Second tilt at triple talaq

The Lok Sabha on Thursday took up the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017, for the second time with predictable results. The BJP bench strength once again powered it through, amidst an Opposition boycott. On face value, the government is implementing the Supreme Court’s directive for a law to govern marriage and divorce in the Muslim community after it struck down the practice of triple talaq. There cannot be two views that triple talaq is one of the worst forms of marriage dissolution. Neither mentioned in the Quran nor the Sharia law, this practice is mostly in the Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence, the most prevalent in our part of the world.

Many nations in the region guillotined this paternalistic mindset but India’s secular political class opted to sleep over this pernicious practice till the courts decided to take up the cause of the aggrieved women. Now that the Muslim community too has accepted the court’s ruling, the nub of the problem is about criminalising the practice. The secular corner claims that the ruling party’s intent behind seeking to prescribe a three-year jail term is heavy-handedness and a deliberate political attempt to show up the warts in the Muslim community. 

The government’s reasoning is that a jail term is a necessary deterrent because the practice remains unabated with the Law Minister trotting out a figure of about 500-odd cases in one year since the Supreme Court struck down triple talaq. Besides the fact this time period is too short to assess the efficacy in changing societal behaviour, governments have been overeager about tightening prevailing laws with no regard to empirical evidence. The Modi government’s conscious decision to exclude Muslims from all walks of political life suggests that its insistence on incorporating a criminal provision is part of a political game plan. If the consideration is to promote gender equality rather than create a Hindu vote bank, the need is for a law that primarily offers civil recourse and is subject to constant monitoring by the state.