The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 fortuitously raised the crucial question about the maintenance of Muslim personal law, as it has led to a clash between Personal Law and a Uniform Civil Code, enunciated in our Secular Constitution. Time, Narendra Modi’s BJP Government brought in the Uniform Civil Code before its term ends in 2029.

The Siddaramaiah-led Congress Government, which is embroiled in a mega corruption and illegal allotment of house sites by the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA), has now put the MUDA into a laundry machine to clean up the dirty, stinking MUDA.

The name of that laundry machine, said to be largely digital, to ensure nothing like the past misrule and abuse of power by both the bureaucracy and the politicians happens again, is MDA — Mysuru Development Authority. My foot.

Marie Curie, who had won two Nobel Prizes, says of individual human being thus: “You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals.”

Yes sir, what the Government has done is a cosmetic change. Changing the nomenclature from MUDA to MDA with resultant changes in rules. Well, if rules could be abused once, as in MUDA, the new rules too can be abused — again.

Therefore, it is important to appoint to the new MDA individuals who are “improved”, compared to those who were in earlier MUDA.

These new officers should be loyal to the spirit of the new rules of MDA and not loyal to the political masters who, unfortunately, remain the same in character and cannot be changed easily. Yes, with the kind of voters we have.

Prior to MUDA, it was the City Improvement Trust Board (CITB), which allotted sites and houses to citizens in an orderly and transparent manner, free from any taint of corruption. As a result, CITB had earned the genuine trust of citizens.

In Kannada there is a proverb to affirm the helplessness of the underprivileged: ಯಾವ ರಾಜ ಬಂದರೇನು ಯಾವ ರಾಜ ಹೋದರೇನು ರಾಗಿ ಬೀಸೋದು ತಪ್ಪೀತೇ! No matter who becomes the king, you  cannot escape the drudgery of grinding ragi.

A review of the International Booker Prize winning book ‘Heart Lamp’ by a Kannadiga writer Banu Mushtaq has appeared in Star of Mysore yesterday. It was written by Ravi Joshi, who says the book questions the patriarchy, the male chauvinism, in Muslim families and the struggle of Muslim women for freedom and  power.

I have read so far four out of the 12 stories in the book. My perception is that the stories are too poignant and even depressing to the extent I wondered if facts are carried too far to make them stranger than the fiction. The narrative seems unrealistic. Reading the book was a soul-searing experience and one would probably suffer the pain of the protagonists vicariously.

With this preamble to the book, I must indeed thank a million times, on behalf of my sisters described in the novel and others in the community of the author,  the BJP government at the Centre for a law it passed in the Indian Parliament on July 30, 2019, to make instant triple talaq (divorce) a criminal offence.

Wonder, if Banu Mushtaq’s Kannada book on this subject published early 2002 had acted as a catalyst and triggered the BJP government in 2019 to bring in the law to undo the evil of instant talaq. This law of salvation for Muslim women is known as Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on  Marriage) Bill, 2019.

Be that as it may, I cannot  help remembering the merciless, unfeeling, pitiless Shah Bano case of 1978-1980. In simple words, it was a case filed for maintenance by a divorced Muslim woman Shah Bano. The matter went up to the Supreme Court which decided in favour of the helpless, hapless Shah Bano, the old, lonely lady. 

However, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), a non-governmental organisation created by Mrs. Indira Gandhi in 1973, cried foul. Protests were held across the country. A group of protesters had come to Mysuru also and held a meeting at the small Hall of Institution of Engineers on JLB Road. As a result, the Rajiv Gandhi government undid Shah Bano’s victory by passing the law, the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act  in 1986.

This Act, fortuitously, raised the crucial question about the maintenance of Muslim personal law, as it has led to a clash between Personal Law and a Uniform Civil Code, enunciated in our Secular Constitution. Time, Narendra Modi’s Government brought in the Uniform Civil Code before its term ends in 2029.

I also remembered  another case in this context. That of Taslima Nasrin, a Bangladeshi writer whose book ‘Lajja’ created a storm in Bangladesh in 1993 and she was exiled. She was not allowed to live even in a Secular country like India. She was literally driven away from West Bengal of Secular India. She now holds Swedish citizenship, according to Google.

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