A Journey From Shah Bano To Shayara Bano - A Status Of Muslim Women In India
Author: LawSphereX
Category: General Law
Published:
Updated:
A JOURNEY FROM SHAH BANO TO SHAYARA BANO: A
STATUS OF MUSLIM WOMEN IN INDIA
Ananya Kashyap, B.B.A. LL. B (H.), Law College Dehradun, Uttaranchal University, Dehradun, Uttarakhand Dr. Bhawna Arora, Associate Professor, Law College Dehradun, Uttaranchal University, Dehradun, Uttarakhand
ABSTRACT
The present study focuses on the historic evolution of Muslim women’s rights in India against the backdrop of two landmark legal judgments which demarcate significant legal and social milestones pertaining to the rights of the Muslim women. The study integrates Muslim and broader demands of a Uniform Civil Code in India. The research study addresses the critical points of controversies generated around the rulings, followed by legislative and social reactions; and the ensuing reactionary debates to achieve unanimity in the framework of Muslim Personal Law . The present dissertation elaborates on the progress made by the state machinery in favor of Muslim women’s rights despite a continuous backlash and obstruction from various sections of Indian society.
Drawing upon the insights and principles of various interdisciplinary bodies of knowledge, the research study should be useful for the students and practitioners of law, gender studies, religious and social studies to analyses the future trajectory of sustenance of gender justice and equality within the diverse socio-legal structure of India. Keywords: Muslim Women's Rights, Shah Bano, Shayara Bano, Personal Law, Gender Justice
Introduction Acknowledging the anomalous condition of a country with multiple legal jurisdictions, this article examines the changing legal status, the one aligning Muslim women had (divorce) claim with the rights embedded in taking into account the Indian state’s sanctioned legal pluralism as ‘an eminently modern model, but one attentive to the value of pluralism’, Shah Bano and Shayara Bano are important to illustrate the ramifications that these legal battles have wrought on the changing meanings attached to religion, law and rights claims of women in the Indian subcontinent.
While numerous policies and laws have an impact on the constitutional rights of Muslim women in India, the constitutional provisions that govern Muslim personal law in India are that provides: Where it is indicated that any text, rule or interpretation of the Muslim law is being applied or adopted by this Act, such text, rule or interpretation shall be deemed to be the rule of Muslim law applicable in India, if such text, rule or interpretation was established in India on the 1st day of March, 1937, and if it was established elsewhere, on the 1st day of January, 1926, and nothing in this Act shall be deemed to affect the provisions of the Quran, or the traditions of the prophet or any other rules declared by any general body of Muslim citizens recognized as such by law or by Muslim law to be competent to declare such rules.
Despite explicit (Article 14) and non-discrimination in matters Some of these interpretations are not consistent with modern understandings of gender equity or justice. For its part, Muslim Personal Law, maintained alongside the country’s secular legal framework, became both a shield of the community’s distinct identity, and a weapon of discrimination on the grounds of identity against its women. Despite its manifest shortcomings, it let the aggrieved women retain regional and communal autonomy in matters of identity and personal relationships. This situational grey-area status of Muslim women’s rights has fed further controversy over recent decades about the extent and character of reform needed to protect them within the community.
For years, the Bano case of 1985 was the watershed moment, the touchstone, for debates on In that case, Shah Bano Begum, then a, had been in the most traditional and dubiously legal manner known as triple talaq. She in turn filed a petition, demanding maintenance. The Supreme Court ruled in her favor, declaring that she was entitled to maintenance. This was because applies to all wives, not just Hindu ones, and by this Section all wives, including those
of Muslim men, are entitled to ‘maintenance’. There were many reasons why Shah Bano was a landmark judgement. For women’s rights groups, it affirmed the rights of Muslim women to seek maintenance. For political and religious forces, it provoked panic, culminating in , a bill passed by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi that effectively reversed the Supreme Court judgment by declaring that all that the— a period of about three months that commences with the divorce. Fast forward to 2017 when Shaifali Sharma and Seema Nair’s article in Scroll. in with the title ‘Shayara Bano is back: how the Hindu Right’s campaign against Muslim men began with triple talaq’ brought the issue of triple talaq back into the limelight. In this case, Shayara Bano, who was divorced by her husband through an instant triple talaq, petitioned the Supreme Court instituting a case against the practice.
