Black Lining In Silver Cloud For Muslim Women

The All India Muslim Personal Law Board’s (AIMPLB) proposals of documentation of all marriages, regarding women as 'owners of household' and denouncing the system of triple talaq, among others, are praiseworthy. Such legal provisions and recognitions have been long outstanding. But the fact remains that women are still at a disadvantage under the Muslim marriage laws. The very fact that Muslim women are still debarred from initiating a divorce in India under the new model nikahnama, goes to show that such high-sounding, 'inspirational' coinages like 'women's emancipation', 'women's empowerment', and the like, are still mere fanciful word-plays, when the matter boils down to the Muslim women bound by wedlock in India. In a community regarded as a 'minority' in the 'secular' country of India, the female voice is all the more feeble, as epitomised by the nearly 3:1 representation ratio in favour of the males in the AIMPLB".