The Congress is on the horns of a dilemma. While it followed a policy of appeasement towards Muslims in yesteryears and did not give in to pandering to the Hindu vote bank – except to specific sections like the Dalits or Other Backward Classes – the Gujarat Assembly election campaign showed that it is moving towards wooing the Hindus as a whole more assiduously.
There was no greater evidence of it than the newly-anointed president of the party Rahul Gandhi's sudden burst of interest in visiting Hindu temples in the state and the assertion of his Hindu identity.
The new direction of policy is reflected also in the attitude towards the instant triple talaq issue, which has become a touchstone of Muslim sensibility.
Representational image. AP
The BJP on its part has been groping for a way to wean away a section of Muslims towards supporting it but with its sharply Hindu-centric past, it has found little success. By espousing the cause of Muslim women in regard to their legally-uncodified divorce practices, it has now found a way of exploiting the chasm between Muslim men and women on the instant talaq issue.
BJP's strong advocacy of banning triple talaq got a huge boost when the Supreme Court, by a 3:2 majority judgment, banned in August the pernicious practice of Muslim men pronouncing 'talaq' (divorce) by repeating the word thrice, be it in person or even through e-mail or SMS.
Muslim men, especially the mullahs, who have thrived on male superiority, were greatly resentful but could do little before a bill came up in the Parliament to formally legislate the ban that the apex court had decreed was needed to be done within six months.
While the BJP earned brownie points with Muslim women for having championed their cause, the Congress has been set thinking. In its old avatar, it would have perhaps gone with the mullahs but this time around, it is caught on the horns of a dilemma and its spokesperson Randeep Surjewala has announced that the Congress supports the law of banning instant triple talaq but qualified it by saying that it believes that "there is a need to strengthen this law."
He said recently: "We have certain suggestions to strengthen it to protect the rights of divorced Muslim women so they live a life of dignity with adequate subsistence allowance."
It still remains a mystery whether the party would allow smooth passage of the Bill in the Rajya Sabha (the Lok Sabha passed it on Thursday) or that it would seek to stall it by insisting that it be referred to a select committee of Parliament or that the 'criminal' provision in the Bill providing for up to three years of imprisonment for defiance of the ban be dropped.
With the BJP continuing to be in a minority in the Upper House, the role of the Congress is crucial particularly when some parties like the AIADMK, the Trinamool Congress, the Samajwadi Party, the Biju Janata Dal and the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) were opposed to the ban on instant triple talaq when it was taken up and passed in the Lok Sabha.
If the Congress joins the BJP in supporting the bill, it would have a smooth passage and many Muslim women would swerve towards it (the Congress) when it comes to electoral politics. But the BJP can draw satisfaction from the fact that it would carve out a slice from the Muslim cake as it is believed it did in the Gujarat elections.
That there is dissent in the Congress on the policy turn that is being effected under Rahul is evident from the fact that senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid, a former union law minister, struck a discordant note, insisting the proposed law will be an "intrusion" into the personal lives of individuals and bring divorce, a civil issue, into the realm of criminal law.
Another former Congress minister Kapil Sibal's decision to defend triple talaq on behalf of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) in the Supreme Court on grounds that "it is an age-old tradition and could not be considered unconstitutional" has not gone down well with the party bigwigs.
The party's communications department in charge Surjewala, who has Rahul's ear, said instead that "the Congress has always believed that the issue of instant triple talaq is about gender justice and gender equity. The Congress will support any and every law abolishing instant triple talaq."
He reiterated that the bill should ensure payment of maintenance and/or subsistence allowance to women and children if the husband is in jail for three years, as envisaged under the proposed law. Whether these would find favour with the BJP proponents of the Bill remains to be seen but if the BJP refuses to accept Congress amendments would it still be supported by the Congress on this Bill? That indeed remains to be seen and could be a key factor in the new line-up of vote banks.
Published Date: Dec 29, 2017 03:38 pm | Updated Date: Dec 29, 2017 03:43 pm
