Appropriating Muslim Women’s Voices

Bebaak Collective (Voices of the Fearless) univocally condemns Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy’s comment in Mumbai on 27 October 2017 that the party could win the Uttar Pradesh (UP) elections because Muslim women believed that the BJP could save them from “triple talaq.” BJP leaders have time and again celebrated the recent judgment that invalidates the instantaneous practice of triple talaq, claiming it a victory to itself and strategically pointing to the silence of the Congress government during the Shah Bano case. In fact, BJP’s constant reference to the violent and gender discriminatory practice of triple talaq feeds into the imagination that the Muslim community is conservative and violent, creating fractures within the community and legitimising the targeted violence against the men of the community in beef cases or fabricated terror cases.

We strongly condemn the appropriation of the struggle of women’s groups, and reiterate that triple talaq could be declared unconstitutional owing to the sustained work of women’s groups in the community, and also because of the legal intervention made by grass-roots women’s groups in the apex court supporting Shayara Bano’s petition. Bebaak Collective, a campaign group working with several grass-roots organisations across states, was one of the petitioners to this case. On 22 August 2017, the Supreme Court adjudicated that instantaneous triple talaq will not be acknowledged by the law by a three–two majority in a five-member bench trial while maintaining the ethos of equality as enshrined in the Indian Constitution. This judgment is “historic” in that it provides legal acknowledgement to thedemands of Muslim activists across the country and also occults self-styled “authentic” representatives of the community, namely the All India Muslim Personal Law Board.