OUR STRUGGLE OUR LEADERSHIP - TO SUM UP MUSLIM WOMEN'S ACHIEVEMENTS

DAY 30

OUR STRUGGLE, OUR LEADERSHIP

Indian Muslim Women – Who they are and What have they Achieved

Why the need for a Muslim women’s movement? 

Since the inception of the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan [BMMA] in a January 2007 it has been asked by many as to the need for Muslim women to organize themselves? Kya zaroorat hai Musalman aurton ko apni tehreek tayar karne ki? After 14 years of BMMA, it is amply clear why it was so important that Muslim women take a lead. The reasons are many. To start with, no community can develop if its women remain behind and conversely the women of the community cannot progress unless the larger community also takes the onus to lend her a helping hand in playing her role in public life.

BMMA has not only created an alternative liberal voice in the Indian Muslim community but has also brought Muslim women in the forefront by raising a sensitive issue of law reform towards which the larger community had adopted an ostrich approach. Creating a membership base on more than a lakh, creating an draft of Muslim family law, creating Darul Uloom-e-Niswan-a centre for Islamic teaching, winning a PIL in the Supreme Court against the Haji Ali dargah Trust, filing a PIL in Supreme Court against the practice of triple talaak and halala, running vocational training centres in 7 cities for the socio-economic development of Muslim girls and boys, running Aurton Ki Shariah Adalats in 4 cities-in short creating secular, liberal space within the community and reclaiming Islam from misogynist and conservatives to secure human rights of Muslim women. With Muslim women taking lead, especially on matters of personal law reform and issues of women’s access to sacred spaces, we have also seem the Muslim male secular liberal voice rising to support women. 

What is its vision and goals? 

The vision of the Andolan is to create conditions within the Indian society where the Muslim community and especially the Muslim women are able to eradicate their own poverty and marginalization and live a life of equality, justice and with respect for human rights. It believes in the values of democracy, secularism, equality, non-violence, human rights and justice as enshrined in the Constitution of India. These are the guiding principles in their struggle. It believes in the inherent capacity of women to lead and ameliorate the social, economic, political, legal and educational backwardness. It also seeks to carry out positive, liberal, humanist and feminist interpretations of religion for ensuring justice and equality to Muslim women. And to achieve its vision of an equal society it seeks collaboration and alliance with other movements and networks that are fighting for social equality and human rights and are opposing forces of fascism, capitalism, communalism and imperialism in all its forms.

What is the pathway to achieving this vision? 

To achieve this vision and objectives the Andolan through its well laid out administrative structure reaches out to Muslim women in villages, towns and cities and organizes them into pressure groups under the leadership of a committed woman leader. The emergent leadership of Muslim women at the national, state, district, block and village level carries out programmes and activities related to education, livelihood, law reform and health services. Amongst its many achievements the Andolan in all the states where it is active, has mobilized Muslim women and exerted pressure on local government machinery to issue important documents like voter I-cards, ration cards, widow pension cards etc. Perspective building and inputs and information-giving workshops are organized on various issues on a regular basis. 

These initiatives of Muslim women need to be further supported and complimented by other Muslims so that the community as a whole is able to lead a life of dignity and safety. It cannot be that the community demands security and democracy for itself from the state but does not allow the same for the women. Democracy within is the crying need of the time.

How has rise in global conservatism affected the community? 

While we see a rise in conservative forces within the community, we also see the world not doing anything better. With conservative political parties rising in the Europe and USA and within our own country, Islam and Muslims continue to remain the villain. Notwithstanding the fact that the highest number of victims of Islamic terror continues to be fellow Muslims. Closer home, rise of cultural and political hindutva groups has ensured that Muslims remain under siege. This socio-political environment has a direct bearing on women and youth. Lack of educational and livelihood opportunities, ghettoized living conditions and an atmosphere of being hated, feared and despised have pushed the community to the wall. 

How has privatization, globalization, liberalization, in short an open capitalist economy impacted our struggles? 

The arrival of the forces of globalization and privatization in India since early 1990s has also led to the poor - dalits, adivasis, women and minorities being driven further to the margins with a direct onslaught on their lands and livelihoods. Civil society organizations have been protesting about the widespread exclusion of India’s large masses due to the very questionable notions of development which are increasingly finding deep roots into the successive governments and their policies. A malfunctioning PDS and nonfunctional primary schools both aggravate the social exclusion faced by the minorities as by the dalits and adivasis. Today the impact of state withdrawal from welfarism and inclusive development is for all to see. It is important to see BMMA’s work emerging and impacted by these conditions. 

Does the answer lie in building up movements of people? 