In an unprecedented verdict, the Supreme Court on 22 August 2017. It was a resounding victory for the rights of Indian Muslim women. This was not only a historic judgment with legal ramifications. It was also a sociolegal and social watershed in Indian legal history, and prompted the Indian government to pass. It also provided a civil remedy for Muslim women. These instances– span across three decades of litigations. They represent much more than individual grievances and confessional critiques. They express a recurring tussle between Muslim women’s rights and their faith in India. They reveal tensions between religious laws and state secular constitution, the role of the judiciary in enabling gender justice, and relentless public and political debates on the scope and accomplishments of the law on minority rights.
A journey from Shah Bano to Shayara Bano showcases the resilience of Muslim women in
India, who continue to assert their rights to dignity, equality and justice within their faith framework and also as citizens of the Indian Republic. It is also important to note that, as these landmark cases testify, the tension between respect for religious practices and the need to promote gender equality is not easily resolved. The arc of legal thought and judicial interpretation over time and generations is clearly the increasing protection of the rights of Muslim women so that they do not become the backbenchers in the larger struggle for gender justice and equality in India. This historical trajectory of legal wins and losses continues to evolve, and will shape the future debates on women’s rights and religious law in India. It is therefore of crucial importance that the issues be seen through an intersectionality lens of gender, religion and law.
Historical and Cultural Context In order to grasp the legal trajectory, and by extension, from Muslim women’s rights in 1970s India to Muslim women’s rights in 2010s India, it is essential to work backward – to explore the history and origins of, in order to understand how that history has shaped the in India, through their relationship to a jurisprudential framework that sets them apart from the rest of the Indian population. Tracking this history sheds light on contemporary problems but also highlights, at least in India, the attitudes that underlie the legal struggles of Muslim women. Indian Muslims’ rights regarding personal matters are regulated by a law body known as the Islamic Shariat (divine law), which has developed over millennia.
The period that saw the arrival of Islam on Indian shores also saw the import of the Islamic legal tradition, the first of many influences to find a home on the subcontinent that would mingle with, and reshape, local legal and cultural traditions. The British colonial state, in enforcing a policy of non-interference with the laws of its subjects, codified the strictures of Muslim personal law long followed among Muslims of India into British laws. Muslim Personal Law is seen as the axis on which women’s rights, with regards to marriage, divorce, maintenance and inheritance, were denied civil and political freedoms and accommodation under state law, and were left instead with a set of rights defined by Islamic law that have been chronically interpreted over the centuries.
For instance, in marriage, Muslim women are granted the Mehr (a contractually guaranteed matrimonial gift paid by the husband to the wife), the right to negotiate a marriage contract, and the right to the talaq (divorce) under certain circumstances (khula, where a woman has a right to instigate divorce if she returns the Mehr). Yet, practices such as triple talaq (divorce by repeating the word ‘talaq’ three times) have stirred controversy as to whether the right to religious practice trumps the right to a woman’s dignity, or questions of maintenance or inheritance. Varied social attitudes on Muslim women’s rights in India are intricately woven into its deeprooted cultural, religious and historical contexts.
With traditional interpretations of Islamic law, colonial legal legacy and contemporary legal and political transformations as its backdrop, the discussion on this issue has usually been influenced by a traditionalist approach that goes well beyond religious sentiments to priorities preserving family and community bonds over
protecting the rights of individuals, and sometimes over reasonableness and equality, too. An abstract understanding of this wide chasm in opinion prevails within the community. The nature of contemporary attitude towards the society emerged clearly in the debates that took place in and around the Shah Bano case, and when this case resurfaced in 2017 The issue of whether legal reforms were deemed necessary, such as in the context of marriages in the Muslim Personal Law (law that regulates matters related to religious community like marriage, divorce, inheritance, etc) to give basic protections to the women, was seen to be conflictual with conservative. The Shah Bano judgment made conservative sections of the Muslims react with strong resistance against what was viewed as the unwarranted state interference.
