An Indian Muslim woman performs a prayer after breaking her fast on the first day of the holy fasting month of Ramadan at Jama Masjid in New Delhi, India. Photo: AP
New Delhi: Throughout the Muslim world, Ramadan - the holy month of fasting which started on June 7 - is a time for introspection.
So Muslim men in India are being asked to reflect on one topic in particular: their right to divorce their wives by saying the word 'talaq' three times in one go, in person, by post, phone, email, Whatsapp, Facebook, SMS or Skype.
How quickly can a divorce be done?
Is such a perfunctory, swift and one-sided end to a marriage justified? Is this allowed by the Koran or is it the ideology of patriarchal clerics that sanctions it? Does it degrade women? Why does India allow "oral triple talaq" when the practice is banned in more than 20 Muslim countries?
These are the questions that a group which fights for Muslim women's rights, the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA), wants the entire community to ponder through a special social media campaign. On every day of Ramadan, its Facebook page will carry the story a woman who has been divorced in this fashion.
"This holy month let's think of our daughter, sister, mother and wife and resolve to give them a life of dignity … BMMA will share the heartrending stories of women who have been unilaterally divorced, severely impacting their lives and the lives of their children," a statement on the Facebook page says.
Indian Muslims jostle for drinks distributed at Nakhoda Mosque after breaking their fast in Kolkata, India, on Tuesday. Photo: AP
The campaign is the latest initiative in BMMA's sustained efforts, over many years, to banish triple talaq.
It has collected 50,000 signatures on a petition demanding its abolition. It has also filed a petition in the Indian Supreme Court asking for triple talaq to be declared illegal. It has written to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
"Women are at the mercy of this heinous and un-Koranic custom. Every day we get cases of women's lives destroyed on a whim like this. Some women are not even aware they have been divorced. They learn much later," said the BMMA's convener, Noorjehan Safia Niaz.
Triple talaq: Rubina Amin's husband divorced her, declaring she was no longer attractive to him. Photo: Amrit Dhillon
But the group faces opposition not just from the predictably outraged conservative Muslim male establishment, who say the custom is sanctioned scripture.
It also gets a chilly reception from Indian politicians who fear that, if they back the demand, powerful Muslim leaders will order their brethren not to vote for them on the grounds that their faith is under attack.
This despite a government committee recommending last year that the practice should be banned because it "makes wives extremely vulnerable and insecure regarding their marital status".
Rasul Beevi is one of many women divorced by talaq, whose cases are highlighted during Ramadan. Photo: Supplied
India does not have a uniform civil code. Instead, each religious community is allowed to have its own laws governing marriage and divorce.
The Day 3 of Ramadan story features Rasul Beevi from the southern state of Tamil Nadu, who was married at 15 and divorced at 18 through triple talaq. "No woman should face such difficulty," she is quoted as saying.
Ruksana Hassan, 35, who lives with her husband in the northern city of Meerut, visited her parents in Jaipur two years ago. A few days later, a letter from her husband arrived with the word talaq written on it three times.
"All Muslim women are terrified by this word, all of them, from the richest to the poorest. I always feared an argument with my husband in case he got angry and said it," Ms Hassan said.
In another unusual move, the BMMA has persuaded 225 prominent Muslim men, mainly from the arts, to express their support for a ban.
In a statement, the men said: "While the triple talaq method of instant divorce is today banned in more than 21 Muslim majority countries, including Pakistan, it continues to be justified … in India as legally valid, even though theologically repugnant."
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