Indian history is replete with instances of struggle for social change and justice. Women and especially Muslim women have also initiated and actively participated in many historical movements for justice. These struggles are still on with increasing strength of women. Yet women’s participation and the articulation of her perspective of social justice and development have always been ignored traditionally. This alternative voice of women which is concerned with just, fair and humane society never got due recognition. And this fuelled in some Muslim women a strong need to create a collective that will not only address the concerns of the Muslim community and particularly of the Muslim women but also take concrete steps to ameliorate this situation. They felt that a mass organization is required where the most oppressed and marginalized sections gets a voice and are able to mobilize themselves to create conditions in society which will ensure social, economic and political justice, upholding of human rights, equality and peace. This urge led to the formation of the BMMA. Over the last 14 years it has established itself as an alliance of like-minded individuals that take upon themselves the onus of taking up the issues of the Muslim women and Muslim community head on. In such grim and testing times, Muslim women have led the community restoring faith in the secular, liberal values on the Indian Constitution and reclaiming a humanist Islam from dark forces. 

When will development become a political agenda and how does BMMA contribute to it? 

The BMMA works towards all the rights and duties emanating from the Constitution. In its 14th year its membership has crossed one lakh members across 15 states. It raises issues of education, jobs, security, law and health. It being a national entity seeks to carry out its activities through a formal national democratic structure with a system of accountability. It addresses the issues of education, employment, security and legal reforms and takes proactive and concrete steps towards these. It not only works at the grassroots on these issues but also does political advocacy to raise issues at the appropriate fora. In short it seeks to create an alternative voice of Muslim women and works for its leadership development.

Can religion ever play an enabling role given that it has been usurped by conservative, patriarchal forces, world over? 

BMMA has compelled the community to understand Islam and Quranic teachings from a feminist perspective. It has uncovered Islam from a labyrinth of patriarchy, misogyny and conservatism and reasserted its ideals of equality, justice, wisdom and compassion. Within the Islamic framework there is a strong need to appreciate and distinguish between the normative and contextual writings in the Quran. There are many verses of the Quran which have a normative, immutable and prescriptive appeal. They point towards universal values of justice, equality, wisdom and compassion which must permeate life of each and every human being for all times of come. On the other hand are the contextual and descriptive verses which were relevant for those times and for that particular society. As a principle new age Muslim women through BMMA have rooted for the universal principles and based their laws and their way of life on those. In other words a humanistic understanding of the Quran has resurfaced which will ensure that as Muslims we are able to live in peace with other communities and also ensure justice within. 

We do see many women activists and scholars of Islam challenging the old paradigm.

And these set of women have done amazing work to reassert the basic notions of what Islam is. Allah is a universal power which as per the Tawhidic understanding permeates all beings, living and non-living. This universal power is rahman and rahim, merciful and beneficent and is embedded in the Islamic notion of Taqwa or moral/ethical notions.* It is very heartening and encouraging to note that across the Muslim societies Muslim women are embracing this very Islamic and universal ideas of Tawhid and Taqwa which encourages us to love all as creations of one God and live and let live everyone in peace and tranquility. Emboldened by the conceptualization of God as merciful and just, Muslim women are now seeking justice and equality within the families and are reclaiming their right to read the Quran and arrive at their meanings based on their own lived realities. In the last couple of decades we have had Islamic feminist scholars like AminaWadud, Fatima Mernissi, Riffat Hassan, Ziba Mir Hosseini and many others who have taken up the challenge of rereading, retranslating and reinterpreting the Quran from a feminist perspective. And what has emerged is a vast amount of literature which debunks many misgivings and misunderstandings about Islam and women’s rights. What has been liberating and empowering is the assurance that the Quran wants justice for all humans so that life can be led peacefully and in tranquility and in complete harmony with everything around us. So ‘…. problem is not with the text but with the context and the ways in which text is used to sustain patriarchal and authoritarian structures’.*

Women are no longer recipients but creators of religious knowledge ……

With the emergence of Muslim women’s religious leadership, we get to hear a completely humanistic and enabling version of Islam. Women are no longer just recipients of knowledge and objects to be studied but are now agents of knowledge creation including religious knowledge. Islamic laws and understanding of Islam itself has been the domain of men for many centuries now. Extremely patriarchal interpretations and even translations have created a hierarchy in women-men relationships. Superiority of men over women is God-ordained and hence cannot be challenged at all. This understanding closes all doors of negotiations within the familial relationships. Contemporary Muslim women, including Indian Muslim women through BMMA have inadvertently opened the doors of ijtihaad by creating knowledge from their own perspectives and their own lived realities which are largely experiences of injustice and inequality. In other words there is a move towards ‘democratization of the production of religious knowledge’.* Women are no longer dependent on men to know what God wants from them. They no longer have to accept what men have been telling them. They no longer have to believe that God has created them as inferior to men. They now read, translate, interpret and explain to the world that their God is just, loving and merciful and has created them on par with men.

