(LETTER): A few days ago there appeared in “Dawn” a letter strongly supporting the Shariat Bill which seeks to give equal inheritance to sons and daughters among Muslims. It is difficult to understand what has prompted its sponsors to make such a move … what exactly does the Bill seek to accomplish? Is it not merely in pursuance of some vague and elusive catchphrase like equality of rights between men and women?...

Who will deny that the condition of Muslim women in India today is most miserable? But their sad condition is due primarily to the lack of education and the pernicious custom of purdah — that one shuts the light of intelligence from their minds and the other shuts the light of the sun from their bodies.

For without education women can neither have the self-respect to know their own status or importance and the intelligence to realise their equality of rights that may be secured for them. For what would the right of equal inheritance avail an ignorant woman if her unscrupulous husband persuaded her to write it off in his name?...

N. A. JAFREY

Allahabad (Dawn, Delhi)