RIGHTS-INDIA: Muslim Women Tackle Orthodoxy

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Ranjita Biswas

KOLKATTA, Jun 30 2005 (IPS) - Being a woman can be tough in patriarchal India but to be a Muslim as well can be truly trying. Yet Muslim women across the country are learning to stand up for their rights in several different ways.

On Thursday, the All-India Muslim Women Personal Law Board (AIMWPLB) did the unthinkable by rejecting a ‘fatwa’ issued by the powerful Dar-ul-Uloom at Deoband in northern Uttar Pradesh state, a seminary considered to be the final arbiter of Islamic law across South Asia.

The seminar’s fatwa ordered Imrana Bibim a 28-year-old mother of five, to separate from her husband after she was allegedly raped by her father-in-law, because it deemed that the sexual act had made her like a mother to her husband.

But the Muslim women’s body rejected the order and. Its president, Shaista Amber, was quoted as saying Thursday that Imrana should have the right to live with her husband and her children, and that her father-in-law should be tried according to the secular laws of the land.

Amber was bold enough to say that she considered the scholarly edict a "wrong interpretation" of the Quran or Muslim holy book and of Shariah (Islamic law).

Recently the AIMWPLB, together with the Muslim Women’s Rights Network, (a coalition of 25 organizations formed in 2001 to challenge Muslim orthodoxy) joined to formulate a model code on Muslim marriages and divorce, frowning particularly on the "triple ‘talaq’," the practice of granting summary divorce once a husband repeats ‘talaq’ three times.

Though members of AIMWPLB, as well as many other women activists, feel the model code does not really safeguard the interests of women, it is hailed as step forward for women in the conservative Muslim society.

This new boldness is reflected across India, which has 150 million Muslims, with women – even those from disadvantaged economic backgrounds – now actively trying to change their cloistered lives, despite the fact that the literacy rate among Muslim women is barely above 50 percent.

This year has seen Muslim women divorcing abusive husbands and going back to school or college to get an education, while others have been more radical and fought orthodoxy by setting up parallel mosques or even taking to boxing.

Many of these changes are occurring in Marxist-ruled West Bengal state, where a group of rebellious married teenagers from the rural backwaters of Nadia district recently decided to walk out on their abusive husbands.

"I wanted to become a teacher like my (schoolteacher) husband. But he wanted me to bear children and spend the rest of my life bringing them up," Reshma Khatun, 19, told IPS.

Khatun was among a group of 20 girls in their late teens – 16 of them Muslim and the others Hindu – who lodged complaints with local police and compelled their spouses to separate and return their dowries.

The girls were helped by the fact that the legal age for marriage is 18 and that demanding dowry is illegal, although these provisions are rarely followed and custom prevails among both Muslims and Hindus, who form the majority in India’s billion-plus population.

Some attribute the women’s assertiveness to the steady march of education, especially in the rural areas. "Increased literacy has changed the outlook of rural women. Many of them are more modern in their outlook than the men," commented noted sociologist DP Bhattacharjee.

A couple of years ago, encouraged by the progressive state government, the Madrasa Board that looks after Islamic schools in West Bengal set up a ‘Guidance Foundation’ course focused towards girl students in villages.

This course selects the 12 most talented students in the villages and transplants them to city schools with the aim of preparing them for higher secondary education and competitive examinations..

"Education and economic independence are the only ways our girls can come out of the exploitative situation which is so rife in our community," asserts Sarfaraz Ali, head of the Rajabazar Education and Awareness Development Society (READ), a non-governmental organization (NGO) in Kolkatta.

Most of the workers in his team are women abandoned or separated from their husbands following dowry disputes or else the victims of ‘talaq’.

READ runs classes for poor Muslim boys and girls in a small room in the congested Gas Street of northern Rajabazar, where students squat cheek-by-jowl on the floor. Their teacher is a Muslim girl who pursued her studies despite grinding poverty.

Then there are girls from the poverty-stricken, Muslim majority area of Ekbalpur in the southern part of Kolkatta, who are making their statements with their fists – by taking up boxing.

Sanno Baby and Shakila Baby are twin sisters and regulars at the South Calcutta Physical Culture Association, and could have been local versions of the ‘Million Dollar Baby’ who figured in the Oscar-prize winning film of that title.

"We want to take part in national games and do something in life. Our mother (a widow) encourages us too, though we are very poor," say the sisters. The association has already produced accomplished women like Razia, a qualified international women’s boxing referee.

Packing even more punch are Muslim women in southern Tamil Nadu state’s Pudukottai, who hit the headlines when they got together to establish a women’s mosque. In India, Muslim women usually pray in buildings adjoining mosques, secluded from male congregations.

"Our women don’t have the space to laugh, cry and share thoughts like the men do in mosques. This is not a religious struggle. This is a power struggle," Daud Sharifa, leader of the Pudukottai women, said in an interview with the ‘Times of India’ newspaper.

Sharifa is also coordinator of the Tamil Nadu Muslim Women’s Jamaat Committee. A ‘jammat’ is a gathering that happens in mosques on Fridays, where women are not allowed. Often a woman’s fate is decided during a jammat, so the organization was born as a protest.

The ripple effect of education and awareness among Muslim women is already picking up momentum in the quiet streets of India and the tide may yet help women who have been kept under the veil for ages.