As Muslim women gain strength and voice there is hope for the community as well, for women’s voices will be voices of peace, harmony, justice and equality. The BMMA which is growing from strength to strength with each passing year has given a platform for Muslim women to emerge as leaders and take their community out of its stagnation. Muslim women are taking tremendous interest in the affairs of the community as well as the country. This churning amongst the Muslim women has a historical significance as they have never been organized on a national scale ever before. Their dreams and aspirations of a prosperous, just, plural and democratic Indian society and Muslim community are matched equally well by their administrative and organizational skills. This development only confirms that that the deliverance of the community lies in the hands of its women.

 

AURTON KI SHARIAH ADALAT, ARBITRATION CENTRES - CENTRES OF JUSTICE DELIVERY

DAY 27 

ARBITRATION THROUGH AURTON KI SHARIAT ADALATS [ASA]

Implementation Of The Legal Rights Of Muslim Women

Muslim family law as practiced in India is not codified, as a result Muslim women face injustice as judgments by qazis, muftis and shariah Adalats are given based on discriminatory shariah law which is in total contrast to the Quranic injunctions. Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan [BMMA] felt the need not just to draft the law but to also set up structures by which justice can be dispenses. Arbitration was also made mandatory as part of the draft law of BMMA. 

According to BMMA’s draft law who is an Arbitrator? 

• Any person or organization can be an Arbitrator, provided they have an impeccable record of social justice. 
• This person or organization must be registered under this law to be able to function as an arbitrator. 
• The organization must also be registered under the relevant registration laws. 
• The organization must have least 50% women members, preferable Muslim women 

What are the duties and responsibilities of the Arbitrators?

• The Arbitrators can arbitrate on all matters mentioned in this draft law . 
• The Arbitrators must follow the rule of giving both the sides a chance to be heard. 
• The Arbitrators are mandated to keep a record of all proceedings during this process as well as a record of all decisions taken. 
• In case of a divorce, the Arbitrators should safeguard the rights of the women by listing them out on the divorce document and give true, original copy of the same to both the parties. 
• After following the principles of natural justice, a just and fair decision should be made by the Arbitrators on all matters mentioned in this law. 

Why did BMMA feel the need to set their own legal aid centres – Aurton ki Shariah Adalats {ASA}? 

BMMA’s ASA are the arbitration bodies which have been set up to provide legal justice to women. BMMA has been able to do this campaign on Muslim family law reform because it has a vast body of experience in dealing with cases of Muslim women facing discrimination due to oral divorce, polygamy, lack custody of children, lack of maintenance etc. As a natural progression of its work on law reform it had become imperative that they scale up their work by not just drafting the law but also creating structures to implement that law.  

BMMA then dovetailed its campaign on codification with a practical idea of setting up ASA which provided legal aid to Muslim women based on the provisions of the codified law which it has prepared. It was a natural progression for BMMA as it progressed from formulation and implementing model nikahnama, to formulating codified, Quran-complied family law, to setting up structures for implementing this law.

As is known that Muslim religious institutions have for long exercised their hegemony over the community and specifically over the women. They have formulated laws, they have misinterpreted the religious texts and they have set up institutions which are patriarchal, unjust, dogmatic and unIslamic. BMMA represents Muslim women’s aspiration to reclaim these spaces from Muslim patriarchal forces represented by Muslim men. BMMA represents Muslim women’s desire to not just formulate laws and wait for these patriarchal institutions to implement it but to create, sustain and nurture those institutions which will also implement these laws and are bound values of justice and equality. The drafting of a codified law and setting of the Shariah Adalats is in continuation of Muslim women’s engagement with its family law moving towards the goal of justice for Indian Muslim women.

What was the objective and rationale behind setting up the ASA?

The main concern of the ASA of BMMA is justice for the Muslim women. The formal court system is inaccessible, expensive, slow and bound by archaic rules and regulations. A poor woman does not have enough resources to hire a lawyer to fight her case. MSA are easily accessible, inexpensive, fast and women-friendly. They work as complimentary bodies to the formal courts and unlike the Shariah Adalats set up by religious groups, do not want to run a parallel system of justice. ASA works in conjunction and coordination with the formal court system.

The ASA of BMMA also do not challenge the existence of the Shariah Adalats run by the religious bodies. They do challenge the decisions which they take. The ASA works in close coordination with many qazis and muftis who are sensitive to the cause of women and support the legal aid of work on BMMA. 

Many amongst the religious groups, women’s organizations, lawyers have objected to the use of the word ‘Adalat’ used by BMMA. Well, what is an Adalat/court? 

