Rajya Sabha drama over triple talaq Bill: As BJP, Congress fight for votes, women lose out
The very fact that the BJP chose to bring it up on the last day of the monsoon session is telling.
The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017, which criminalises instant triple talaq, could not be taken up in the Rajya Sabha on the last day of the Monsoon Session of Parliament, as, in the words of Venkaiah Naidu, “no consensus could be built around it”.
Why is consensus eluding a Bill that, on the face of it, upholds women’s rights and strikes down an unfair practice?
The answer lies in the way the BJP steamrollered the legislation in the Lok Sabha, and the political uses it holds for both the ruling party and the Opposition.
The Bill will now be taken up in the Winter Session, closer to the 2019 general elections.
Women treated unfairly in all communities, not just Muslims, even Hindus, Christians, Sikhs etc. In every society, there is male domination. Even Shree Ram Chandra ji once left Sita ji after doubting her. So we need to change as a whole: Hussain Dalwai, Congress #TripleTalaqBill pic.twitter.com/dpuh0c3Jyu
— ANI (@ANI) August 10, 2018
The very fact that the BJP chose to bring it up on the last day of the session is telling — had the legislation been passed, the Centre would have projected it as an achievement. Now, they can blame the Opposition for blocking a “progressive Bill”.
Why the Bill is being opposed
Talaq-e-Biddat, or instant triple talaq — where the husband divorces the wife by saying “talaq, talaq, talaq” in one go — is anyway illegal. The Supreme Court had outlawed the practice in August 2017. This means that even if a man were to pronounce talaq thrice in one go, his marriage would not be dissolved.
The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017 goes a step ahead and criminalises the practice — while a man will not be divorced by pronouncing talaq thrice, he will go to jail for trying it. Moreover, it made the offence cognisable — anyone, not just the wife, can complain against the man — and non-bailable.
Many, including Opposition leaders and the very women who had fought against the practice in the Supreme Court, have termed the Bill “overkill”. Indian Union Muslim League MP, ET Muhammed Basheer, rather eloquently described the Bill as “taking a gun to kill a mosquito”.
The main problems pointed out in the Bill were that there was no need to criminalise a civil wrong; that allowing anyone to file a complaint opened the Bill to misuse; that imprisoning the husband would make the wife’s position more precarious as there would be no one to provide for her and her kids; and a woman opposing a divorce possibly wants a reconciliation, but putting the husband in jail dims the chances of that.
The government, in a bid to secure the support of parties like the AIADMK and the BJD — which are not in the Opposition camp but opposed the Bill in the Lok Sabha — has watered down some provisions.
The three amendments it has introduced are — only the affected woman or her close relatives can file a police case against the husband; the wife can drop the case if the couple later reconciles; while the offence is still non-bailable, meaning the man can’t get bail at the police station, he can plead for bail in front of the magistrate before the trial.
The Opposition is opposed to the “non-bailable” part and the three-year imprisonment clause.
Women’s rights hang in the balance
Even if the Rajya Sabha passes the Bill in the Winter Session, it will have to be sent back to the Lok Sabha, for the new amendments to be cleared. This means that till the 2019 general elections, the Bill will be an easy excuse for both the BJP and the Opposition to play ping-pong, burnish their image and target each other.
Already, while the Opposition has accused the BJP of demonising and victimising Muslims, the ruling party has accused them of placing votebank politics over women’s rights.
On August 9, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad took direct aim at Sonia Gandhi, saying, “I want to ask Sonia Gandhi, will you stand up for women's honour and pride? Congress should make their stand clear.”
I wish to ask Sonia Gandhi Ji who is a senior leader whether she would stand for gender justice, gender dignity and gender equality and support Triple Talaq Bill or not? pic.twitter.com/2EYQduAbym
— Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) August 9, 2018
When Rahul Gandhi wrote to the PM over the women’s reservation Bill last month, Prasad had asked him to support the triple talaq Bill.
Of course, this is not the first time women’s rights are being cynically used as a political plank by our leadership. The foundations for this were laid in 1986, when the Rajiv Gandhi government overturned a SC verdict ordering maintenance for a divorced Muslim woman, Shah Bano.
The government had then passed the Muslim Women (Protection on Divorce Act), 1986, which stated, in accordance with Islamic laws, that a divorced woman would get maintenance from her husband only during the “iddat” period — a fixed amount of time after which the woman is allowed to remarry.
As a consolation prize, the law had said that the magistrate could ask the Waqf Board to provide for the aggrieved woman.
Thirty two years later, we have come full circle — another government is acting on another Supreme Court judgement, this time upholding it, indeed taking it too far.
As both political camps take up positions on the issue, it is the affected women whose rights have become a cruel joke.