. It has also been a vocal against Muslim conservatism and taken a public stand on contentious issues, including the hijab controversy in Karnataka last year.

There are innumerable organisations across the country working with Muslim women, led by Muslim women with a feminist outlook. These groups have been working with feminist organisations to challenge unjust laws and progress towards gender-just laws for all women.

The women’s groups have also articulated the changes required in the ‘secular’ Special Marriage Act. They have prepared multiple drafts on gender-just laws and submitted suggestions to the Law Commission every time the bogey of a UCC has been raised.

The Mumbai-based Forum Against Oppression of Women (FAOW) proposed specific gender-just legislations in several areas such as marriage, divorce, and inheritance as early as 1995. The FAOW sees the need for laws to address social security and to broaden women’s rights in heterosexual as well as homosexual relations.

The women’s groups, which include Muslim women’s groups, have also articulated the changes required in the ‘secular’ Special Marriage Act. Women’s groups have prepared multiple drafts on gender-just laws and submitted suggestions to the Law Commission every time the bogey of a UCC has been raised.

Muslim women’s groups seeking gender justice have had differing opinions on the way forward—codification of the Muslim Personal Law is proposed by the BMMA, and secular gender-just laws are proposed by members of the Muslim Women’s Rights Network. The demand for secular gender-just laws advocated by Muslim women’s groups recognises that Muslim women have to contest both Muslim Personal Law and the politics around the demonisation of everything that is Muslim, including personal laws.

What Muslim personal law can offer

The Muslim Personal Law, like any other personal law, is not entirely good or entirely evil. The UCC in a secular country cannot be the imposition of the existing Hindu laws on the rest of the population. Much like the Indian Constitution drew from the constitutions of countries around the world, we need to draw from laws or the good practices of other countries and religious communities. If we seek gender-just laws, the Muslim Personal Law has much to offer.

Divorce: The unilateral triple talaq has been used as a tool by the right wing to demonise the Muslim community. However, Muslims have a number of options for divorce and the religion recognises that marriages can break down for lack of compatibility or for no fault of either spouse. This recognition of a no-fault divorce or the irretrievable breakdown of marriage is not there in our secular laws. According to Quranic procedure, an attempt at reconciliation and arbitration is a must for all forms of Islamic divorce.

The UCC could incorporate the spirit of Talaq-e-Hasan, which provides for a three-month period of arbitration for resolving the dispute before the divorce comes into effect. Faskh-e-Nikah is divorce proceedings initiated by the wife when the husband refuses to give her a divorce. A Qazi can end the marriage by pronouncing Faskh-e-Nikah if the husband refuses to reconcile or grant a divorce. This option is used by Muslim women who find their spouses unwilling to grant them a divorce, much like the spouses who refuse to show up in court in contested divorces, dragging the divorce proceeding over years.

In this day and age, we need to recognise that couples are aware of their expectations from a relationship and recognise that incompatibility is a sufficient reason to part ways.

The family courts across the country are overburdened, with the average time for a contested divorce being three to five years and sometimes more. The absence of a no-fault divorce means that a spouse has to have some form of cruelty recorded as evidence to get a divorce. In this day and age, we need to recognise that couples are aware of their expectations from a relationship and recognise that incompatibility is a sufficient reason to part ways. Divorce proceedings need not demonise a spouse or drag on for years disallowing people get on with their lives.

Polygamy/Bigamy: Another aspect of the Muslim Personal Law that has been used to demonise the community is the permission for men to have four wives. A government survey of 1974 found that 5.6% of Muslim men and 5.8% of upper-caste Hindus were in polygamous or bigamous relationships. The numbers have since then fallen to 1.9% for Muslims and 1.3% for Hindus, according to the National Health and Family Survey (NHFS) data of 2001. Polygamy is highest among the tribal communities.