To put it simply and without jargon, an Adalat/court is a place where people go seeking justice. Since the purpose of BMMA’s initiative is to enable justice delivery to the poorest Muslim women, they call themselves a ‘Adalat/court’. ASA of BMMA is an Alternative Dispute Resolution Forum the formation of which is mandated by Article 39A of the Constitution of the India. The authority to form ASA comes from the Constitution of the country which wants to enable justice delivery to the poorest of the poor. Also if the religious bodies can run the Shariah Adalats why can’t the Muslim women themselves? There is nothing in the religion nor in the law of the land which prohibits Muslim women to set up structures for better justice delivery?

The objectives of the Adalat is to provide legal aid to Muslim women based on the Quran-complied codified ‘Muslim Family Law’, to undertake activities to promote women-friendly nikaahnama prepared by BMMA and to create awareness among Muslim women and men about their legal rights of women in Islam

How are the justice cadres of ASA trained? 

The Muslim women who manage the ASA are well equipped to provide legal aid as they are the victims of a discriminatory law. The legal aid providers are well versed in law and they are also aware of the various strategies that are to be employed so that a harassed Muslim woman gets legal redresser. They have undergone training in counseling and work from a very strong gender perspective. The decisions of the Adalat are based on the rights of women enshrined in the Quran. They take recourse to all secular laws like the Anti-Dowry Act, Domestic Violence Act etc and they utilize the existing legal machinery like the courts etc to help women get legal aid. They will also use the justice implementation machinery like the police and work in coordination with qazis and muftis to help the litigant.

What basic principles of Muslim law guides the work of ASA? 

The ASA takes decisions based on the following Quranic guidelines:

• Triple oral/unilateral divorce is not acceptable
• Polygamy is invalid
• Whoever initiates the divorce will have to go through the process of talak-e-ahsan method of divorce.
• Women must get maintenance during her marital life from her husband
• Women must get maintenance after divorce as per the provisions of the Muslim Women’s Act, 1986
• All grounds of divorce mentioned in the 1939 Act are applicable to the women visiting the Shariah Adalat
• Halala is not acceptable at all
• No other restriction except remarriage during iddat period
• If the children are small the custody of the children will be with the mother
• If the children are the age of 7 whether boy or girl, they child will be given the right to decide.

It is hoped that in the near future, BMMA will be able to set up more such Adalats so that justice for Muslim women does not remain a distant dream. 

MUSLIM WOMEN AS MEDIATORS

Inspite of the fact that the Muslim community does not have a comprehensive law and the poor state of implementation of all laws, how have Muslim women find a breakthrough? 

Muslim women led by BMMA, Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan have done three important things:

1. It drafted its own personal law, a comprehensive Muslim family law after a nationwide consultation spanning over 8 years. In the absence of a law, this draft shows the way to our volunteers who provide legal aid. 

2. We have set up Aurton ki Shariat Adalats to provide legal aid to distressed women. Hundreds of cases get registered here. Our team of trained volunteers provide legal aid to women. 

3. We set up the Darul Uloom-e-Niswaan, an organization that has trained 20 women who have become certified qazis. 

We have created structures by which we can support the victim and help her get justice. 

Do these Adalats / individual qazis work as mediators?

Yes the formally trained women qazis as well as other volunteers of the Aurton Ki Shariat Adalat are mediators who help the women victim. They follow the draft law prepared by BMMA, they take the help of other NGOs, clerics and lawyers if need be. They do home visits, do joint family meetings, engage with the police, community leaders and other stakeholders. Their work is very hands on. They are very mobile. The volunteers visit the police station multiple times if required. If the husband does not come for joint meeting, they visit his home as well. This helps in quick resolution of the cases. They are also trained in feminist counseling processes by which she can emotionally support the victim. She is made aware of her rights within the Quran and also about the other laws which are applicable to her. 

In this Qazi training, our trained Qazi are required to do joint meetings with the couple before the marriage. So all issues like mehr, conditions by either parties, post-marriage residence of the couple, groom’s income etc. The qazi must also ensure free consent of both the parties, especially the woman. She must ensure that they are of legal age of marriage, which is 18 and 21 years. She must ensure that this groom is not indulging in a polygamous marriage. A lot of that work is supposed to be done by the Qazi trained by us. So far we have had one opportunity to do that. But as we move ahead and as more and more women come forward to get married through a woman Qazi, she would be expected to do this work. 

Are the Muslim women legal aid workers strictly mediators? 

BMMA legal aid volunteers are based in the centres which are based in the communities. Women, victims, volunteers come in and go out of the centre. Trainings, meetings happen here. Counseling and Adalat work also happens here. So there is a thin line or no lines. I am a mediator and in a few minutes turn into a counselor or even a therapist. Sometimes the victims needs a shoulder to cry on and a patient hearing, in which case, I turn into her friend or a sister. This support is given not just to the victim but also to her father, mother, brother and other members of her family who are equally traumatized. So a community legal aid volunteer is all rolled into one. She does a lot of so-called pre-litigation work which actually is litigation work but out of the court. Her works helps those clients who would have otherwise burdened the already overburdened courts. 

