Women unite to fight against oppressive religious laws

The organization of most regressive patriarchs of India, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB)  is vigorously protesting the Central Goverment’s affidavit to the Supreme Court which supported a ban on triple Talaq. They are also boycotting the questionnaire circulated by the Law Commission inviting opinion on Uniform Civil Code.

At the same time women activists, both inside and outside Muslim community, has come out with a strong statement condemning the AIMPLB last month. Here is the complete text of the statement.

We, as part of women’s movement and practising feminists working with Muslim community and the women of the community for years in India, take the liberty to write this statement condemning the recent affidavit posed by All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB). The claims of this affidavit are:

First, abolition of triple talaq is (un) Quranic;

Second, since women lack decision making abilities, it is only men of the community who should have this right;

Third, polygamy is Islamic, though not promoted by Islam, and this practice ensures marital rights for Muslim women, banning of which will result in promiscuous sexual practices or murder of women at the hands of their husbands;

Fourth, the honorable Supreme Court of India has no right to intervene in the religious law of the community.

This statement has been issued by the AIMPLB in the context of the growing number of Muslim women’s petitions challenging the constitutionality of triple talaq in the apex court.

Image credit - DNA

Image credit – DNA

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A patriarchal judgment

It is not a common practice or desirable culture for a Hindu son in India to get separated from the parents upon getting married at the instance of the wife, especially when the son is the only earning member in the family. A son, brought up and given education by his parents, has a moral and legal obligation to take care and maintain the parents, when they become old and when they have either no income or have a meagre income. In India, generally people do not subscribe to the western thought, where, upon getting married or attaining majority, the son gets separated from the family. In normal circumstances, a wife is expected to be with the family of the husband after the marriage. She becomes integral to and forms part of the family of the husband and normally without any justifiable strong reason, she would never insist that her husband should get separated from the family and live only with her.

In a Hindu society, it is a pious obligation of the son to maintain the parents. If a wife makes an attempt to deviate from the normal practice and normal custom of the society, she must have some justifiable reason for that. In our opinion, normally, no husband would tolerate this and no son would like to be separated from his old parents and other family members, who are also dependent upon his income.

Image credit -http://www.burnsinstitute.org

Image credit -http://www.burnsinstitute.org

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A government that fools its citizens by peddling in pseudo science

Doctor, can I use the new Ayurvedic medicine for Diabetes ?

A patient was  asking me.

Which one ?

The one lauded by our Prime minster .

Oh , you mean BGR 34 ?

Yes.

Then better not.

Anticipating such questions, I had studied the molecule using resources at my disposal.

It is a mixture of four herbs. Individually these herbs had undergone small lab and clinical studies with mixed results. In February the Indian government’s Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has come out with a mixture of these four herbs in a single tablet amidst great fanfare with backing of just one unpublished study on 48 patients.

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Ancient Vedic literature have a mantra for marital rape

Many in India and abroad believe that ancient Vedic literature is full of wisdom and high philosophy. Here is how Vedas are described by the website run by Indian ministry of Culture

The Vedas are the source of integral wisdom, science, tradition and culture of a remarkable civilization. They are Oral compilations of distilled wisdom of cosmic knowledge survived from the time immemorial. They are not only identified as scriptures, but also as the fountain head of Indian culture and human civilization….

The Veda in the form of prose and poetry in Sanskrit language, has been regarded as authoritative knowledge. Its authority seems to have remained unquestioned for several millennia, and it has been considered the last tribunal in matters of dispute whether in religion or philosophy or social customs. ….

The religion and culture of the Hindus are rooted in the Veda. Till date, their worship, sacrifice, rites and attitudes are influenced by the Veda.

The Veda contains the highest spiritual knowledge (Para vidya) as well as the knowledge of the world (Apara vidya). Thus, apart from philosophy, we find here descriptions of various aspects of the different subjects such as sciences, medicine, political science, psychology, agriculture, poetry, art, music etc.
The Veda is unique in its purity and sanctity. The text of the Veda is preserved in its pure and original form without any alteration or interpolation even after thousands of years. The Veda is the only unadulterated treasure house of true knowledge.

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Bengal blogger arrested for comments on Islam

In India it is very easy for the State to put you in jail for expressing your thoughts. This is especially true when the thoughts are critical of religion. This happened in India’s state of Bengal.

A freethinker blogger from Bengal, Tarak Biswas was arrested on Thursday for posting updates on the social media for criticising Islam religion. On Thursday, minutes after Biswas posted a message on the social media, one Sanaullah Khan registered a complaint with the Cyber Police Station of the Howrah Police Commissionerate demanding his arrest. According to the locals, Khan is a local leader from the ruling- Trinamool Congress party.

