MUSLIM women in India have reason to rejoice, for they have won the battle against the regressive practice of the ‘triple talaq’ which the country’s Supreme Court has ruled as being ‘unconstitutional’. According to this custom, a man could divorce his wife by merely repeating the word ‘talaq’ (divorce) three times. In a digital age, even text messages and Whatsapp have been used to effect such an ‘instant’ divorce. This licence to capriciousness has been the cause of untold misery and financial hardship for women, a sword of Damocles hanging over their heads in the marital relationship. Women divorced in this way have often had to contend with straitened circumstances overnight, sometimes even with the loss of their children’s custody. It was a particularly cruel way of allowing men to control women and keep them constantly in fear of losing the security that marriage provides in a conservative society.
Not surprisingly, the practice of triple talaq — which many Islamic scholars say is not mentioned in the Holy Quran and is banned in most Muslim countries, including Pakistan —has many champions among Muslim men in India. While maintaining that the practice is ‘evil’, they nonetheless want to retain it based on spurious arguments about the fundamental right to practise religion. Curiously, such men have no qualms in embracing modern technology like smartphones — whereby they sometimes pronounce instant divorce — even as they cling to outmoded traditions where it suits them. The Muslim religious lobby in India has responded with fury to the court’s ruling, declaring that as far as they are concerned the status quo remains. To counter this defiance, there must be an extensive awareness campaign to spread the word that the triple talaq stands outlawed. We in Pakistan could also do with a similar campaign, for in some backward areas here, this mode of divorce continues to be seen as valid. In fact, women in this country generally have little awareness of the fine print in their nikahnama. It is about time that changed.
Published in Dawn, August 25th, 2017