What values do these women mediators adhere to?

The Adalat volunteers and women qazis are trained to believe in the values of equality, justice, freedom, democracy, compassion and goodness, liberty and fraternity; values enshrined in the Quran and the Constitution. They also function on feminist principles which requires that they hear out the women without judging and support her in any way that she wants to be supported. 

So what is mediation? 

Without getting into a formal technical definition, mediation is intervention by a third party to resolve issues between two people. Mediation is age old. In earlier times, if a person had a problem, the family would be the first mediation group. Family even now continues to be the first mediator. Forums like Nyaya panchayats, gram panchayats, caste panchayats, jamaats existed and exist even now. How gender and caste sensitive they are is another story. But mediation has always been there. 

Today we have a plethora of such forums. We have the formal courts, mediation and arbitration groups, counseling centres within courts, NGOs, community and caste groups, women’s organizations etc. Other than the formal courts, none of the other groups are formally trained in these legal processes. Native wisdom, intellect, basic common sense and a bit of training and knowledge has helped non-formal mediators to emerge. 

Why did such forums emerge, what ails our justice systems? 

We have three aspects of governance; the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. All three are important for justice to become accessible to all citizens. Having a good legislation is important. It’s implementation is equally important and if there are disputes then the dispute resolution systems like the police and the courts must also function optimally. 

Largely our laws are quite good. They are made in the Parliament after a lengthy and healthy debate, there are Parliamentary committees who sit on it and after much deliberation we come up with a fairly good law. And there is also a possibility of amendments to these laws as society evolves and time goes by. 

But when it comes to its implementation, the systems are very poorly managed. When a certain legislation is in place and if one has to access it, the first place that a person goes to is the police station and it is no secret how our police stations work. They are not just not friendly for women. They are not friendly for anybody. Complaints are not written down, FIRs not taken etc. To sum up, the implementation and execution of these legislations is extremely poor. And this becomes one of the main reasons for non-formal justice delivery systems to emerge. 

Is there any synergy between these groups who do mediation? 

That is where the challenge is and that should be the future thrust. How can we make such seemingly disparate groups to work with each other to help the victim? The victim may go to the court, to an arbitrator, to NGO or to a Qazi, wherever she goes, how do we join hands with each other to help her. 

Justice is a basic right mentioned in 39A of the Indian Constitution. The poorest of the poor must be able to access justice. But for this to become a reality, a synergistic approach is needed. We are working in our own silos, in isolation. The lawyers do not feel the need to reach out to community based group and the religious groups want to work in isolation, cut off from formal processes. Can we develop a synergistic system where the cleric, the lawyer and legal aid workers, work together? 

It requires a shedding of egos, acceptance and understanding of each other. We will need to develop a system which is institutionalized and where all the above work in tandem with each other, building on each other’s strengths and work for the victim. Can we all be working as complimentary systems in the larger scheme of helping the most vulnerable get justice?

A JOURNEY FROM THE PERSONAL TO POLITICAL

A JOURNEY FROM THE PERSONAL TO POLITICAL

Born in a middle class Mumbai-based Muslim family was made easy by a set of very educated, liberal and progressive parents. Both government workers, mother a teacher in a BMC school and father in Bombay Port Trust. Also surrounded and nurtured by maternal aunts added to the anchoring and a sense of security which a child needs in its formative years. I remember being very sensitive to poverty, partly because of the environment of charity in the house. Always wondering how poor lived and managed. Even now as an adult it is difficult to comprehend the travails of people who have no idea when there next meal will be. The sensitivity got support in the form of my college counselor who needed volunteers for a college campaign on drug addiction. I willingly joined her to make posters etc in the college. She suggested masters in social work if I was keen on joining a helping profession. Since that moment I got a direction and worked towards joining TISS to do MSW. Before that the college gave and I took the opportunity to understand various social issues through an NSS volunteership programme which lasted through the three years of senior college. The MSW gave a strong theoretical and academic base for understanding marginalization, deprivation, state structures and the role that needs to be played. 

What it did not prepare me was the whack I got as a mute spectator and survivor of the state sponsored communalization that happened post Babri masjid demolition. While me and my family remained untouched during the first phase post 6^thDecember 1992, we had to shift base during the January 1993 phase which rocked Mumbai. While no harm happened to life and property but the displacement for 4 months were not easy on me. As luck would have it during this period I worked with YUVA in Mumbai’s worse affected Jogeshwari doing relief and rehabilitation of the victims of India’s worst state sponsored pogrom against the Muslim community. As a sheltered and cocooned middle class Muslim it was eye opening to see how fellow community members lived in so much fear, insecurity, poverty and dispossession. The paradigm shift happened when for the first time in my 22-year-old life I realized that I am a Muslim. The consciousness of one’s religious identity in the nastiest of conditions!! This inward journey took a positive turn of taking responsibility and turning the churning into a movement for peace, justice and development.