From http://aaablogs.uoregon.edu/mian/2011/07/11/censorship/

From http://aaablogs.uoregon.edu/mian/2011/07/11/censorship/

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17 Indian soldiers killed in terrorist attack in Kashmir

Islamist terror strike from across the border on an Indian Army camp in Kashmir resulted in deaths of 17 soldiers. All four terrorists were killed later in a gun battle.

Terrorists have killed 17 Army soldiers and injured 19 in a suicide attack on an Army camp in Kashmir. Four terrorists struck the camp close to the headquarter of the 12th Brigade at Uri in Baramulla District . This makes it one of the deadliest terrorist strikes on security forces in recent times.
To put the death toll in perspective, seven military personnel had been killed in the Pathankot terror attack in January 2016. The attack on the Indian Air Force base there has since become a major international diplomatic incident.
The high number of casualties in the Uri terror attack could be attributed to the fact that a large number of soldiers, from the Dogra Regiment, had been stationed at the camp in tents and other temporary structures. Some of these tents caught fire during the attack, and the fire spread to other parts of the barracks. The soldiers had been stationed there as they were turning over from a tour of duty.

image

Credit – BBC

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Missing- Muslim reformist movement

Triple talaq ( men divorcing women saying talaq three times ) is to protect women from being killed by their unsatisfied husbands

Marriage is a contract in which both parties are not physically equal. Male is stronger and female is a weaker sex.
Polygamy as a social practice is not for gratifying men’s lust, but it is a social need.

These are some of the gems of wisdom  bullshit that came out of the top most Muslim law committee  of India representing all sections of Indian Muslims ,  The All India Muslim Personal Law Board.

They were opposing the attempt by the Supreme Court to reform primitive religious personal laws which is still prevalent in India. Actually Muslim personal laws in India are more primitive and anti woman than many of the Islamic countries. Any attempt by activists and authorities to reform it has been facing stiff resistance from the patriarchs who control the religion with iron hands and still want to live in with a skewed gender equation of 8th century Arabia.

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“Please do not interfere in our religious customs”!

This is our traditional religious practice. We are following this for hundreds of years. Please do not interfere in our religious customs. Government should not try to change it.

In India we hear this again and again from believers of all religions. Recently when there was a discussion about having a Uniform civil law regardless of religion, many Muslims were against it. They were arguing that as a minority they have the right to practice their religion as per their traditions. They do not want to raise the legal age for marriage or to ban polygamy or triple talaq. When some women protested against entry ban in some Hindu temples, government was asked not to interfere in religious customs.

This is not something new. Throughout the history of humankind, change, especially in religious beliefs and customs, was resisted quoting traditions. Many archaic and cruel customs found proud defenders. Those who want to reform were termed apostate aiming to destroy religion.

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Incredibly religious and misogynist India

Incredible India is the tag line used so often by many agencies to promote tourist attraction to India. If there was a tourist present in the legislative assembly hall of Haryana state of “secular” India yesterday, she might have felt “incredibly” disgusted.

They would have witnessed a completely naked man, sitting on the dais above the seats of Governor and Chief Minister of the state, and giving a lecture to the people’s representatives. That man’s name was Tarun Sagar, a famous monk of Digambara sect of Jainism, an ancient Indian religion. He said:

The control of dharma (morality) over politics is essential. Dharma is the husband and politics is the wife. It is the duty of every husband to protect his wife and it is the duty of every wife to accept the orders (discipline) of her husband,”  “if there is no control of dharma over politics, it will be like an elephant out of control,”

Image Credit - Indian Express

Image Credit – Indian Express

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Women shine for India amidst a dismal Olympic performance

The Rio Olympics is almost over. India, the second most populous country in the world, will be coming home with just two medals, one silver and one bronze, unless a medal is won in the last wrestling event on Sunday.

Though India is never known as a great sporting nation, this performance was much poorer than the six medal haul including one gold and two silvers from London, 2012. But the silver lining of Rio 2016 for Indian sports was some sterling performance from women athletes. P V Sindhu won silver in badminton singles and Sakshi Mallik won bronze in 58 kilo gram freestyle wrestling. Dipa Karmarkar, first ever Indian athlete to qualify for Olympic gymnastics missed bronze by a whisker. Another notable performance was that of Lalita Babar, a 10th place finish in the 3000 metre steeplechase.

P V Sindhu (left) and Sakshi Malik

P V Sindhu (left) and Sakshi Malik

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