Shah Bano - Political Considerations

Political Considerations

The court decision, written by a Hindu, not only overruled Muslim personal law but included a demand for a uniform civil code, which would do away with Muslim personal law altogether. This double blow caused much concern among many Muslim politicians. At the same time, an ongoing agitation to destroy the Babri mosque was being rekindled by Hindu extremists. Anti-Sikh riots in in the wake of Indira Gandhi’s assassination had caused much death and destruction. Perhaps because the Shah Bano ruling seemed part of broader anti-Muslim or anti-minority political trend, it led to unexpectedly large protests:

The agitation started as a cautious protest call during the Friday prayer, but quickly developed into a mass movement all over the country, to the surprise of both Muslim and non-Muslim leaders. Coordinated as a “shari’a [Muslim law] protection week” by the newly formed All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), hundreds of thousands of Muslims gathered in October 1985 at rallies against the Shah Bano verdict and for upholding the status of Muslim personal law. The size and spontaneity of the mass rallies—such as the 300,000 people who gathered in Bombay… indicated the frustration and a sense of insecurity had been fermenting for a long time among the Indian Muslims, especially in the major cities (Hansen 1999, 149).

Notably, other individual Muslims and Muslim organizations spoke out in defense of the Supreme Court decision and Shah Bano. Cabinet Minister Arif Mohammad Khan argued that the Muslim Women’s bill was anti-constitutional, anti-Islam and inhuman, and several Muslim groups sent protest letters and demonstrated against the bill (Engineer 241). In spite of this diversity of Muslim opinion on the matter, the mass rallies and political power of the bill’s proponents were important considerations. Although Rajiv had won in a landslide, in 1985, his Congress Party had lost a number of Muslim dominated districts. Muslims’ votes for Rajiv’s Congress Party were important in upcoming state elections. Muslims are a sizable minority and had been a key constituency of the Congress Party since independence. Continuing autonomy in the area of personal law would be a key assurance that minority interests would be preserved by the Congress Party.

Shah Bano, the elderly women abandoned by husband, was a sympathetic figure at the center of this case; the public could not help but be concerned. The Hindu nationalists, including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), portrayed themselves as champions of women through critiques of women’s unequal treatment in Muslim law, although they failed to launch a comparable critique of their own personal laws’ unequal treatment of Hindu women. The BJP even convened a “Muslim Social Justice Conference” in Bombay, resolving to help Muslim women achieve justice while criticizing Muslims who defended their personal law. Bal Thackeray, a Hindu nationalist politician, argued in an interview: “The issue is not of religion, but of poisonous seeds of treacherous tendencies…. Those who do not accept out Constitution and laws, should quit the country and go to Karachi or Lahore [in Pakistan] …. There might be many religions in the country, but there must be one constitution and one common law applicable to all…” (Engineer 243-5). This politician and the Congress Party’s emerging rival, the BJP, drew on the Shah Bano case to reinforce their arguments for a uniform civil code.

Shah Bano also became a cause among many women’s organizations. Some, such as the Joint Women’s Programme, a national association with members of various religious backgrounds, were inspired to issue a Memorandum and organize demonstrations to fight against the Muslim Women’s Bill and support a uniform civil code for all women. Muslim women were divided on the issue: Some Muslim feminists and others sympathetic to Shah Bano’s situation supported the court decision, while other activists lobbied for the bill. For example, in Pune, “200 women, many of them Muslim divorcees, staged demonstrations… to register their strong protest against the Muslim women bill,” and 200 Muslim women from Madras sent a letter to Rajiv Gandhi also opposing the bill; on the other hand, a memorandum from the Muslim Women’s Graduate Association of Bombay favored the bill (Engineer 237-242). Many progressive women liked the idea of a uniform civil code but worried that their own activism on this issue could facilitate the Hindu nationalists’ more xenophobic advocacy of the same cause. The religious and ideological divisions among women over the Shah Bano case diluted the political force of their demands.