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The Muslim women’s identity is defined in terms of daughter, mother, sister or wife-all male centred, but never as vicegerent (khalifa) of God.
“Very rarely, women are seen as an individual entity. They are seen as only complementary to men. Indian Constitution did give power to women as equal citizens. But there was no legislation later to translate it into law. We did not celebrate biological diversity and want to reduce women to mere housewives.”
This is how Ms. Renuka Chowdhury, Union Minister of State for Women and Child Development, opened a seminar on ‘Muslim Women: A Disempowered Entity?’ on March 13, at the Edward Said Hall of the Jamia Millia Islamia. The seminar was convened by Department of Sociology in league with Muslim Women’s Forum.
Ms. Chowdhury said nearly 10 million women have been killed in India during the last 50 years by way of foeticide. This has led to adverse man vs. woman ratio in states like Punjab, Haryana and Tamil Nadu. She however appreciated that the men vs women ratio was healthiest among the Muslim and Christian minorities as revealed by the Census figures.
She said Islam was the most progressive religion when it began, but today Islam is being followed as it is perceived by men. The process of interpretation has stopped about a thousand years ago. Triple talaq has to be disallowed. The community has to initiate reform within.
The minister said the Union Government has begun legislating in key areas. The Domestic Violence Act is the first step. More is coming in. There is also some thinking regarding fixing a share of household women in the wages earned by men.
Ms. Syeda Syedain Hameed, Member Planning Commission, while presiding, said it was about time that Muslims began looking at fresh interpretation of the Quran. She said the community has frozen in time. Quoting from the Rajinder Sachar Committee report, she said economic status of Muslims has declined in the country even behind the level of SCs, STs and the OBCs. She said 19 per cent of Muslims households had access to drinking water while among Dalits it was 23 per cent. Only nine per cent Muslim women were participating in gainful work. Only 19 per cent Muslim girls in Bareli district of Uttar Pradesh were educated. Highest number of stunted, underweight and anaemic children are found among Muslims. She said the Planning Commission has allocated Rs. 500 crore for Ministry of Minority Welfare for the 11th Plan.
Prof. A. R. Vijapur from the Jamia Millia’s Academy of Third World Studies said the universities like Jamia Millia Islamia and Aligarh Muslim University did not have sufficient feeder institutions (i.e., higher secondary, high, primary schools) to send enough number of quality students to these huge facilities that provide higher and professional courses. He said Muslims should attend to this deficiency as the two universities do not get enough Muslim students for professional courses.
Prof. Vijapur favoured reservation for all Muslims as a general category. He said there was discrimination while dealing with extension of facilities to Muslims. He said once he found an Aligarh bookseller receiving a letter from Karnataka Education Directorate in Kannada language placing order for 2000 books of a particular title. He said the Directorate must have known that there will not be a single person in Aligarh knowing Kannada and the letter was deliberately written in order that the order is never honoured. (He informed that luckily he could translate the letter into Urdu for the bookseller).
Ms. Sehba Farooqui, an activist of AIDWA, said the government schemes do not reach Muslim women. Recounting from her visits and studies in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, Farooqui said Muslim girls engaged in woodcarving industry of Saharanpur in UP wear thick glasses due to work in darkness in absence of power. She said the educational standards in Delhi’s Urdu schools were pathetic and no attention was being paid to upgrading facilities to them.
Dr. Abdul Waheed of the Centre for Promotion of Educational and Cultural Advancement of Muslims in India (CEPECAMI) of the Aligarh Muslim University, said all across Uttar Pradesh, the girls of artisan class Muslims were ahead of the boys in higher education.
Ms. Sumaiya Musharraf, advocate, hailed the recent Supreme Court judgment wherein it held that the divorce for Muslim women without the due process of conciliation would be held null and void. She said Muslims must begin looking at their Personal Law, several of whose provisions were not in tune with the spirit of the Shariah.
Journalist, Maqbool Ahmed Siraj in his paper said the Muslim women’s identity is defined in terms of daughter, mother, sister or wife-all male centred-but never as vicegerent (khalifa) of God. He said the Prophet (Pbuh)) as a social transformer tried to change the axis of kinship from one based on tribal customs to family where lineage, marriage and even lactation served as criterion. Before the Prophet, the kinship was mainly defined in terms of male lineage. So most of the women related verses of the Quran pointed at the sources of man’s birth, blood relationship, marriage ties and even lactation. But the traditional mufassirs interpreted all these verses in terms of hijab, segregation and exclusion from social interaction. Consequently, the women were barred from Friday congregations and even opportunities for higher education and even from democratic participation. He said, women need to be freed from the traditional worldview of segregation and politics of competitive gender rights.
Mr. Afzal Wani, Dean of Law at the Guru Gobind Singh University, Delhi reacting to Mr. Siraj and Ms. Sumaiya’s pleas for reinterpretation of the Shariah, said any such interpretation should not be without due care and caution and should attain desired result.
Dr. Qasim Rasool Ilyas of the Muslim Personal Law Board explained the status of women in Islam, their right to inheritance, Islam’s position on adoption of children, polygamy etc. He said a law in Uttar Pradesh bars women from inheritance in agricultural land and the Board had raised the matter with the UP government several times.
Mr. Mukesh Nandan Prasad, Secretary, Union Ministry of Minority Affairs, said the Ministry has now been organised and 15 per cent of funds under social empowerment schemes have been allocated for minority development. He said he recently found only 1800 Muslim girls among a total of 55,000 girls studying in Kasturba Gandhi Vidyalayas across the country although these central schools were meant for SCs, STs and Minorities. He said the Union Government was identifying the minority population areas in 593 districts of India for improvement of water supply, sanitation, female literacy, housing and employment. He said the Government has made provision for scholarship for several thousand scholarships for girls from minority groups for pre-matric, professional courses and technical courses. Prof. Akhtarul Wasey of the Islamic Studies Department of the Jamia said there was vast gap between what Islamic Shariah had given to women and how Muslims treat their women.
Dr. Azra Abid, convenor of the seminar welcomed the gathering in the beginning of the session. Dr. Sughra Mehdi, vice president of the Muslim Women’s Forum, thanked the participants.
(This report was compiled by Maqbool Ahmed Siraj and he can be reached at maqbool_siraj @rediffmail.com)
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