Political manipulations that ended, speak volumes about the ever-changing nature of the interaction between religion, law and politics to address Muslim women’s rights in India. Furthermore, the ruling in the Shayara Bano case and the accompanying legislative and juridical developments also signals a slow but perceptible turn in social attitudes – a clear sign of the rise to prominence of gender justice in public imagination – for the legal imprimatur for the practice of extrajudicial instant triple talaq has all.
Shah Bano Case: A Landmark Judgment The 1985 Supreme Court judgment – which jury-rigged a novel to discard the orthodox one in favor of one involving a regular alimony payable to the estranged wife – began not only a violence of opinions in the judicial circles and beyond, including among the elect, but also shattered the invisible boundary between Muslim Personal Law and the secular jurisprudence of the Indian Constitution. The implications of the Shah Bano decision were neither the identity of the parties, nor the factual matrix of the case. Shah Bano Begum, After their divorce, Shah Bano filed a petition for her maintenance provides that a man shall be bound to maintain his wife who has children and is in a state of want, and the court may order the husband to make a monthly payment of a specific amount to the wife for her maintenance.
It is also applicable to a former wife living separately, if she is unable to maintain herself properly and is not receiving any regular sustenance or support from the husband.
Judgment In a landmark judgment in 1985, the Supreme Court ruled in Shah Bano’s favor, stating that Section 125 of the CrPC applied to every person living in India, irrespective of their religion: This provision is a pure code of secular law which basically is designed to meet the necessity of providing help to the widows/divorced women who are unable to support themselves and have no means of supporting themselves, and this law has to prevail over all other personal laws of the parties even when they contain lesser rights. The reasoning of the judgment drew on ideas related to equality, justice and nondiscrimination. It pointed to the constitutional vision of a uniform civil code which understood that laws on personal matters should be based on non-discrimination. The court explained that granting maintenance to a divorced woman was an issue of social justice.
If personal laws were to change, they would have to change in a way that embraced these values. The Indian legal system could not remain hostage to the past: it had to reform in order to protect all its members, especially the weaker, more vulnerable sections of its society. Reaction from Various Sections of Society The Supreme Court ordered that section 125 of the CrPC applied to all citizens in India irrespective of religion. It held that the provision was a manifestation of secular law designed to ensure that destitute women were protected and that it had precedence over all religious personal law which was less generous. The Court relied on equal protection of law, justice and non-discrimination to reach the decision. The Court noted that while the Indian Constitution envisions a uniform civil code, laws relating to personal matters can’t.
Maintaining a divorced woman carries with it an element of social justice, and the Indian legal system required change to make India an equitable place for all its citizens, particularly the vulnerable and the marginalized. Government's Response and Legislative Changes The intense controversy and political pressure sparked by the Shah Bano judgment declaring that: ‘Notwithstanding any custom or personal law to the contrary, a Muslim wife shall be entitled on a dissolution of her marriage whether on account of death of her husband or by talaq ... such monthly allowance for her maintenance and for the education of her minor children
until her death or re-marriage known as the iddat period, as may be determined by the court to be just and reasonable in accordance with the needs of the wife, the children, if any, and the reasonable wants of the wife. ’ The move was seriously criticized by women’s rights activists and secularists as a regressive development towards a more feudal and patriarchal punishment. The Shah Bano judgement and the legislative changes that followed positioned the rights of Muslim Indian women in a new context, leading to a rollback of the judgment-won gains in the short term, even as it set ignited a broader, contemporary discourse on the necessity of reform .
The case thus not only revealed Muslim women’s lack of access to justice in Muslim Personal Law forums, but ensured that they can’t do so in any forum without the modernization of the Muslim Personal Law in alignment with the spirit of the Indian Constitution. Post-Shah Bano Developments Uushered in the most recent phase of legislative change, judicial responses and, crucially, a spectrum of social and political reactions. The second moment of Muslim women’s legal entitlements in India saw one of the most sweeping pieces of legislation Critics claimed that the Act removed protection from Muslim women in the secular law of the land – in particular, , to which the Supreme Court advanced a response in the Shah Bano case. Supporters of the Act contended that it was a necessary response to safeguard the principles of Islamic law and the system of Muslim personal law in India.
