Indian society and important days and event-Muslim Women Rights Day- 1st August
August 13, 2020 · Param IAS Team
- 1st August is a day which made Muslim women free from social evil of Triple Talaq
- 1st August has been recorded in the country’s history as “Muslim Women Rights Day”
- 1st August will remain as a golden moment of Indian democracy and Parliamentary history.
- In this day the law which makes social evil of Triple Talaq a criminal offence has strengthened “self-reliance, self-respect and self-confidence” of the Muslim women of the country.
- The Government has ensured gender equality and strengthened constitutional, fundamental and democratic rights of the Muslim women by bringing law against the cruel social evil of Triple Talaq.
- Triple Talaq or Talaq-a-Biddat was neither Islamic nor legal.
- Despite of the fact, the social evil of Triple Talaq was given “political patronage” by “Merchants of Votes”.
- The law against social evil of Triple Talaq could have been passed in 1986 when the Supreme Court had given historic judgement in the Shahbano Case.
- The Congress had absolute majority in Parliament with more than 400 out of 545 Lok Sabha Members and more than 159 out of 245 Members in the Rajya Sabha.
- But the then Rajiv Gandhi Government used its strength in the Parliament to make the Supreme Court judgement ineffective and deprive the Muslim women of their constitutional and fundamental rights.
- Several Muslim-majority nations of the world had declared Triple Talaq as illegal and un-Islamic much earlier.
- Egypt was the first Muslim nation which abolished this social evil in 1929.
- Sudan in 1929, Pakistan in 1956, Bangladesh in 1972, Iraq in 1959, Syria in 1953, Malaysia in 1969 had abolished the practice of Triple Talaq.
- Besides, countries such as Cyprus, Jordan, Algeria, Iran, Brunei, Morocco, Qatar, UAE also ended this social evil many years ago.
- But Muslim women in India struggled for decades to get freedom from this cruel social evil.
- The Government made the law against Triple Talaq to make effective the Supreme Court’s judgement.
- One year has passed since the law against Triple Talaq was passed and there is a decline of about 82% in Triple Talaq cases thereafter.
- If any such case was reported, the law has taken action.
- It has taken a very long time that India took 70 years to bring a law against triple talaq and pointed out that it is a “law for women’s rights and self-respect”but now it is assured that hereafter will work towards to make Muslim women digitally literate and celebrate Muslim Women Rights Day proudly.
- The Triple Talaq Bill is a victory for millions of Muslim women and called it a “true testimony” to ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas’.