The second wife of a Hindu man, at present, is penalised for being in a bigamous marriage, which is not recognised by the law. A UCC that outlaws polygamy will leave women in these marriages without any rights.

If the UCC outlaws polygamy for all men, it must consider the rights of the second wife (Hindu or Muslim or of any other religion) in a bigamous marriage, which is now guaranteed in Muslim law. The UCC has to address the rights of women in bigamous marriages if the rights of women in polygamous marriages are being taken away. Women should not be penalised for the actions of men.

Property rights: Much before the Hindu Code Bill granting Hindu women the right to property, Islam provided a share in property for women. As the law stands today, however, women only get an unequal share in inheritance. All Hindus are also unwilling to give their sisters an equal share of property in spite of the law as seen by the many property disputes in court today.

An equal share in property that is formalised by the law will benefit all Muslim women. The Muslim Personal Law disallows willing away of the entire property, which might keep women out of inheritance. The UCC could benefit from adopting this provision.

Amongst the many changes required in the Special Marriage Act is revoking the requirement of a notice period, which has been known to endanger the lives of couples in inter-religious relationships.

Muslim women seek equal rights to custody and to guardianship, and also the right to adopt (not just for themselves but for all women in the country). They also demand that social security be provided for women and the elderly.

Apart from equality in the law related to family, the women’s groups have time and again raised the need for recognition of marital rape. The provision of Restitution of Conjugal Rights is a legitimisation of rape in marriages, and it needs to be repealed immediately. Amongst the many changes required in the Special Marriage Act is revoking the requirement of a notice period, which has been known to endanger the lives of couples in inter-religious relationships, especially in recent times.

Conclusions

Patriarchs across religions have used faith as a tool to deny women their rights. Muslim conservatives will raise a strong voice of protest against granting rights to Muslim women, similar to the voices of the Hindu Mahasabha members who opposed the Hindu Code Bill, which led to Ambedkar’s resignation.

Considering the views of conservatives as that of the entire community only furthers divisions, and erases the struggles that women within the community have waged for their rights. We need to acknowledge women’s voices are as important as other voices in the community.

Fully aware of the intent of this regime in proposing the UCC, I reiterate that Muslims are in favour of gender-just laws and believe that no one religion can provide justice to all women. We need to use the opportunity being presented by the regime to the benefit of all women. It goes without saying that any move towards a UCC requires consultations with women’s groups and other stakeholders across the country.

(I would like to thank my feminist comrades, especially the women of the Forum Against Oppression of Women for many conversations and activism towards gender-just laws, which have shaped my politics and informed this piece. Thank you to Chayanika Shah and Sujata Gothoskar for their comments. A big thank you to Sana Contractor for being a sounding board and for editing this article.)

Sabah Khan has been member of the Muslim Women’s Rights’ Network since its inception in 1999. She is a co-founder of Parcham, an organisation working with youth towards a society respectful of diversity, celebrating difference, and interdependence.

This article was first published on The India Forum

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Muslim women heckled, abused for being seen with Hindu men

sabrang — Fri, 28 Apr 2023 07:38:44 +0000

Fundamentalists exist in every religion. This was evident from three incidents reported from Aurangabad in Maharashtra and Moradabad and Meerut in Uttar Pradesh.

Two videos surfaced on April 27; the one from Aurangabad was disturbing to watch as young boys were seen pulling and grabbing a girl wearing a scarf. They snatched her phone and were saying that they will call her parents, while also abusing her. She was dragged away from the place and was screaming. She was allegedly being manhandled for strolling around Bibi Ka Maqbara with her non-Muslim male friends. 3 men have been detained by Aurangabad Police and Begampura police was to register the complaint since she and her parents refused to file a complaint on their own accord.

Miscreants targetted a #girl in veil for strolling around #BibiKaMaqbara with her male friends in #Aurangabad

Such behaviour is highly condemnable, does not have any place in civil society.