Muslim women had discovered an abiding curiosity about family law, which had never translated into any legal significance for Muslim personal law in India – until the new terms of engagement were ushered in with the 1986 Act. It explicitly declared that a divorced Muslim woman would have no right to reside with her husband or to maintenance after the period of iddat. Even more strikingly, it empowered religious arbitrators to make provision and maintenance for the divorced wife just like Parsi and Christian women. The net result was that, when the husband failed to maintain the divorced wife, her kinsfolk or the Waqf Board could do so. The Act allowed the newly divorced wife and her husband to decide on the ‘fair and reasonable’ provision and maintenance at parting.
Far from defusing the controversy and protest prompted by the Shah Bano judgment, the Act set off even greater debate and criticism. including ‘women’s rights activist groups’ who
lamented that the government ‘had “sold out” to religious forces and Muslim women’ by ‘subverting both the basic principles of equality and justice under the Indian constitution’. In the years since the passage of the 1986 Act, however, we have seen the courts keep the process of unpackaging the meanings of the rights under the new law, on which courts increasingly have to adjudicate. The courts have gone so far as to read the need for an expansive interpretation of act’s terms, in the interests of Muslim women, into the gap between the terms of the 1986 Act, on the one hand, and the broad immunity from discrimination that the constitutional guarantee of equality and non-discrimination on the other meant to provide to women.
Among such judicial responses, the judgment of the, which states that: While the 1986 Act provides that a Muslim woman is entitled to maintenance for the iddat period only, it by no means extinguishes her right of fair and reasonable provision and maintenance under the personal law ... Such a venturesome jurisdiction of judicial interpretation may put a brake on the irresponsible enactment and may seek a balance between legislative provision in Muslim personal law on the one hand, and the constitutional rights of the Muslim women on the other, so that neither the constitution nor a minority community is prejudiced ... Decision to apply Muslim personal law, therefore, is always within the judiciary’s ambit to weigh and maintain the values of justice and equality.
Societal and Political Reactions Legal and judicial incidents after the Shah Bano case, both in favor of and against the Muslim personal law brought forth several responses by varying strata of India’s civil society: while some Muslim groups hailed for creating an equation to conserve the dignity of the shariah; the women’s rights campaigners, secular activists and critics and scholars of the judiciary dubbed it an anti-women and a setback to the onwards march of women’s rights in general and more specifically, to the rights of the Muslim women. The contest around the Act, and what it would entail, continues unabated. Aside from personal laws rooted in religion, traditions that confer patriarchy and subjugation of women are all being held up for scrutiny.
The Act tries to unify civil laws around universal principles of equality, justice and human rights over specific responsibilities and customs grounded in religion. Yet, herein lies the rub: the rancor surrounding the mutually exclusive relationship between law,
religion and gender justice in India continues unresolved as core to the heated debate on the question of personal laws, on blasphemy as well. Shayara Bano Case: The Triple Talaq Judgment The intricacies and weaves of the history of Muslim women’s rights in India were lived again after the Shayara Bano judgment declaring instant triple talaq (talaq-e-biddat) illegal – not least because it gave Muslim women access to the courts. In its judgment this year, the Supreme Court of India ignited a debate about religion, law and women’s rights that evoked the feelings and debates linked to the Shah Bano case three decades ago. Instant triple talaq divested them of their dignity Bano was 15 years old when she got married to a man who was twice her age.
The key legal issue in the Shayara Bano a maintain that instant triple talaq is protected by the right to freedom of religion or is an unconstitutional act by violating all citizens’ fundamental rights. The Supreme Court's Judgment In a groundbreaking judgment delivered in August 2017, a bare majority of The Court observed that the practice ‘is arbitrary and unilaterally operational to subordinate a Muslim woman and deprive her of her dignity and Stop cruelty against her ... ’ It argued that since triple talaq ‘places a Muslim woman in an extremely vulnerable position’, a mere invocation of religion to cover it up cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny.