Working with the Muslim women then was a conscious decision. With YUVA, through Anjuman-e-Islam, through WRAG, I worked only with the intention of empowering Muslim women. With founding of Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan [BMMA], a new and focused phase began. As a Co-Founder of BMMA, we have managed to do the following activities:

1.    Spearheading the Muslim family law reform campaign, which culminated in the passing of the Muslim Women Protection of Rights on Marriage Act, 2019. Through researches, studies, public hearings and social media campaigns we now have a law, which prohibits one-sided divorce by men. 

2.    We managed to get a Supreme Court judgment in favour of women entering the sanctum sanctorum of Haji Ali dargah. A legal battle of 2 years preceded by failed negotiations and lack of political support made us reach out to the Mumbai High Court with the plea that women being debarred from the dargah sanctum is a violation of Article 14 of the Constitution. 

3.    Training women to become qazis who can solomnise marriages and undertake divorce proceedings. For the first time in the history of independent India that Muslim women formally instituted an organization to formally carry out a programme like this. The syllabus, the training module etc, all were done completely by Muslim women with absolutely no inputs from any male cleric or so-called experts. 

4.    Reaching out to young Muslim boys and girls through Udaan and Sehr Programmes to build up a new generation that is aware of its constitutional rights and their responsibility towards building up a strong and responsible community. 

5.    Setting up Karwaan Centres in 8 cities, we reached out to thousands of women with livelihood skills and other empowerment programmes around constitutional rights.

6.    Set up Aurton ki Shariat Adalat in 4 states, enabling Muslim women to access legal aid and guidance. Setting up an alternative space for women enabled a large number of them coming forward to lodge instances of triple divorce, halala, polygamy and many other social evils which needed to be addressed. 

By doing all of the above and so much more, Muslim women have been the instruments of change within the community. We have managed to set alternative systems which did not beg for change but became change agents themselves. Work did not just involve demanding change from the state, which we will continue to do, but also bringing about structural changes within the community. We led from the front breaking barriers, setting up new institutions and structures and provided a more humane alternative. Also we see no contradiction in being a Muslim and being an Indian or between following the Quran and following the Constitution. We refuse to get tied down to this binary. We are Muslims, women, Indian and so much more. As a Muslim woman, I will take my rights from the Quran, from the Constitution, and hey, even from the CEDAW because I am a world citizen. The voices, which restrict us, are passé; we are our own voices and architects of our own future. Men supporting us are most welcome but they cannot lead us anymore. 

In the last 12 years, BMMA has managed to awaken the consciousness of Muslim women and turned them from victims to change agents. This process needless to say has to continue. We are far away from our goal of achieving full equality, justice and freedom from archaic and obsolete mindsets. To achieve this we will continue to demand a fully codified Muslim family law, which will debar polygamy, halala, muta marriages, underage marriage, give equal inheritance rights and which will provide legal protection to Muslim women within the family. 

We still have to reach out to the 8 crore Muslim women with knowledge about her rights within the Quran and the constitution. 

We have to lead the community out of poverty and destitution, marginalization and deprivation. 

We have to reach out to the youth who are scared and disillusioned with the state and its own vested and useless leadership. 

We have to work further to decimate the hegemonic, domination and oppression of religious groups who have not only destroyed the lives of women but have also demonized Islam. 

We have to build more institutions and structures across the country, which become havens of freedom for women who can reclaim their spaces for a life of dignity. 

We have to continue to work for the legal, social, political, educational and economic empowerment of Muslim women through more structural additions, through awareness, through leadership, through advocacy, through agitation, through knowledge activism and through continued outreach to the most vulnerable from within the community. 

Indian Muslim Women's Tryst With Herself

INDIA MUSLIM WOMEN’S TRYST WITH HER SELF
Genesis and Need of Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan

Dr. Noorjehan Safia Niaz

Since the inception of the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan [BMMA] in a January 2007 in New Delhi, it has been asked by many as to the need for Muslim women to organize themselves? Kya zaroorat hai Musalman aurton ko apni tehreek tayar karne ki? After 10 years of BMMA, it is amply clear why it was so important that Muslim women take a lead. The reasons are many. To start with, no community can develop if its women remain behind and conversely the women of the community cannot progress unless the larger community also takes the onus to lend her a helping hand in playing her role in public life.