Girl, her parents refused to lodge complaint,@CSNCityPolice suo moto registered #FIR pic.twitter.com/deQzth6EO3

— Mohammed Akhef TOI (@MohammedAkhef) April 27, 2023

Another video was of a burqa-clad woman sitting in a rickshaw being harassed by some men, allegedly since she was seen with a non-Muslim man. She was being heckled and abused for roaming around with a man and for wearing lipstick as well. The men were heard saying, “we have caught you red handed and your boyfriend as well.” In the video at least, the woman appeared fearless and was arguing with her harassers. It is being alleged that it was men from her own community heckling and troubling her.

Another case of a girl in hijab is getting harassed by her own community men for allegedly roaming with Hindu boy.

Jigar colony Moradabad, UP

Please arrest these goons & put them behind bars @Uppolice & @moradabadpolice . pic.twitter.com/AA4qHlvSfq

— BALA (@erbmjha) April 27, 2023

In Meerut, a Hindu boy was beaten up on the day of Eid after being seen with a Muslim girl. In a video of the incident, the girl was questioned about her religion and confirmed that she, along with another female friend, was Muslim. The man verbally abused them, accusing them of tarnishing the name of Muslims and using vulgar language. Someone in the crowd then suggested that they be beaten. The Hindu boy attempted to explain to the mob that they were just sitting together, but was then asked about the nature of their relationship. The crowd proceeded to physically assault him.

This Incident allegedly to be happened on the Evening of EID! Hindu boy got beaten up by the mob for sitting with the Muslim girl.

Gandhi Bagh, Meerut@Uppolice @meerutpolice

कृपया इसका संज्ञान लें pic.twitter.com/eN0XPktAoy

— BALA (@erbmjha) April 27, 2023

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Women & Men too, must arise now and #Embrace Equity!

Sabrang — Wed, 08 Mar 2023 07:07:10 +0000

On February 13, a mother and her daughter were burnt alive during an encroachment clearing drive in Dehat village of Kanpur; the incident that killed a 44-year-old mother and her 21-year-old daughter had triggered massive tension between police and the villagers. A few days earlier, on February 7, in Karnataka’s Koppal district, a Dalit woman was beaten with slippers and abused by an upper-caste man when she entered his property to get her cow back. The animal had apparently strayed inside the man’s land. Early in January, a thirty-year-old Adivasi woman belonging to the Oraon tribe was allegedly raped and killed by forest department officials in Bihar’s Rohtas district while she was gathering firewood in a forested area near Rohtasgarh Fort. Not long ago, the photos of over one hundred Muslim women, including journalists and activists, were displayed on an app saying they were for sale, to humiliate and intimidate them. In September 2020, the gang-rape of a 19-year-old Dalit girl in Hathras UP tore at the conscience of the nation. Sadly, a few days ago on March 2, a court in UP acquitted three of the four accused men; the fourth was found guilty only of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and under sections of the SC/ST Act but not of rape!

All these heinous crimes against women were reported by some media, in a matter-of-fact way, as though such violations are expected. The tragedy is that these incidents are not one-offs; they are representative of a systemic wrong that exists in a highly patriarchal society, structured on caste, which thrives on a chauvinistic mind-set. According to a 2018 survey by the prestigious Thomson Reuters Foundation, India is the most dangerous country for sexual violence against women. The status of women in India is abysmal: the World Economic Forum (WEF) ranked India at 135 out of 146 countries in its Global Gender Gap (GGG) Index for 2022. India’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) in its latest report shows that, crime against women rose by 15.3 per cent in 2021 from the previous year, with 4,28,278 cases registered last year following 3,71,503 cases in 2020. The NCRB report also shows that the rate of crime against women (number of incidents per 1 lakh population) increased from 56.5 per cent in 2020 to 64.5 per cent in 2021. All this is certainly a crying shame for a country, which today holds the Presidency of the G-20, and is also desperately trying to propel itself to be the world leader- with plenty of cover-ups and cosmetics!