Analysis of the Judgment and Its Reasoning It noted that any practice which left women at the mercy of arbitrary and unilateral divorce without any attempt at reconciliation ‘fail(s) the constitutional muster of equality, dignity and non-discrimination’. The Court also emphasized that ‘even religion cannot be invoked to refuse recognition or right under the Constitution’. It then quoted Islamic countries where triple talaq had been prohibited, pointing out that ‘it does not form an essential part of the practice of religion’. Dissenting Opinions The minority judgment delivered by found the practice to be constitutional under the principle
of Muslim personal law under Article 25. It suggested that the legislature would be more appropriate to handle the matter rather than the Court to invalidate the practice. Impact and Significance The order was applauded as a victory for Muslim women’s rights in India, one that was taken as a sign that gender justice had finally arrived for Indian Muslims. In another showing of its commitment to universal principles of justice, the judgment asserted the primacy of the Indian Constitution over the personal laws in claiming the authority to rule – which includes the guarantee of equality before the law. Legal Implications for Instant Triple Talaq The verdict made instant triple talaq legally invalid right away.
Any talaq done by a Muslim man aiming to separate from his wife instantly would be unenforceable in law, and Muslim women would have legal protection from arbitrary divorce of this kind. Reactions from Society and Religious Groups The judgment was met with mixed responses. The women’s rights groups and most Muslim women welcomed it as a major step towards gender equality and modernity. Others, particularly some religious groups, decried the judgement as an affront to their religious way of life. ‘Muslim society in India was also favorably disposed towards the judgement and reacted positively, welcoming the reform in Muslim personal law.
’ Government's Role This Act added an additional legal safeguard against triple talaq by criminalizing instant triple talaq (by providing for a jail term for the husband) and providing legal protection for the woman who is divorced by instant triple talaq. The case charted therefore a new frontier in debates about the legal rights of Muslim women in contemporary India, where legal activism translated into legislated rights of Muslim women contesting what seemed like entrenched inequalities in the realm of millennia-old personal law, and pioneered what has since remained a sharply contested terrain – a negotiated dialogic politics between religious traditions and notions of justice in terms of gender. The case – the
legal (and, in many ways, public) discourse that followed – and the judgment signal therefore the beginning of a fresh chapter in an historically long saga about the rights of Muslim women in contemporary India. If the judgment held out the promise of yet more reform of Muslim Personal Law, then the events post-judgment seems to open up some contested and opaque questions about the dimensions of needed reform (for more radical reform? ). Indeed, the battle for gender justice seems to rage across the subcontinent.
Comparative Analysis The path from marks a change in the legal and social jurisprudence of Muslim women’s rights recorded through landmark judgments that not only asserted but also sought to define the parameters of personal law in India, underscoring the role that the judiciary, the legislature and society continue to play in imagining and helping to secure the ideal of gender justice. Here, a side-by-side reading of the cases throws light on changing legal status of women, revealing the various fractures inherent in judicial and legislative encroachment of the rights of women in religion against a schematic understanding of the law. The SC landmark ruling recognizing the constitutional rights of Muslim women under the banner of personal law.
In social terms, both cases provoked important national debates that mobilized various cross-cutting sections of society toward the cause of solidarity, securing women’s rights on the one hand, and provoking a conservative segment of Muslim society against the same polity. More important, socially the effect of the judgment was greater than the courts alone, as it brought to the forefront of the national conversation, and questioned from a feminist perspective by critically examining the position of Muslim women to Muslim society, patriarchal norms deeply entrenched in various facets of Muslim family laws. The first issue thrown into sharp relief by the Shah Bano judgment was that of the maintenance of a Muslim ex-wife, and the second that of Shayara Bano’s challenge to the Arbitrariness of instant triple talaq (or protecting Muslim women from instantons divorce).
But the path from is a definite trajectory of upholding, reinforcing and reintegrating the into the Indian State. Shah Bano’s case, by reconfirming the primacy of secular law over personal law on the issue of maintenance, brought the legislature to undo the judgment by legislation. Shayara Bano’s case by, among other factors, framing a better plea and making use of women’s
legal aid groups, brought the judiciary around to delivering a judicial opinion setting completely against instant triple talaq – the customary articulation of the ‘divorce formula’ – and re-enforcing the constitutional rights of Muslim women against customary discriminations. This path, reason why I trace it, can be traced backwards into the history of legal injustices spawned by personal law, as well as forward into the recognition of historical injustices and rectitude. There is a gradual – and so far, carefully calibrated – forward movement from a mutilated past to a better theorized present pledged to the constitutional rights of Muslim women.
