The Islamic seminary, Dargah-e-Ala Hazrat, recently said that Muslim women should be treated on a par with men on every issue, including talaq. The All India Muslim Personal Law Board, a non-representative body that has taken upon itself the task of arbitrating on Muslim laws, seems to have a very different view of the rights of Muslim women. In an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court, it has reminded everyone that men are stronger than women; husbands should be allowed to pronounce talaq thrice and get rid of their wives in an instant lest judicial delays drive them to murder the wives. Such pronouncements are meant to prove the points that the practice of triple talaq belongs to the domain of Muslim personal law, which gets its sanctity from the Quran, and that the judiciary should refrain from intervening in the matter with a nod to Muslims' fundamental right to freedom of religion. This is to assume that the AIMPLB knows the Quran the best in the face of the fact that the Quran, like any other text, permits endless interpretations. What is even more important in this case is the fact that every citizen of a secular State like India is ruled by laws laid down in the Constitution. What about the fundamental right to equality of the sexes ensured by the Constitution that a custom like triple talaq categorically violates?

Any sensible person would agree that the practice of triple talaq needs to be abolished because of the way it results in abuse of women. It is unfortunate that the real issue here - of gender injustice - is sought to be smudged by painting it over with communal colours. Muslim clerics have labelled the women who have petitioned against triple talaq in the Supreme Court as agents of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. To be taken in by such accusations is to fall into the trap laid down by dominant institutions - whether of the majority or the minority community, or of secular activists - that would allow oppression to continue if it serves their purpose. The AIMPLB's celebration of male strength should ring a bell with RSS ideologues. To perceive such similarities is to realize what actually is at stake here - individual freedom, which is curtailed equally when a man divorces his wife merely by pronouncing a word and when a menstruating woman is stopped from entering a temple.