As another International Women’s Day (IWD) dawns, there will be the usual round of cosmetic programmes, the plethora of speeches reeking in tokenism; male speaker after speaker will wax eloquent with that typically patronising attitude towards women. The sad and cruel reality is that precious little seems to change. In India, most women continue to be condemned to live as second-class citizens in patriarchal and male-dominated societies. Male domination continues in all the major religions!

Interestingly the campaign theme for IWD 2023 and beyond is to #EmbraceEquity. The concept notes states that, “Equity isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s a must-have. A focus on gender equity needs to be part of every society’s DNA…Equity means creating an inclusive world…Each one of us can actively support and embrace equity within our own sphere of influence…. We can all challenge gender stereotypes, call out discrimination, draw attention to bias, and seek out inclusion. Collective activism is what drives change. From grassroots action to wide-scale momentum, we can all embrace equity. Forging gender equity isn’t limited to women solely fighting the good fight. Allies are incredibly important for the social, economic, cultural, and political advancement of women…. Everyone everywhere can play a part”.

Significantly, February 14 was also the anniversary of the ‘One Billion Rising’ movement. It is the biggest mass action to end violence against women (cisgender, transgender, and those who hold fluid identities that are subject to gender-based violence) in human history. The campaign, which launched on Valentine’s Day 2012, began as a call to action based on the staggering statistic that 1 in 3 women on the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime. With the world population at 7 billion, this adds up to more than one billion women and girls. The Theme of the campaign for 2023 is ‘Rise for Freedom’. The campaign states that, “this year we call on the world to rise for freedom. freedom from patriarchy and from all its progeny…. capitalism, impunity, poverty, oppression, division, exploitation, shame, control, individualism, greed, violence…and in this rising…create the new culture.”

True there have been (and are) several women who have had the courage to embrace equity and to create this new culture. The list is endless but includes the likes of Savitribai Phule, widely regarded as the country’s first woman teacher. She died on March 10, 1897.She is credited with laying the foundation of education opportunities for women in India and played a major role in the struggle for women’s rights in the country during the British rule. She was a poet too; her poems were against discrimination and of the need for education. For most of her life, she campaigned vigorously against untouchability, the tradition of sati, child marriage and other social evils, which affect women. In one of her poems she writes, “end misery of the oppressed and forsaken…break the chains of caste.” Along with her was Fatima Sheikh who was India’s first female Muslim teacher Together Savitribai and Fatima spearheaded an educational revolution in the 1800s. Fatima Sheikh played an essential role in starting the country’s first girls’ school. In 1848, Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule were asked to leave their home due to their anti-Brahmanical views. At that time, educating women and the lower caste was considered a sin. Along with her brother, Usman Sheikh, Fatima Sheikh gave refuge to them and started the school from the same building. Sheikh even undertook a teacher’s training course along with Phule to assist her in managing the educational institution.

In our midst today, we have Justice B V Nagarathna who is making waves in the Supreme Court! Recently, she pronounced two dissenting judgements; both were verdicts of 4:1. The other four who opined were all male judges! Justice Nagarathna has however been unflinching and undeterred: her views have certainly not gone unnoticed Both the print and the electronic media (including the majority pro- establishment ones ) have provided the space and given the necessary coverage to her views There are several editorials and op-eds singing paeans to her judgements – with legal luminaries, academics and other intellectuals vying with each other to critique her judgements and at the same time provide grist to the mill. The Supreme Court is still a male bastion. Being a lone woman on a bench with four other men, is perhaps not very easy. It requires grit and determination to think differently! Justice BV Nagarathna has undoubtedly proved that her ability to stand up to men who call the shots, is no flash- in- the- pan! She already seems to have broken the glass ceiling!

