Past, present and the future are all connected by a string into a loop. The past can be lauded for all its inventions and development but should also be held responsible for all the evils that have rippled into the present. A common factor between these concepts of time is the people who control and are controlled. Thankfully there are those who see through the unfair affair, stand up to voice the injustice and indulge in the actions that try to hold the string still against the harmful ripples. History often calls these brave souls as “empowered.”
But these are the stories of the past, a past that is read and researched, its nuisances and complexity is well understood. The question is how we reflect practices of the past for the present where a similar understanding of all sides is fogged by bias and personal gains. If we want to truly apply our gained knowledge on empowerment from the past to present, we should also be asking what it means to empower someone in the first place. Can it be through an institution? Or what does empowerment of a whole community reflect on their future? How long does it take to see the effects of empowerment? And finally, can empowerment make someone lose one freedom for another? I argue that answers to these questions are to be looked at diligently to abstain from hasty conclusions. Empowerment is looked for by everyone differently depending on the context because its implications vary from one person to another. Nevertheless, the goal is to reach a life worthy of hope and aspirations with respect and understanding towards each other. What I ask in this blog is if this is always the case.
There may be bias here that I feel, as a woman, as a Muslim, and as an Indian, when I was told that August 1, 2019, was a momentous day for women, especially Muslim women in India. We were saved, some say; we were brought from the dark into light, others said. But were we? I am reluctant to accept these claims because I live through this discrimination. I live with fear and unease that comes with being a Muslim woman in India. There are hurdles and obstacles I continue to face and read about that have not thinned out after August 1, 2019.
To give some context, India is a secular country where all people are free to practise their religion and are equal before law. The civil laws for people are drawn from their religious rules and traditions; given that they do not harm the sentiment of others. When matters of injustice related to any religious practices are raised in the civil courts, they are dealt with the understanding that the state has no right to intervene in the religious matters.
In 2019, India under the rule of a government that did not hide its distaste towards religious minorities and their practices was now to celebrate August 1 as the “Muslim Women’s Right Day” after the prohibition of “triple talaq” – an act of instant divorce by the utterance of the word “talaq” by the husband. This practice was already a heated debate as it involved the public, media, the government, and eventually supreme court of India. After years of sessions and hearings, on July 30, 2019, this practice was made illegal and punishable.
I am also against ‘triple talaq” and its validity too but the assumption that its criminalisation is all that takes to give Muslim women their rights is a clear underestimation of their struggles. The mainstream media hailed the decision stating that the evil practice of triple talaq is now illegal and Muslim women are finally free from its consequences and continued to feed into the stereotypes against the community. I do feel that this practice and its misuse left women helpless in the context of Indian society, but a more serious problem is the way that these results were brought. The biggest and most alarming one was the intervention of the state. The next was the media trial that made all Muslims dangerous, evil, inconsiderate and future criminals. It treated the Muslims as some backward humans living by the laws with inherent misogyny and patriarchy. So, I question if August 1 was really meant to make Muslim women feel respected and empowered.
This whole empowerment truly failed when a few years later, young female students were not allowed to sit for an exam because they were wearing hijab or when some female Muslim teachers became targets and were laid off. How do you empower someone when their basic right to practise their religion is taken away or they are forced to choose between their education and their religion? The reality is that both misogyny and patriarchy already have a pass in Indian society but now an entire religious community was being labelled as the “most” misogynistic. Muslim women and men were asked to outright announce their personal belief about a practice that the questioning party had very little knowledge of. The notion that the Muslim women were the most oppressed, most tortured, most vulnerable to injustice and discrimination within their community spread and strengthened. It did not matter how many successful, educated, and happy Muslim women showed up on the screen or in real life because there was always some saving needed as the outcome was the feeling of being ridiculed.
The government showed up as their saviour, by declaring August 1 as the “Muslim Women Rights Day” leaving a bad aftertaste on the community. People questioned if other practices will also be criminalised by the state or what the purpose of the Muslim bill[1] was. I leave it to the reader to explore and see if the empowerment really worked. Were Muslim women in India truly free from the injustices of marriage and the society in large or did this so-called empowerment bring ridicule or respect?
NOTES
[1] Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 which excludes Muslims coming from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh the path to citizenship in India.
Rabia Omar is a graduate student at IU Bloomington. She completed her BSc (Hons.) and MSc (Physics) from Aligarh Muslim University in India.
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Disclaimer: Any views and/or opinions represented in this blog solely belong to the author. Muslim Voices Public Scholarship Project is not liable for the opinions presented.
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