\n\n\n\n
Over the years, many Muslim women \nhave challenged triple talaq in courts. So what was different about \nShayara Bano’s case that it became such a game-changer? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This was\n the first time a Muslim woman had challenged her divorce on the ground \nthat her fundamental rights had been violated,” her lawyer Balaji \nSrinivasan told the BBC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Guaranteed by the constitution, these rights are often seen as the backbone of Indian democracy and they cannot be easily altered or taken away, and a citizen can seek legal redress if they are violated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The clergy told her ‘you don’t have fundamental rights because of \nyour faith’. So in India, if you’re a Hindu woman or a Christian woman \nor a woman from any other faith, you are alright. But if you’re a Muslim\n woman, you have no fundamental rights? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“So Shayara Bano \napproached the court, saying her constitutional right to equality had \nbeen violated and the top court took up her case,” Mr Srinivasan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I wonder why no-one thought of this before,” he says, adding, “maybe, it’s an idea whose time has come.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What\n also helped was the very vocal campaign against the practice by the \nBharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA – Indian Muslim Women’s Movement) \nover the past few years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It’s nothing but patriarchy masquerading as religion,” says Zakia Soman, one of the founder members of the BMMA. “Who gave the law board the right to take away our rights given to us by Allah?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2007, the organisation started compiling a list of women facing instant divorce and polygamy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We\n did a survey of 4,710 women and of the 525 who were divorced, 414 [or \n78%] had been divorced through instant triple talaq,” Ms Soman says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The organisation released a report chronicling nearly 100 cases where women were left destitute with nowhere to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In December 2012, they held a public hearing on the issue, attended by 500 women from across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They\n wrote letters to the prime minister, the law minister, the minorities’ \naffairs minister and the women and child development minster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They collected 50,000 signatures, calling for a ban on triple talaq. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two\n months after Shayara Bano’s petition was filed, another woman Aafreen \nRahman challenged her divorce in the Supreme Court. Over the following \nweeks, three other women and two women’s organisations, including the \nBMMA, filed similar writs in the top court. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The cases were \nclubbed together and the court set up a multi-faith bench made up of \nfive judges – a Hindu, a Sikh, a Christian, a Zoroastrian and one Muslim\n – to consider the matter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The bench, headed by Chief Justice JS\n Khehar, heard the case for six days from 11 May and the two sides were \ngiven equal time to present their views.\n \n \n \n \n \n \n Image copyright\n Getty Images\n \n \n \n \n Image caption\n \n Thousands of lives have been ruined by instant divorce\n \n \n \n <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The influential All India Muslim Personal Law Board,\n which was among those opposing the ban, claimed that the practice had \nbeen around for more than 1,400 years and argued that “though sinful, \ntriple talaq is a matter of faith for Muslims”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If men were unable\n to divorce their wives, the board said, they “may resort to illegal, \ncriminal ways of murdering or burning her alive”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Its lawyers also\n said that India’s Bharatiya Janata Party government had a Hindu \nnationalist agenda and that Muslim personal law, customs and practices \nwere under threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The board promised<\/a>\n that it would work to discourage the practice and those who resorted to\n instant divorce would be boycotted by the community – an idea that was \nstrongly opposed by lawyer Indira Jaising who represented one of the \npetitioners, an organisation of Muslim women called the Bebaak \nCollective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “One illegality over another, social boycott is \nillegal, hope the court is not carried away by extra constitutional \nsolutions to triple talaq,” she tweeted. Ms Jaising also wrote about \n“the patriarchy felt, seen, and heard in court during the hearing”. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Accusations of misogyny and injustice also seemed to worry the judges<\/a> who repeatedly asked if instant divorce was bad in theology, how could it be good in law? <\/p>\n\n\n\n “You\n pray in the mosque every Friday. In that prayer, you say triple talaq \nis a sin and bad. How can you then say it is an integral part of Islam?”\n Chief Justice Khehar wondered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Justice Kurian Joseph added: “Can something found to be sinful by God be validated by men through law?” <\/p>\n\n\n\n In\n the end, the court did not accept the argument that just because it had\n been custom for 1,400 years, it should still be acceptable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With \nTuesday’s order, India finally has an answer to this key question – \ninstant divorce is no longer just sinful, it’s also illegal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-asia-india-40484276 The Indian Supreme Court has ruled that the controversial practice of instant divorce in Islam is unconstitutional. It is being hailed as a huge victory by rights activists. But the battle was not easy, as the BBC’s Geeta Pandey in Delhi explains. Over the years, Muslim women in India have complained of living […]\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"tpgb_global_settings":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19,20],"tags":[24,21,22],"class_list":["post-171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-women-abuse","tag-divorce","tag-news","tag-women-abuse"],"tpgb_featured_images":{"full":["https:\/\/site.hopetoheal.org.za\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/96825126_gettyimages-175845686.jpg",660,371,false],"tp-image-grid":["https:\/\/site.hopetoheal.org.za\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/96825126_gettyimages-175845686.jpg",660,371,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/site.hopetoheal.org.za\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/96825126_gettyimages-175845686-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/site.hopetoheal.org.za\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/96825126_gettyimages-175845686-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/site.hopetoheal.org.za\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/96825126_gettyimages-175845686.jpg",660,371,false],"large":["https:\/\/site.hopetoheal.org.za\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/96825126_gettyimages-175845686.jpg",660,371,false],"default":"https:\/\/site.hopetoheal.org.za\/staging\/wp-content\/plugins\/the-plus-addons-for-block-editor\/assets\/images\/tpgb-placeholder.jpg"},"tpgb_post_meta_info":{"get_date":"May 29, 2019","get_modified_date":"May 29, 2019","category_list":{"category":[{"term_id":19,"name":"News","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":19,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":238,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":20,"name":"Women Abuse","slug":"women-abuse","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":20,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":4,"filter":"raw"}],"post_tag":[{"term_id":24,"name":"divorce","slug":"divorce","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":24,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":21,"name":"news","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":21,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":5,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":22,"name":"women abuse","slug":"women-abuse","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":22,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"}],"post_format":false},"author_name":"Hope To Heal","author_url":"https:\/\/site.hopetoheal.org.za\/staging\/author\/hope2233\/","author_email":"webmaster@hopetoheal.org.za","author_website":"","author_description":"Our mission is for women and children to live free from violence and abuse and to provide quality, compassionate, and nonjudgmental services in a manner that fosters self-respect and independence in persons experiencing domestic violence and child abuse and to lead the struggle to end domestic violence through advocacy and community education.","author_facebook":"","author_twitter":"","author_instagram":"","author_role":["administrator"],"author_firstname":"Hope To","author_lastname":"Heal Foundation","user_login":"Hope2233","author_avatar":"