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Gauri Gharpure studied journalism at Columbia University, New York, on a Fulbright grant. She makes paper jewellery on the side and tweets @gaurigharpure
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While women getting a chance to worship at the Haji Ali Dargah may seem a positive step forward, there are many more issues within the community that need sensitive judicial intervention.
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Three news pieces got my attention this week. First, women walked into the Haji Ali Dargah in Mumbai and worshipped inside the premises for the first time since 2011. Second, a television channel in Morocco recently faced worldwide criticism after it aired a programme on make-up tips to hide domestic violence. Third, a prince of the Saudi Arabia royal family tweeted that it was high time that women were allowed to drive in his country. Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where Muslim women are not allowed to drive. All three news items concern women's rights within communities where religion is still a major deterrent in ensuring the same.
Ironically, finding a lacuna in the High Court's order of "equal rights" the Dargah board has now decided to restrict entry to the dargah's sanctum santorum to men as well. Till 2011, women were also allowed in the sanctum santorum but rules were unceremoniously changed. A petition against the ban was filed in the Bombay High Court in 2014 and on August 26, 2016, the court lifted the ban. The dargah trust unsuccessfully challenged the order in the Supreme Court.
While women getting a chance to worship at the Haji Ali Dargah may seem a positive step forward, there are many more issues within the community that need sensitive judicial intervention. Some activists have begun discussions to ban triple talaq - the practice of uttering "divorce" three times in a row which instantly breaks the marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM), the latter in the Dawoodi Bohra community.
The All India Muslim Personal Law Board that was formed in 1973 to resist the government's attempts of modifying Shariah laws under the Uniform Civil Code has once again rejected the ongoing debate to ban triple talaq. The board is vehemently against any interference in this matter. However, gender rights activists in the community hope to create a consensus to bring judicial amendments. Twenty Islamic nations, including Turkey, Cyprus, Bangladesh and Pakistan have banned triple talaq.
Noorjehan Safia Niaz, co-founder of Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) has been fighting for equal laws for Muslim women for years and is a vocal voice against triple talaq. There are instances where women have even been divorced by speed post, over the Internet, via email or Skype. BMMA had also filed the petition challenging restriction of women from Haji Ali Dargah in 2014.
The Bohra community doesn't practice triple talaq. However, the community follows another practise that it remains tight lipped about. There is a misconception that female genital mutilation (FGM) is practised only in the African subcontinent. Female genital cutting or "khatna" also routinely happens in the heart of Mumbai and within the otherwise progressive, educated and well-placed Bohra community. The fear of backlash and ostracisation of those who refuse to carry out khatna on their daughters is immense.
A June 2016 Hindustan Times article "India's Dark Secret" by Harinder Baweja mentions that the procedure - to cut off the clitoris as it is thought to be an evil and nonessential part of the female anatomy that leads to immodesty- is often carried out in a rather shoddy manner by old midwives from their homes without even the basic precautions or anaesthesia on unsuspecting girls as young as five. The article talks about an online petition filed by Delhi-based publisher Masooma Ranalvi calling for the ban of khatna. Only 17 women from the community signed the petition at the time.
One of the 17 petitioners, journalist Aarefa Johari, is associated with Sahiyo (sahiyo.com) an organisation dedicated to empowering Dawoodi Bohra and other Asian communities. The website also shares moving first-person accounts to create awareness against khatna. Another Facebook page called "Speak out on FGM" also gives insight on the issue. Khatna has yet not been explicitly tackled by the Indian judiciary - there is still no ban - and support from within the community is still low because of fears of social exclusion.
Moving on to Morocco's television program that gave tips to hide bruises sustained during domestic violence. Such self-destructive tips to hide, forgive and forget abuse abound all over the world, not just in Morocco. According to an imam's personal interpretation of the Quran, it was alright for men to "beat their wives lightly". After he made this bizarre statement in Pakistan, men and women took to Twitter to sarcastically vent their outrage and the hashtag #beatlightly began trending in the country, and soon the world over.
Here's a statistic to prove that domestic violence is largely condoned as a crime in our secular republic even in this day and age as well: Cases filed under the Protection of Women from Domestic violence Act 2005 were recorded for the first time in 2014, almost a decade after the act was amended. Little wonder then that there are only 426 reported cases on the National Crime Records Bureau website.
While there are only 426 reported cases of domestic violence in India, the cases of dowry deaths and cruelty by husband or his relatives are respectively 8455 and 1,22,877! It is highly likely that each one of us personally knows, or has heard of at least one woman within our family, social circle or workplace who has been beaten up in an abusive relationship. Our connivance at initial stages of abuse (read only 426 reported cases) likely results in lakhs of cases suicides, dowry deaths and grievous assaults later. Irrespective of religious beliefs, if men were to passionately start believing in equal rights themselves, humanity has huge scope to progress.