Here again, the judiciary has been an important force in a broadening of the scope of Muslim women’s rights, by wide interpretations of its powers of interpretation in the contextualized process of developing Muslim personal laws, and all the while looking to the broad constitutional goal of equality and justice. In these approaches from the judiciary, the individual and compounded constitutional claims of Muslim women have been, in the contextualized judgments of the Supreme Court, an indication both of the remedy of the specific complaint before it, and also a broad signal of the obligation to reach out to of Muslim Personal Law.
On the other hand, the trajectory of legislative intervention in this regard has been far less positive; in comparison, however, the far more progressive legislative intervention – a statutory enactment coming about in the aftermath of the Shayara Bano judgment – remedying the gender injustice and expanding the rights of Muslim women, Such debates are reflective of the arduous path of legal reform on the perceived expansion in women’s rights within the domain of personal laws. It is certainly not at all easy to move forward with such reforms: primarily because each such step is fiercely resisted, and secondarily because they must always be made in fine balance between religious autonomy and fundamental rights.
Challenges and Controversies Yet, in spite of the left-liberal judicial reading of the law, most state mandates have not rather taken place, in large part due to the enforcement gap. The effectiveness of laws against triple talaq, for instance, hinges on the knowledge that women have to assert those rights in the presence of socio-familial pressures; moreover, the laws are seen to be enforced with great variation across states and communities. These decisions also became ammunition for prolonged debate on the need for a
comprehensive reform of Muslim Personal Law. While some argued for the mobilization of a uniform civil code (UCC) that could guarantee equality and uniformity, others cautioned about the ill effects that a revision in the law could foster among communities in terms of religious and cultural solidarity, and proposed an alternative template: a ‘middle path’ between individual rights and community sensitivities, on the one hand, and gender justice on the other. This is probably the most formidable reason for preventing any change to Muslim Personal Law, for religious communities and some community leaders stand up in defiance against reform and perceive change as an attack on the most sacred traditions of a religion. There is a strong defense of religious praxis, ostensibly invoking God-given right to religious interpretation, and religious self-determination.
In this perspective, any judicial or legislative intervention is seen as an encroachment on religion, and hence an insult to religious freedoms. In this resistance, we find the fundamental tension between two imperatives: those associated with the spirit of religious independency, and those enshrined in the constitutional rights of the individual. Conclusion In many ways, the Shah Bano trials of 1985 and Shayara Bano’s travails of 2017 book-end a torturous legal journey of evolving legal script of the right of a Muslim woman in India.
It’s an evolutionary journey that is legal as well as a civilizational one that took a radical legal and political turn in 1985 and continues to be contested in the courts of law as well as in the popular discourse on equality of all citizens through the prism of these two landmark cases while interacting with the politics of gender-justice struggle, dispute over conflicting codified religions laws, and larger social politics of equality that is debated an argued in India. Cut to the year 2017, the movement for Muslim women’s rights was again rekindled when petitioners sought to declare instant triple talaq void, in the landmark judgment in the Shayara Bano case, by the Supreme Court of India.
The pronouncement by a nine-member constitutional bench that instant triple talaq was unconstitutional provided the judiciary another occasion to assert its true role as a protector of the basic rights of its people. It also demonstrated an institutional historical shift on the part of the judiciary from a nominally antagonistic stance on Islamic law to a sympathy towards Muslim women, instilling a broader legal belief that the women of the Muslim community might be entitled to the same protection under the law as women belonging to other religions of India. True to form, the legislators gave effect to the
decision of the apex court on instant triple talaq by enacting the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019. All of this pathbreaking work that the judiciary and the legislature have undertaken, in the long and arduous journey to legislate Muslim women’s rights, actually emanated from an idea. Even before there was a constitutional right in India for Muslim women to divorce, or enter into a valid marriage, or receive inheritance, there was a judicial mandate that required these things. But the judiciary was adept and shrewd in creating law through its progressive interpretations and judgments. In doing so, it pushed the envelope and helped alter the discourse on Muslim women’s rights through a series of regressive (and at times internally inconsistent) practices.
