The recent Supreme Court directive to constitute a committee to control polygamy among the Muslim community and to restrain the indiscriminate use of the provision of 'talaq' (Islamic term for divorce) as practiced by a certain Muslim sect has sent shock waves through the community in Kerala. The directive also stated that a necessary law to enforce this must be framed.
The men are aghast and infuriated at the possibility of the abolition of polygamy, while women are stranded between a sigh and a gasp... the sigh of relief and the gasp at the almost certain resistance to this measure. Meanwhile, the visual media in Kerala has gone to town with the controversy.
Kerala's Muslim women have been especially affected by the ills of 'talaq', which in this wired world comes not only by post but also by mobile phone and the Internet. A 'talaq' by a Sunni Muslim male, whether it is uttered in a state of stupor or sleep, in a state of anger or uttered casually, is considered a final pronouncement. Once, a woman revealed to her friend that her husband had pronounced the word 'talaq' in his sleep. This was promptly relayed to the community's so-called guardians and resulted in the woman's divorce. A drunken husband uttered 'talaq'. He later regretted having said this, confessing before the clergy that he loved his wife and children. But it was considered irrevocable by the clergy. When the man continued to stay with his family, the whole family was ostracised.
The rules for 'talaq' differ among the major Islamic schools of jurisprudence. As per the Sunni school, no witnesses are required and a husband can end a relationship by uttering the triple 'talaq'. The Shi'a practice requires the presence of two witnesses, followed by the 'iddah' period - during which mediators, who are usually family members, try to bring about a reconciliation.
Reacting to the Supreme Court directive, Kanthapuram Abubaker Musaliar, a sunni Muslim leader, said a man must have the freedom to have more than one wife, considering the enforced sexual deprivation he has to suffer when a wife is menstruating. This remark shocked the women in the community and V.P. Suhara, the chairperson of Nisa Progressive Muslim Women's Forum, a woman activist particularly involved with Muslim women's issues, articulated her ire openly before the cameras and in front of religious luminaries.
"Kanthapuram's statement is highly insulting. He is treating women as sexual objects and nothing else," she fumed. "Muslim women have no voice. We are sold in the marriage market like cattle, by the elders and religious heads, and without our consent. Women have to serve the husband, whether he is sick or bed-ridden or sexually incompetent. Aren't we also made of flesh and blood?" she asked on camera. Suhara believes that male priests have misinterpreted the Qur'an, which did not advocate polygamy or instant 'talaq'. According to Suhara, even Prophet Mohammad justified polygamy only when a man can ensure economic, emotional, and physical justice to the woman. Suhara adds that the Prophet himself said this was impossible. Kanthapuram, however, claims that it is the directive of Allah that men should marry more than one woman.
Kerala Muslim women are in dire straits. In Malappuram district, girls are not allowed to study beyond the age of 12, considered the marriageable age. The Qur'an enforces 'Meher' or bride price and not dowry, yet dowry is common among Muslims here. It is the poor families who get their daughters married to old men or men from out of the state, whether they live in Mysore or in Mali islands, in Coimbatore or in Qatar, because there is no need to pay a dowry in such cases. But once these women deliver a child, they are invariably divorced and return to their parental homes with a babe in arms. There are many such women living in Kerala's Malappuram area today.
As polygamy is illegal, some Muslim men have resorted to 'talaq': marrying women serially and then divorcing them. Such serial marriages in Kerala result in Muslim women being abandoned and left to lead lives of great poverty and misery. Anisa, 41, narrated how her husband had sent a 'talaq' by mail from the Gulf and then married her elder sister, "because Anisa is not smart enough for him". Anisa has four children.
According to the Qur'an, no man can keep two sisters as wives simultaneously and so Anisa's husband adopted the ruse of divorcing her in order to marry her elder sister. Incidentally, Anisa's sister, a grandmother herself, was deserted by her husband and is not legally divorced. As per the Sharia (Islamic laws), remarriage is permitted for both men and women but only after a formal divorce. However, when Anisa approached the Mahallu committee against her husband's remarriage, she was told it was permissible as per the Qur'an.
Suhara does not agree that the Qur'an allows polygamy and 'talaq'. She argues that polygamy was advocated when there were more women than men in Arabia in the aftermath of war, as a remedy to prevent prostitution and in order to ensure the protection of women. It was later interpreted by the male priests as a male right and that unfortunately continues to be the general view.
Anisa is planning to approach the courts for justice. Says activist Dr P. Geetha, "Muslim women are not courageous enough to resist male pressure. Suhara is waging a lone battle. The women believe that it is the dictate of the Nabi (Prophet Mohammad) that men should marry more than once or utter 'talaq' when they want to abandon a wife who has staled."
After the Supreme Court directive on polygamy and 'talaq', the State Law Reforms Committee, headed by Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer, came up with the Kerala Muslim Marriage and Dissolution by Talaq (Regulation) Bill. The Bill insists on monogamy and wants multiple marriages to be punishable. The panel also insists that all marriages, including Muslim marriages, be registered. (This provision has also attracted the ire of Muslim men when it was mooted in the past.)
It is interesting the light of this controversy to remember that even Muslim countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Iraq, have laws to protect women. The trouble in India is that the issue has become so politicised, that the long-overdue reform measures have never been allowed to see the light of day.
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Topic: Kerala's Muslim Women Battle Indiscriminate Talaq