Then we have the horrendous tragedy of twenty-one years ago, which engulfed Gujarat. Bilkis Bano experienced it all. Following the burning of the S-6 compartment and tragic death of 59 persons (mainly ‘kar sevaks’) on February 27, 2002, all hell broke loose, the next day, in several parts of Gujarat. Sensing trouble, a group of seventeen persons fled their native village of Radhikpur in Dahod district. The group comprised Bilkis, her three-year-old daughter Saleha, her mother and fourteen others. They took refuge in another village Chhaparvad hoping they would be safe there. On March 3, however, they were attacked by about 20-30 people armed with sickles, swords, and sticks. Among the attackers were the eleven accused men, just set free. Bilkis, her mother, and three other women were raped and brutally assaulted. Of the seventeen Muslims, eight were found dead, six were missing. Only Bilkis, a man, and a three-year-old child survived the attack. Bilkis was unconscious for at least three hours; after she regained consciousness, she borrowed clothes from an Adivasi woman made her way to the Limkheda police station to register a complaint. The Head Constable there, according to the CBI, “suppressed material facts and wrote a distorted and truncated version of Bilkis’ complaint”.

Bilkis has relived the horror of that tragedy several times over as she unwaveringly narrates the brutality, she was subject too. In great pain she says, “All the 4 men of my family were killed brutally. The women were stripped naked and raped by many men. They caught me top. My 3-year-old daughter, Saleha, was in my arms. They snatched her and threw her into the air with all their might. My heart broke as her little head shattered on the rocks. Four men caught me by the arms and legs and many others entered me one by one. When satisfying their lust, they kicked me and beat my head with a rod. Assuming that I was dead they threw me into the bushes. Four or five hours later I regained my consciousness. I searched for some rags to cover my body, but couldn’t find any. I spent a day and a half on a hilltop without food or water. I longed for death. Finally, I managed to find a tribal colony. Declaring myself as a Hindu I sought shelter there. The men who attacked us used foul language; I can’t repeat it ever. In front of me they killed my mother, sister and 12 other relatives. While raping and killing us, they were shouting sexual abuses. I could not even tell them that I was five months pregnant because their feet were on my mouth and neck. I have known the men who raped me for many years. We sold them milk. They were our customers. If they had any shame, they would not have done this to me. How can I forgive them?”

Her dogged and relentless pursuit for justice ensured that eleven of the perpetrators of this dastardly crime were sentenced to life imprisonment. In a clear travesty of justice on August 15, 2022, they were all given remission to their sentence and set free! Bilkis’ struggle still continues: as she fights so that these criminals are sent back to jail. In a public statement on August 17, 2022, she said “Two days ago on August 15, 2022 the trauma of the past 20 years washed over me again. When I heard that the 11 convicted men who devastated my family and my life, and took from me my 3-year-old daughter, had walked free, I was bereft of words. I am still numb. Today I can only say this- how can justice for any woman end like this? I trusted the highest courts in our land. I trusted the system, and I was learning slowly to live with my trauma. The release of these convicts has taken from me my peace and shaken my faith in justice. My sorrow and my wavering faith is not for myself alone but for every woman who is struggling for justice in courts. No one enquired about my safety and well-being, before taking such a big and unjust decision. I appeal to the Gujarat Government, please undo this harm. Give me back my right to live without fear and in peace. Please ensure that my family and I are kept safe”. Blikis continues to wait for justice!

It has not been easy for Savitribai and Fatima, for Nagarathna and Bilkis and for several other women who have dared the system and worked towards change! These are women who have risen against all odds, ploughed the lonely path and courageously decided to embrace equity. These epitomise the immortal words of Maya Angelou, the American civil rights activist and poet:

Out of the huts of history’s sham, I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain, I rise

I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear, I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear, I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave, I rise!

Yes, Women and Men too, must Arise Now and Embrace Equity!

