Muslim Women's Voices in the Debate on Personal Law in India and Bangladesh

This paper examines the voices of Muslim women in India and Bangladesh against the unequal clauses of Muslim Personal Laws and customary practices, as well as against state and community-level repression located through law and policies. I specifically researched Mumbai-based organisations, including Majlis, Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA), Bebaak Collective, Aawaaz-e-Niswaan (A-e-N), and CORO for Literacy, in India. In Bangladesh, the organisations and NGOs being studied are Ain-o- Salish Kendra (ASK), Bangladesh Mahila Parishad, and Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST). This study makes a two-fold argument. First, Muslim women in India and Bangladesh are approaching the different unofficial judicial institutions in large numbers against the discrimination and oppression they face in their family and community, confronting Muslim Personal Law. Further, women organisations, Muslim women’s organisations, and NGOs have a long persisting understanding that male-dominated religious boards or NGOs dismiss women’s voices and fail to address their issues and grievances regarding Muslim Personal Law. My study confirms that by providing a productive space for litigation and effective solutions to grassroots-level Muslim women, several women’s organisations in India and Bangladesh brought structural changes. By so doing, in both regions, these organisations have presented a challenge to well-entrenched religious groups in the community traditionally seen as the sole leaders and decision-makers The Muslim women organisations in India by qualifying Muslim women as Islamic judges (Qazis) ensured a gender-neutral perspective in a range of informal and unofficial community or religious dispute settlement bodies Second, in Bangladesh, despite the progressive reforms carried out in the sharia laws for Muslim women, the actual implementation hardly took place.