The practice of instant triple talaq would not have been considered just or fair by anyone. The Supreme Court had declared it to be un-Islamic, arbitrary and not an integral part of religious practice two years ago. Hence the fact that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government got the Muslim women (protection of rights on marriage) bill, 2019 passed by both Houses of Parliament can be perceived as ensuring for women of that faith a form of justice of which they had been cruelly deprived. It is ungracious to accuse Narendra Modi’s government of concealed intentions on the occasion of this important step. The present government’s decisiveness must be placed in the context of democratically-minded society’s indisputable failure: it has for more than 70 years deplored the practice of instant triple talaq without doing anything about it. Either the fear of losing votes or the hesitation to approach what was projected as part of personal law appeared to prevent earlier governments from addressing the injustice traditionally faced by a section of the electorate. This failure in upholding the principle of equity in a democratic State was nothing short of opportunistic.

The confusion seems to have persisted. The Opposition’s objections to the instant triple talaq bill in its present form are based on the provision that penalizes the pronouncement of instant triple talaq with imprisonment and a fine. This leaves the family helpless. Those opposing the provision see it as a way to destroy families of the minority community by using its own practices and imprisoning its men, while the assumption behind the bill is that the practice cannot be ended without criminalizing it. Had the parties opposing the bill been serious, they would have had a chance if they had opposed it together in the Rajya Sabha, or at least insisted, as some suggested, that it be taken to a review committee. By walking out, abstaining and remaining absent, a number of parties opposing the bill and individual members of the Opposition made sure that the bill was passed. In other words, the objections were a show, as though the parties that walked out or the members who were absent wanted to put their protest against the criminalization of instant triple talaq on record without taking the risk of being identified as those who opposed the bill. That could be projected as anti-women, and anti-minority women. But greedy fearfulness and moralizing cannot go together.