(Authored on March 6, 2023 by the writer, a a human rights, reconciliation and peace activist/writer)

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Paving a path for a more tolerant India, Muslim woman is seen offering Namaz in a Gurudwara

Fri, 17 Feb 2023 11:47:20 +0000

In our timelines filled with incidents full of hate-crime and religious intolerance, a video showing a Muslim woman offering Namaz in a Gurudwara brings forward the beauty of co-existence and acceptance in our diverse country. In the video, reportedly from Indore, a woman can be seen offering Namaz in a Gurudwara while people around her, presumably Sikhs, are going towards their Holy Granth to offer their prayers.

Reportedly, an arrangement had been made in the Baba Deep Singh Gurudwara for the stay of thirty girls from other cities as they considered the gurudwara safer for stay instead of a Dharamshala. This video brings forth the fact that religion doesn’t teach us to hate each other. These videos and photos convey the message of harmony, and are the most essential in today’s times.

The video can be viewed here:

गुरुद्वारे में पढ़ी गई नमाज, भाईचारे की खूबसूरत तस्वीर आई सामने

◆ वीडियो Indore के गुरुद्वारे का है, जहां दूसरे शहरों से आई 30 लड़कियों की ठहरने की व्यवस्था की गई थी pic.twitter.com/hrcTip4a65

— News24 (@news24tvchannel) February 16, 2023

This is not a lone incidence of tolerance shown by the Sikh community towards the Muslim community. The Sikhs, who are famous for stepping up in the times of need and opening their doors to everyone, religion no bar, has stood by the Muslim community on many instances.

In December 2022, a Sikh family in Barnala district of Punjab had reportedly donated land for mosque, which they were also to help construct. This was the first mosque that was being constructed in the Bakhtgarh village and would have provided relief to the Muslim families who had to travel five kilometers to pray. Considering the challenge to the Muslims, Amandeep, a resident of the village, had donated 250 square yards of his field. He had gotten the land registered with the Tehsildar’s office under the name of Noorani Masjid. The construction cost, approximated to be Rs 12 lakh, was also to be borne by Hindus and Sikhs.

In November 2021, while Hindutva groups prowled the streets of Gurugram, Haryana, and regularly disrupted Friday namaz with protests over the past two months. Sherdil Sidhu, head of Gurugram Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, had told the media, in the presence of Mufti Mohammad Saleem, president of the Jamiat Ulama in Gurgaon, that the Gurudwara of Gurugram Sadar Bazar will be opened this Friday for Muslims to offer namaz, if Hindu organisations protest Muslims praying in congregation.

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Review of 2022: A year of discrimination & violence experienced by India’s religious minorities

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Author Sara Aboobacker, who championed cause of Muslim women, passes away

Thu, 12 Jan 2023 06:15:25 +0000

Image Courtesy: indianexpress.com

Acclaimed Kannada author and public intellectual, Sara Aboobacker breathed her last Tuesday, Jan 10 at a private hospital in Mangaluru. She was 86 years old at the time of her demise.

Born in Kasargod in Kerala on June 30, 1936, she has written extensively on the lives of Muslim women of the Beary community, living in the coastal districts bordering Karnataka and Kerala. Well known for her insights into their lives, she vocally championedthe cause of Muslim women; raising issues of financial and societal autonomy. She was also at the forefront of the anti-communal movement in Mangaluru and Karnataka.

Among her most widely read works is the 1981 novel Chandragiriya Theeradalli, which was first serialised in the progressive weekly magazine Lankesh Patrike edited by Parvathi Lankesh. The subject of the novel, which revolved around triple talaq, had raised a furore in orthodox and conservative Muslim circles, following which she had to face intimidation from some sections of society in the Dakshina Kannada district.

“Sarah’s brand of feminism is not militant; yet, it raises important questions about the justice of the man-woman equations in Muslim societies as also other Indian communities,” a profile of Sara by Sahitya Akademi reads.

