THE All India Democratic Women’s Association, in a statement issued on October 18, has extended its unequivocal support to the demand of Muslim women for an abolition of the instant arbitrary triple talaq. In its own campaigns, AIDWA has seen overwhelming support of Muslim women for this demand.

It has strongly disapproved of the retrograde position taken by the All India Muslim Personal Law Board in this regard in its petition to the Supreme Court. Their position has nothing to do with religious belief as most Muslim countries do not have this obnoxious practice of instant and arbitrary divorce.

AIDWA condemns the efforts of the Modi government through a fusillade of statements by ministers to bring in the issue of a uniform civil code. The questionnaire issued by the Law Commission on uniform civil code just at this point of time surely has government backing and is a great disservice to reformers within the community who are committed to reform in personal law but are against UCC. 

The Modi government and other Hindutva forces are least concerned about women's rights which is why they are hell-bent on diluting even present laws including secular criminal laws such as those protecting women from dowry violence (Sec.498A). Instead of sermonising and communalising issues concerning women's rights, the government should come up urgently with a law against honour killings which is being opposed by caste-based 'khap panchayats'. Clearly the government uses UCC only as a stick to beat the minorities with. 

The government is also not bringing reforms to ensure that unequal and unjust provisions in Hindu laws are done away with; laws related  to succession in property and land or those related to guardianship of children continue to discriminate against women. Women in India still do not have a right in marital property.

AIDWA holds that at the present juncture, the goal of equality for all women across communities can be better achieved through a process of reforms in personal laws. Uniformity of inadequate laws does not amount to equality. At the same time, the present framework of secular laws should be improved and expanded.