Massive Political Fight Awaits Maintenance For Muslim Divorced Women

The stage is decked for a massive political fight. NGO All India Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) has taken upon itself the task of using everything in its quiver to compel the Supreme Court to overturn its verdict on maintenance to divorced Muslim women. The board met on Sunday and ruled that the top court had no business interfering in marriages and divorces of Muslim men and women.

The AIMPLB’s intransigence on such personal laws intrinsic to Muslims is the envy of Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Christians, Buddhists and Parsis, who wouldn’t dare to read the riot act to the topmost court of the land. For Muslims, though, it is routine and mostly they are given the right of “my way or the highway”. No wonder, the verdict on maintenance for Muslim women delivered by justices BV Nagarathna and Augustine George Masih is so startling to the Muslim ear.

For sure, the Supreme Court’s potency will be on test. How the NDA government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi handles this open defiance of the top court will be keenly watched. It is no secret that Muslims are a force unto themselves. Especially, when the issue is a tinderbox and potentially an IED! AIMPLB will ask for a larger SC bench.

Almost the entire Muslim community believes CJI DY Chandrachud will uphold Sharia. Divorced Muslim women’s maintenance is a sensitive issue. Sharia allows Muslim men the luxury of four wives at a time. This entitlement, however, could leave behind a string of ex-wives! If each of those ex-wives have to be given maintenance, imagine the financial burden on the ex-husband? Even beg, borrow or steal will not save him his present, and his future.

But in real life things never deteriorate to such a sorry pass. The Sharia is “kavach”, which even the Muslim divorced woman has to abide by. Most important, the AIMPLB is defender and protector of Sharia, a role it takes very seriously. The depredatory instincts of the “majoritarian” ideology has to be kept in mind.

The AIMPLB is last resort and history is witness to how far the Congress will go to maintain status quo on the vexatious issue of maintenance for divorced Muslim women. Imagine a Muslim male with two marriages intact and another two divorced. The divorced are “ajnabi” — total strangers to the ex-husband. If there was one ex-wife asking for maintenance, it wouldn’t be penury. But what happens, if there are two, three, four ex-wives? The Muslim male will have to hock his socks. The Sharia anticipated such a situation and came to the rescue of the Muslim male hundreds of years ago.

Like everybody else, the Muslim male also looks for his convenience and a string of ex-wives and their offspring should be far from his untroubled thoughts. Only then will Sharia prevail, both in letter, and in spirit. The AIMPLB has, therefore, rejected the Supreme Court’s ruling on Section 125 CrPC for Muslim women. On Sunday, AIMPLB authorized itself to challenge the SC verdict.

Mohd. Abdul Samad’s appeal to the top court must not be dismissed at any cost. Sharia is divine law and Supreme Court justices are mere mortals. The AIMPLB has ruled that Samad does not have to pay alimony ordered by the family court and upheld by the Telangana High Court — Indian judiciary’s writ does not run against the all-powerful Sharia.

The Supreme Court has no option but to bow to the AIMPLB’s ruling. Of course, the Constitution of India is supreme, no doubt about that. But, hey, “it is India’s secular Constitution which says most emphatically that Sharia cannot be touched.” The AIMPLB also ruled that the UCC in Uttarakhand wasn’t for Muslims. Neither changes to Waqf properties. Instead stop the mob lynching. And uphold the Places of Worship Act, speak against Israel’s depredations in Gaza, and “what’s this about the Sunehri Masjid’s demolition we’re hearing.

In short, AIMPLB doesn’t recognize the Supreme Court verdict on maintenance to divorced Muslim women, which is on its way to become an election issue. None of the political parties are supporting the Muslim male and the AIMPLB openly. But the writing on the wall is pretty clear: Muslim women are not in cohesion or coordination. They are a divided lot. Millions of Muslim women recognize their plight but are unwilling and scared to speak up against Sharia and the Muslim male’s hegemony.

Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi went ahead and used his majority in Parliament to overturn the Supreme Court ruling in the Shah Bano case. Muslim men are now banking on Rahul Gandhi. As long as there is the RSS, and the BJP, Muslim women will not get their due. The BJP went all out to appease Muslim women by removing triple-talaq, but did the Muslim women vote for the BJP in the just concluded Lok Sabha polls?

Absolutely not. The number of BJP leaders coming out against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Muslim appeasement slogan ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ is increasing by the day. More and more NDA politicians are openly speaking against appeasement of Muslims with “roti, dal and makaan”. The murmurs are getting louder by the day and pressure is mounting on the NDA.

Bowing down to the AIMPLB’s Sharia diktat to the Supreme Court of India will be used to polarize and “Hindu-Muslim” will reverberate in state after state going to polls. This is the first time, Muslims in India have come out so strongly against the Supreme Court, pitting the Constitution of India against the “Holy Quran”. Till now Muslims had limited themselves to saying “Quran Comes First” only in TV debates. This is the first time the cry is being heard everywhere — perhaps, one day from tree- and rooftops, too.

The AIMPLB diktat had come after the Supreme Court said “maintenance from her husband under Section 125 of the CrPC is religion neutral” and applicable to all married women irrespective of their religion. (IPA Service)