Pune: Speaking at the 8th Bhartiya Chhatra Sansad organised by the Maharashtra Institute of Technology World Peace Institute, Shayara Bano, who fought a legal battle for the abolition of the triple talaq practice, said that Muslims should be thankful to the current regime as well as the Indian courts for taking a progressive stand by banning the practice of Triple Talaq.
Bano was speaking as a speaker along with five other student speakers and Maulana Syed Rizvi, Shaista Ambar of the All India Muslim Women Personal Law Board and Imam Umer Ilyasi of the All India Imam Organisation. The session was titled ‘Triple Talaq: The Drama and Discontents.’
“A talaq is only legitimate if parents of both the husband and the wife and other elders are consulted duly. This was a bad practice that was hampering the progress of the Muslims. A woman is a nation builder, her fundamental rights should not be touched,” Bano said.
Rizvi, who is known to be an outspoken scholar of Islam, expressed his faith in the Indian Constitution and said that the abolition of Triple Talaq is a welcome step for Indian Muslims as they were anyway not practising it on a massive scale and there were only some people who misused it. “The way that Triple Talaq is casually conducted, in itself makes it a violation of the tenets of the Koran,” he said.
Shaista Ambar, whose organisation was also supportive of abolishing the practice of triple talaq, said, “Muslim women were suffering a lot from this practice. We had approached the government earlier to make a Muslim Marriage Act, on the grounds of the Hindu Marriage Act. A married couple is indivisible parts of each other. Practices like Triple Talaq are completely un-Islamic.”
Ilyasi, taking a defensive stand, said, “Talaq in itself is a destructive concept. We have to understand talaq while talking on the issue of Triple Talaq. In Islam, not only men but even women can give their husband a divorce using a ritual called ‘Khula’. Islam gives equality to both men and women.”
Visibly irked by the critical questions of the students who were attending the Chhatra Sansad during the question answer session later, Ilyasi announced, “The cow is a sentimental issue for our Hindu brothers and sisters. We must also talk of making a law for that.”