BMMA has not only created an alternative liberal voice in the Indian Muslim community but has also brought Muslim women in the forefront by raising a sensitive issue of law reform towards which the larger community had adopted an ostrich approach. Creating a membership base on more than a lakh, creating an draft of Muslim family law, creating Darul Uloom-e-Niswan-a centre for Islamic teaching, winning a PIL in the Supreme Court against the Haji Ali dargah Trust, filing a PIL in Supreme Court against the practice of triple talaak and halala, running vocational training centres in 7 cities for the socio-economic development of Muslim girls and boys, running Aurton Ki Shariah Adalats in 4 cities-in short creating secular, liberal space within the community and reclaiming Islam from misogynist and conservatives to secure human rights of Muslim women. With Muslim women taking lead, especially on matters of personal law reform and issues of women’s access to sacred spaces, we have also seem the Muslim male secular liberal voice rising to support women.

While we see a rise in conservative forces within the community, we also see the world not doing anything better. With conservative political parties rising in the Europe and USA and within our own country, Islam and Muslims continue to remain the villain. Notwithstanding the fact that the highest number of victims of Islamic terror continues to be fellow Muslims. Closer home, rise of cultural and political hindutva groups has ensured that Muslims remain under siege. This socio-political environment has a direct bearing on women and youth. Lack of educational and livelihood opportunities, ghettoized living conditions and an atmosphere of being hated, feared and despised have pushed the community to the wall.

The arrival of the forces of globalization and privatization in India since early 1990s has also led to the poor - dalits, adivasis, women and minorities being driven further to the margins with a direct onslaught on their lands and livelihoods. Civil society organizations have been protesting about the widespread exclusion of India’s large masses due to the very questionable notions of development which are increasingly finding deep roots into the successive governments and their policies. A malfunctioning PDS and nonfunctional primary schools both aggravate the social exclusion faced by the minorities as by the dalits and adivasis. Today the impact of state withdrawal from welfarism and inclusive development is for all to see. It is important to see BMMA’s work emerging and impacted by these conditions.

Indian history is replete with instances of struggle for social change and justice. Women and especially Muslim women have also initiated and actively participated in many historical movements for justice. These struggles are still on with increasing strength of women. Yet women’s participation and the articulation of her perspective of social justice and development have always been ignored traditionally. This alternative voice of women which is concerned with just, fair and humane society never got due recognition. And this fuelled in some Muslim women a strong need to create a collective that will not only address the concerns of the Muslim community and particularly of the Muslim women but also take concrete steps to ameliorate this situation. They felt that a mass organization is required where the most oppressed and marginalized sections gets a voice and are able to mobilize themselves to create conditions in society which will ensure social, economic and political justice, upholding of human rights, equality and peace. This urge led to the formation of the BMMA. Over the last 10 years it has established itself as an alliance of like-minded individuals that take upon themselves the onus of taking up the issues of the Muslim women and Muslim community head on. In such grim and testing times, Muslim women have led the community restoring faith in the secular, liberal values on the Indian Constitution and reclaiming a humanist Islam from dark forces.

The BMMA works towards all the rights and duties emanating from the Constitution. In its 10^th year its membership has crossed one lakh members across 15 states. It raises issues of education, jobs, security, law and health. It being a national entity seeks to carry out its activities through a formal national democratic structure with a system of accountability. It addresses the issues of education, employment, security and legal reforms and takes proactive and concrete steps towards these. It not only works at the grassroots on these issues but also does political advocacy to raise issues at the appropriate fora. In short it seeks to create an alternative voice of Muslim women and works for its leadership development.

The vision of the Andolan is to create conditions within the Indian society where the Muslim community and especially the Muslim women are able to eradicate their own poverty and marginalization and live a life of equality, justice and with respect for human rights. It believes in the values of democracy, secularism, equality, non-violence, human rights and justice as enshrined in the Constitution of India. These are the guiding principles in their struggle. It believes in the inherent capacity of women to lead and ameliorate the social, economic, political, legal and educational backwardness. It also seeks to carry out positive, liberal, humanist and feminist interpretations of religion for ensuring justice and equality to Muslim women. And to achieve its vision of an equal society it seeks collaboration and alliance with other movements and networks that are fighting for social equality and human rights and are opposing forces of fascism, capitalism, communalism and imperialism in all its forms.

To achieve this vision and objectives the Andolan through its well laid out administrative structure reaches out to Muslim women in villages, towns and cities and organizes them into pressure groups under the leadership of a committed woman leader. The emergent leadership of Muslim women at the national, state, district, block and village level carries out programmes and activities related to education, livelihood, law reform and health services. Amongst its many achievements the Andolan in all the states where it is active, has mobilized Muslim women and exerted pressure on local government machinery to issue important documents like voter I-cards, ration cards, widow pension cards etc. Perspective building and inputs and information-giving workshops are organized on various issues on a regular basis. 

These initiatives of Muslim women need to be further supported and complimented by other Muslims so that the community as a whole is able to lead a life of dignity and safety. It cannot be that the community demands security and democracy for itself from the state but does not allow the same for the women. Democracy within is the crying need of the time.

