Dr JAVED JAMIL | Clarion India
FINALLY, the BJP Government has done what it believes would win them the vote of a certain section of Muslim women and might generate a kind of reaction that suits their plans for the next Lok Sabha elections.
What they have done is in accordance with what suits the current international philosophy of law driven more by the interests of the forces of economics rather than the interests of safe, healthy and peaceful personal, family and social life.
Imprisonment being the major way of punishment for any crime under the current system, the Ordinance has chosen to put the erring husbands behind the bars for three years. This will ensure that the population of prisons in general and of Muslims in particular further swells, a man will be away from his family (parents, brothers, sisters, children and any of the wives, new or old) for that period and his family will remain without him.
So within two weeks, while on one hand, homosexuality has been decriminalised with no imprisonment to those involved, divorce through a wrong method has been criminalised with the provison of three-year imprisonment.
Had Muslim Personal Law Board taken a decision at right time to benefit from the Islamic Fiqhs that consider Instant Triple Talaq unIslamic, the government would not have been able to use this in making a law that serves neither the interests of justice nor the interests of the “offended” wife. It only creates another “offended” person, the man who instead of being asked to go back to follow the Quranic method of divorce, will be thrown in jail.
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Dr Javed Jamil is an eminent Islamic scholar and author.
