Abstract
This chapter discusses India’s democratic and secular set-up which allows for fluidity of religious identities to all Indian citizens and makes possible the creation of personal law boards that give different religious communities the freedom to practice their religion without any fear of state intrusion. However, the same personal law boards have been detrimental to women’s rights in general and even more so among women of minority religions. It details two-land mark judgements made in the Indian courts that brought justice to Muslim women in the light of the ills that plague divorced women. The author argues that the controversy arising out of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) has thrown the question of Muslim identity and women’s identity in public debates. The conclusion highlights potential problems of criminalizing those who might resort to the now-defunct instant unilateral divorce and underlines difficulties faced by Muslim women to suggest a way forward.
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Notes
- 1.
Acevedo, D. D. (2013). Secularism in the Indian ContextD [Abstract]. The Journal of American Bar Foundation, 38(1), law & social inquiry, 138–164. Retrieved December 25, 2020, from https://www.law.upenn.edu/cf/faculty/ddasacev/workingpapers/LSI-SecularismInTheIndianContext.pdf.
- 2.
Anderson, M. R. (1996, June). Occasional Paper 7: Islamic Law and the Colonial Encounter in British India. Retrieved December 25, 2020, from http://www.wluml.org/node/5627.
- 3.
Ibid., Para 7.
- 4.
Mohd. Ahmed Khan v. Shah Bano Begum. (n.d.). Retrieved December 27, 2020, from https://www.law.cornell.edu/women-and-justice/resource/mohd_ahmed_khan_v_shah_bano_begum.
- 5.
Ibid., Para 3.
- 6.
Shankar, S. (2019, December 16). How Democratic Processes Damage Citizenship Rights: The Implications of CAA-NRC. Retrieved December 27, 2020, from https://www.cprindia.org/news/8339.
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Dua, K. (2022). Muslim Women in Modern India: Public Debates from Identity to Religious Freedom to the Citizenship Amendment Act. In: Yamahata, C. (eds) Social Transformations in India, Myanmar, and Thailand: Volume II. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7110-4_5
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