BMMA has also compelled the community to understand Islam and Quranic teachings from a feminist perspective. It has uncovered Islam from a labyrinth of patriarchy, misogyny and conservatism and reasserted its ideals of equality, justice, wisdom and compassion. Within the Islamic framework there is a strong need to appreciate and distinguish between the normative and contextual writings in the Quran. There are many verses of the Quran which have a normative, immutable and prescriptive appeal. They point towards universal values of justice, equality, wisdom and compassion which must permeate life of each and every human being for all times of come. On the other hand are the contextual and descriptive verses which were relevant for those times and for that particular society. As a principle new age Muslim women through BMMA have rooted for the universal principles and based their laws and their way of life on those. In other words a humanistic understanding of the Quran has resurfaced which will ensure that as Muslims we are able to live in peace with other communities and also ensure justice within. 

Allah is a universal power which as per the Tawhidic understanding permeates all beings, living and non-living. This universal power is rahman and rahim, merciful and beneficent and is embedded in the Islamic notion of Taqwa or moral/ethical notions.* It is very heartening and encouraging to note that across the Muslim societies Muslim women are embracing this very Islamic and universal ideas of Tawhid and Taqwa which encourages us to love all as creations of one God and live and let live everyone in peace and tranquility. Emboldened by the conceptualization of God as merciful and just, Muslim women are now seeking justice and equality within the families and are reclaiming their right to read the Quran and arrive at their meanings based on their own lived realities. In the last couple of decades we have had Islamic feminist scholars like AminaWadud, Fatima Mernissi, Riffat Hassan, Ziba Mir Hosseini and many others who have taken up the challenge of rereading, retranslating and reinterpreting the Quran from a feminist perspective. And what has emerged is a vast amount of literature which debunks many misgivings and misunderstandings about Islam and women’s rights. What has been liberating and empowering is the assurance that the Quran wants justice for all humans so that life can be led peacefully and in tranquility and in complete harmony with everything around us. So ‘…. problem is not with the text but with the context and the ways in which text is used to sustain patriarchal and authoritarian structures’.*

With the emergence of Muslim women’s religious leadership, we get to hear a completely humanistic and enabling version of Islam. Women are no longer just recipients of knowledge and objects to be studied but are now agents of knowledge creation including religious knowledge. Islamic laws and understanding of Islam itself has been the domain of men for many centuries now. Extremely patriarchal interpretations and even translations have created a hierarchy in women-men relationships. Superiority of men over women is God-ordained and hence cannot be challenged at all. This understanding closes all doors of negotiations within the familial relationships. Contemporary Muslim women, including Indian Muslim women through BMMA have inadvertently opened the doors of ijtihaad by creating knowledge from their own perspectives and their own lived realities which are largely experiences of injustice and inequality. In other words there is a move towards ‘democratization of the production of religious knowledge’.* Women are no longer dependent on men to know what God wants from them. They no longer have to accept what men have been telling them. They no longer have to believe that God has created them as inferior to men. They now read, translate, interpret and explain to the world that their God is just, loving and merciful and has created them on par with men.

As Muslim women gain strength and voice there is hope for the community as well, for women’s voices will be voices of peace, harmony, justice and equality. The BMMA which is growing from strength to strength with each passing year has given a platform for Muslim women to emerge as leaders and take their community out of its stagnation. Muslim women are taking tremendous interest in the affairs of the community as well as the country. This churning amongst the Muslim women has a historical significance as they have never been organized on a national scale ever before. Their dreams and aspirations of a prosperous, just, plural and democratic Indian society and Muslim community are matched equally well by their administrative and organizational skills. This development only confirms that that the deliverance of the community lies in the hands of its women.

Marathi version published by Loksatta

Also sent to sociolegalreview 

Women's Shariah Court - Muslim Women's Quest for Justice

Women's Shariah Court-Muslim Women's Quest for Justice
An Alternative Dispute Resolution Forum for and by Muslim Women

https://notionpress.com/read/women-s-shariah-court-muslim-women-s-quest-for-justice

Would it be easy to imagine a court where justice is dispensed not by women and men wearing black flowing gowns but by ordinarily dressed, uneducated women? Muslim women living in slum communities of Mumbai took upon themselves the job of providing legal aid to other distressed women. Need for justice is as crucial as other needs, especially for women who face marginalization on a large scale. This book looks closely at the genesis of these groups, their history, their interventions, their motivations and their contributions to women’s movement.

The book suggests recommendations for strengthening alternative dispute resolution forums where justice will be dispensed not by learned lawyers but by ordinarily dressed unlettered women. These women, through their innate sense of justice reaches out passionately towards other equally battered women and together they journey towards a life of dignity.