“Sarah’s main concerns in her works have thus not merely been about the Muslim women’s dilemmas, but have also been concerned with significant issues such as linguistic and communal harmony and social advancement. She has been active both on the literary and the social front as a strong voice raised for social change,” the profile said.

She was awarded the Kannada Sahitya Akademi Award in 1984, the Anupama Nirajan Award in 1987, the Kannada Rajyotsava Award in 1995, Nadoja Award from Hampi University in 2006 and an honorary doctorate from Mangalore University in 2008.

Her works are many and include novels such as Sahana (1985), Vajragalu (1988), Suliyalli Sikkavaru (1994) and Panjara (2004), short story collections such as Chappaligalu (1989), Ardha Ratriyalli Huttida koosu ((1996) and Sumayya (2004) among others.

She had released her autobiography ‘Hottu Kanthuva Munna’ in 2010. She also translated a few popular works from Malayalam into Kannada.

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No hope for Rape Survivors: Muzaffarnagar Riots 2013

Wed, 12 Oct 2022 09:13:20 +0000

In February 2017, on the eve of the Uttar Pradesh state assembly elections, Amnesty International’s detailed report of its investigation of this targeted communal violence, Losing Faith – The Muzaffarnagar gang-rape survivors’ struggle for justice, was a testimony to the courage of the survivors and an exposure of the hollow claims of the protection of constitutional rights by the Indian state. Seven courageous women complained and documented their tale. Three years before this, four districts in western Uttar Pradesh (UP), Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Shamli and Meerut erupted nine months prior to India’s general elections in May 2014 with targeted violence.

Despite the Supreme Court of India being seized of the matter, not once but twice, and even passing salutary directions on several pleas, the abject failure of state mechanisms to deliver real and substantive justice raises questions of institutional accountability towards the dignity, justice and the well being of its citizenry, especially if the victim survivor hails from the voiceless – uninfluential – section of our people. These questions remain relevant today.

First published on: 18 Feb 2017

And no justice for women: Muzaffarnagar gang-rape survivors are not the only ones losing hope

The story of the communal violence that preceded the 2014 Lok Sabha polls continues to haunt even as the Assembly polls are underway in UP.

Why does every bout of brute, targeted violence inevitably become a battleground for sexual violence against the community’s women?

We saw this gruesome pattern during the bloodshed that surrounded India’s partition. Sikh, Muslim and Hindu women in equal measure were held to account, in revenge and wrath for what was perceived as the fault of the community they belonged to.

The same pattern has held true in various parts of India and South Asia thereafter – in the brute post partition anti-minority bouts of violence in India, including the violence suffered by Kashmiri Pandits in the Kashmir valley.

Unmatched in gruesome scale and scope were the Gujarat 2002 massacres, where by the state’s own admission, as many as 193 women and girls, of the Muslim minority, were targeted and attacked. (Independent assessments put the figure closer to 250).

Several lessons have been learned from the struggle for justice in Gujarat that has, to date, in an unprecedented “success rate” convicted over 172 powerful perpetrators. In three of the criminal trials, the narrative of gendered violence found space during the court proceedings.

The need for thorough recording of the first information report, independent investigations, time bound trials and a robust witness protection programme are the prerequisites of any struggle for justice as the robust Gujarat experience shows. Over 570 witness survivors, lawyers and human rights defenders, to date have such protection by the para-military, guaranteed by the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court’s continuous monitoring the progress of the trials also ensured some degree of redressal as time wore on and the investigating agencies slipped into cruel lethargy.

Losing hope in western Uttar Pradesh

It is, this month, a decade and a half after the state-wide carnage in the western Indian state.

Three years and five months ago, four districts of western Uttar Pradesh that have just celebrated democracy’s ultimate festival, the Assembly elections in the state, saw just such an upsurge. Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Shamli and Meerut erupted nine months prior to India’s general elections in May 2014 with targeted violence.

Not only were more than 60 lives lost and several thousands of the minority community internally displaced (this author was witness to deaths by the cold, of women and children, in the open-field relief camps all over the districts) but women, as usual bore the brunt.