The legislature, despite controversy and constant setbacks, was equally important in translating judicial mandates into statutory law, providing a legal framework for the rights of Muslim women. Yet this journey has been far from smooth and has been constantly pulled in diverse directions, from social resistance, to the very challenges of setting into motion the landmark judgements through intricate provisions and perspectives of enforcement. The public discourse remains engaged with questions about the need for a uniform civil code, about what is meant by retaining ‘religious identity’, and whether and how gender justice can be secured within the ambit of personal laws.
Opposition to the bill from sectors of religious groups and community leaders that rely on a defense of traditional interpretations of Shariat law reveal the continuing tensions in the relationship between religious traditions and the fundamental tenets of constitutional rights. Such opposition points to the complications that arise from the juxtaposition of religious autonomy, gender justice and secular principles enshrined in the Indian Constitution. From Shah Bano to Shayara Bano and further, the fight to achieve greater gender justice in the Indian context illustrates the transformative power of law as a dynamic force with the potential to be reshaped. It also reflects the deeply rooted challenges of upholding religious obligations and constitutional rights as core principles of citizenship in a changing world.
Most importantly, it shows the unyielding surge of Muslim women in India who continue to be at the helm of these fights, relishing the freedom to challenge regressive practices, and claim their proper place in society.
References
1. Danial Latifi & Anr v. Union Of India, (2002) 1 CGLJ 184 (Supreme Court of India
September 21, 2001).
2. Fayiza, U. (2021). From Shah Bano to Shayara Bano (1985–2017): Changing Feminist
Positions on the Politics of Muslim Personal Law, Women’s Rights and Minority Rights in India. Women's Rights: Navigating Between Perceptions And Reality, 12-140.
3. Jai, J. R. (2020). From Shah Bano to Shayara Bano. New Delhi: Mohan Law house.
4. Jaiswal, P. (2020). Women Rights Vis-À-Vis Human Rights. Dehradun Law Review,
67-76.
5. Kashyap, D. K., & Sen, H. (2023). An Approach to Reconciliation Between
Majoritarian Morality and Constitutional Morality: The Struggle for Establishing the Democratic Balance. Dehradun Law Review, 65-75.
6. Malhotra, J. (2017, August 22). Triple talaq: From Shah Bano to Shayara Bano.
Retrieved from Indian Express: https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/triple-talaqverdict-supreme-court-illegal-muslim-divorce-nikah-halala-from-shah-bano-toshayara-bano-4808525/
7. Mohd. Ahmed Khan v. Shah Bano Begum, AIR 1985 SC 945 (Supreme Court of India
April 23, 1985).
8. Pandey, D. A. (2011). Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act in India.
Dehradun Law Review, 6-17. Retrieved from http://www.dehradunlawreview.com/wpcontent/uploads/2020/06/1-Protection-of-women-from-domestic-violence-in-India.pdf
9. Pathak, D. P. (2011). Women’s Human Rights-A Discussion Against Sexual
Harassment, Gender Bias And Violence. Dehradun Law Review, 73-84.
10. SCO.
(2022, July 21). Triple Talaq. Retrieved from
SC
Oberserve: https://www.scobserver.in/cases/shayara-bano-union-india-triple-talaq-casebackground/
11. Sharma, G. K., & Vashishtha, P. (2013). Judicial Response in the Matter of Crimes
against Women. Dehradun Law Review, 29-44.
12. Shayara Bano v. Union of India, (2017) 9 SCC 1 (Supreme Court of India August 22,
2017).
13. Singh, D. (2017, August 23). From Shah Bano to Shayara Bano: The evolution of
Indian society and polity. Retrieved from Hindustan Times: https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/from-shah-bano-to-shayara-bano-theevolution-of-indian-society-and-polity/story-S9VYNxOdYIdVHTYSejDw5L.html
14. Suman, S. (2022, November 17). Shayara Bano vs. Union of India [(2017) 9 SCC 1].
Retrieved from Law Bhoomi: https://lawbhoomi.com/shayara-bano-vs-union-of-india- 2017-9-scc-1/
15. Team Frontline. (2022, August 22). 1985: Shah Bano case. Retrieved from The Hindu:
https://frontline.thehindu.com/the-nation/india-at-75-epochal-moments-1985-shahbano-case/article65730545.ece