Triple Talaq Verdict: Shah Bano to Shayara Bano

Progressive is as progressive does. This was an important message from the triple talaq verdict that was delivered today. It was also a tale of two Prime Ministers, one who overturned the apex court verdict in the eighties, plunging Muslim women back into an abyss for thirty odd years. And another who became an outspoken advocate for reform, using multiple platforms to express solidarity with the victims of this cruel practice and assuring equality. But most importantly, it was about women, especially two women, who became emblematic of this struggle for equal rights, Shah Bano and Shayara Bano, decades apart but subjected to the same regressive predicament as the world raced ahead. And it was about Zakia Soman and the Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, and its tenacity and women on debate panels, who were insulted for questioning this practice, everything from their faith to their character was doubted on national television. Feisty female politicians like Shazia Ilmi, ordinary women, poor women, all coming together to fight for dignity, from the hills of Uttarakhand, to the desert of Rajasthan, in Mumbai and in Ahmedabad, the powerful chorus of — no more. This victory belongs to them.

It was a putting in place of a body, an “NGO” that declared itself the arbiter of female dignity. It was a smashing of clergy politics and politicians who claim to stand for women empowerment but have to their credit the overturning of a progressive verdict that emancipated women, setting back the clock and sheltering misogynists for political gain.

And it was a multifaith bench that deliberated and came up with a majority verdict, articulating their decision in a voluminous and landmark judgement that will go down in history and be discussed by future generations, future lawyers and women and all those who care deeply about equality.

This will also be about the silence of those who justify regressive practices by citing diversity and “secularism”, the hollowness of that claim stands exposed, especially when even Egypt (leave aside our neighbours) home to one of the most influential seminaries in the Sunni world, outlawed triple talaq in 1929.

It was about global jurisprudence and the Constitution. And it was about a woman being divorced over WhatsApp, Skype, with words written on a piece of paper. Her existence, her dignity reduced to one word repeated three times. Her isolation not only from the world but also from some women, who decided the privilege which insulated them, defanged this cruel custom.

A year ago, it was about the right to pray in certain temples and a dargah, this year it is about triple talaq. We, the women of this country, need to pick up the pace. We need to break down this nexus between political interest and the clergy. Smash the complicity that cloaks itself in the robes of diversity and keeps women oppressed. Call out the hypocrisy and own “the shame” which will be directed our way. Only shameless women change the world for those who will follow, who will be unafraid and beyond humiliation. It is for that world that we must fight, not only the present.

As the verdict was being read out I was on live television. Unknowingly, it was the minority opinion that we assumed to be the final verdict. On screen, the images of a woman up against a tall maroon gate played, she pulled at it vigorously, in agitation, in despair. Locked out, demanding, begging, beseeching to be let back in. She had been divorced and thrown out. She wore a burkha, concealed from the world, but her pain and anguish were palpable. That opinion played on like background score and my heart sank for those women whose names we knew and the thousands who remained veiled for us. The walls were too high, the gates were shut. There was no hope. And then the message came in that the verdict was against triple talaq by a majority. Resuscitation. CPR. The screen changed to Breaking News. And my eyes found the one word that rescued me in that moment — “Breaking”. Yes. We were. Finally breaking some of the shackles.

The author is an established writer and screenwriter