Seven courageous women complained and documented their tale. Despite the Supreme Court of India being seized of the matter, not once but twice, and even passing salutary directions on several pleas, the abject failure of state mechanisms to deliver real and substantive justice raises questions of institutional accountability towards the dignity, justice and the well being of its citizenry, especially if the victim survivor hails from the voiceless – uninfluential – section of our people.

Amnesty International’s detailed report of its investigation of this targeted communal violence, Losing Faith – The Muzaffarnagar gang-rape survivors’ struggle for justice, is a testimony to the courage of the survivors and an exposure of the hollow claims of the protection of constitutional rights by the Indian state. Celebrate as we do election time and the festival of the ballot, little do issues of human rights and dignities matter when the campaign trail blazes shrill and strong. In the immediate aftermath of the first phase of elections in Uttar Pradesh, exactly where the tragic tales of the rape survivors are located, will this narrative have any impact?

Of the seven rape survivors, one died in child birth last year. A month before she died, she said to Amnesty, “If those responsible are brought to justice, I will be happy in my heart. I will not live in fear anymore “(Esha, a gang-rape survivor, July 2016). Her evidence had not even been recorded before she died. A petition for the transfer of her case outside the district of Muzaffarnagar had been filed in April 2016 and is, shockingly, still pending. Of the other five, two have been forced by bitter court delays and the force of circumstance to turn “hostile”.

“Fair trial means a trial in which bias or prejudice for or against the accused, the witnesses, or the cause which is being tried is eliminated. If the witnesses get threatened or are forced to give false evidence that also would not result in a fair trial.”
— – Supreme Court of India, Zaheera Sheikh v State of Gujarat, 2006

The detailed narratives of all seven survivors reveal the utter failure of the state to preserve and protect witness testimonies. Not only was police protection denied to them but the deliberate and prolonged delays in the hearings and the constant intimidation and threats by the alleged accused have ensured a pervasive culture of impunity to the perpetrators.

In all seven gang-rape cases, the police took months to file charges, and even after they did so, trials have proceeded extremely slowly, making a farce of the famed 2013 amendment to Section 309 of the Code of Criminal Procedure that dictates “day-to-day hearings until all the witnesses in attendance have been examined, “ and completion of a trial, in rape cases “within two months”.

Image: Losing Faith – Amnesty Report

One of the complainants, Fatima, tried unsuccessfully to file an FIR on September 20, 2013 and finally succeeded only on October 9 that year. Another, Ghazala, sent her complaint as early as October 22, 2013, but the police registered an FIR only after the issue was raised before the Supreme Court, on February 18, 2014. Ghazala too has applied for her case to be transferred out of the district. She told a trial court in January 2016,

“I am extremely apprehensive of coming to the Muzaffarnagar District court as the accused persons and their family members who all belong to the dominant community wield considerable influence in this area. I fear that harm will be caused to me and my family when I go to give my evidence in the Muzaffarnagar District court.”

The National Commission for Minorities, too, after a visit to the area in June 2014, has documented several complaints “about harassment of rape victims”.

Though the initial directions from the Supreme Court ensured that Rs 5,00,000 in compensation was paid to these survivors, the absence of any livelihood and continued threats and intimidation by perpetrators and even the police have rendered their existence fragile.

The continued need for robust and persistent legal aid, adequate reparation as also the enactment of a law to prevent communal violence (a task this country aborted mid-track in 2014), as also a witness protection programme are the need of the hour. Only through police reform will we reach a stage where there is thorough and independent investigation.

But the ruling dispensation in New Delhi remains blind to the fact that some of its cadres and party men even today remain accused of being the perpetrators of such hate-filled acts of vengeance and of further intimidating those who dare struggle for lasting peace through justice.

Teesta Setalvad is secretary, Citizens for Justice and Peace.

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