In India WOMEN and MEN have EQUAL rights. Period. End of story.
NO religious interpretation, or assertion, or belief ,can supersede the CORE guarantee of India's Constitution that women and men are EQUAL in the eyes of the law. That equality must be upheld by the apex court and ALL courts within India's judicial system.
Any woman can UNILATERALLY divorce her husband, under Indian constitutional law, if she so chooses. She can also unilaterally marry him without the permission of religious patriarchal authorities, her father, her uncle, her male goat, or whoever.
Patriarchal Religious extremists -- Go live in Saudi Arabia or go inhabit The South Pole, if you cannot follow India's constitution. Your citizenship in India carries rights as well as responsibilities. Citizenship does not come cheap. Your male patriarchal citizenship does not come at the expense of women. Your voting rights in a Democracy demands your compliance with Indian constitutional law. You do not have superior rights, just EQUAL rights. Same as women.
The all-MALE shariat court's decision (see link below) has absolutely no force in law, is cowardly and just plain illegal, and it should be appealed by the woman whose divorce was set aide by the shariat court.
The Indian nation-state and women advocates must protect this woman's life against male patriarchal violence and help her receive justice through the Rule of Law of courts of the Indian judicial system.
Women and Men are equal before the law in India, from cradle to grave.
Chithra Karunakaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
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http://www.garhwalpost.com/index.php?mod=article&cat=Saharanpur&article=1994
Garhwal Post copyright
Muslim clerics support court decision on divorce
Thursday, 13.08.2009, 11:43am (GMT+5.5)
By PRASHANT P SINGH
SAHARANPUR, 12 AUG: Several clerics at the renowned Islamic seminary Darul Uloom unanimously have upheld the decree given by a shariat court in Muzaffarnagar, where a husband, Shafiqullah, from Aligarh filed a lawsuit against his divorce saying that his wife forced him to sign on their divorce papers. The court annulled the divorce saying that Islam didn’t authenticate any divorce in which a wife pressurised her husband to sign divorce papers. All the fatwa Ulema supported the decision as fully justified.
Ustad Mufti Arif said to Garhwal Post that a woman in Islam wasn’t given any right to unilateral divorce. “The right is bestowed only on man. If a woman pressurises her husband to tender divorce, it would become null and void. It becomes ultra vires for the court as shariat recognises it as God’s will,” he added.
Nazim-ul-Wali, who heads the famous All India Al Quran Foundation, described divorce as Darul Qaza, which signifies that the matter goes beyond the jurisdiction of any man-made court. “Islam doesn’t give the right to wives to divorce their husbands. “Anything that coercively promotes a husband to divorce his wife is haram (sacrilege) in Shariat. Divorce is only admissible if husband allows it with mutual consent,” he added.
The judgment is likely to have serious repercussions as mutual consent is not appropriately defined by the clerics. People are likely to use it in the exploitation of women, added a lawyer on terms of anonymity.
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