MJ Akbar Defends Triple Talaq Bill, But Was He Always For Reform?

MJ Akbar said he regretted that reform of Muslim personal law had not been undertaken by Congress governments.

Fiercely defending the bill to make instant triple talaq illegal in the Lok Sabha, Union minister MJ Akbar said on Thursday, 28 December, that the time had come for the historic bill to be passed.

He said, if passed, the bill would be a big blow to those who want to keep women under the constant "fear and terror" in the name of talaq, Akbar said, adding that the issue concerns the "pain and distress" of 9 crore Muslim women.

Recalling an anecdote of the Nehruvian era, Akbar said the country's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, had revealed during a conversation that he could not reform Muslim personal law because the time was not appropriate.

The time to reform the Muslim personal law is now ripe, the MoS said, adding that the legislation may not be an ideal one but "let us not destroy good for the sake of an ideal".

The Union minister regretted that reform of the Muslim personal law was not undertaken by successive Congress governments despite massive majority in parliament.

But another anecdote published in an article on The Hindu by Former Chief Information Commissioner and Chairperson of the National Commission for Minorities, Wajahat Habibullah paints a different picture of Akbar’s sensibilities. In it, Habibullah claims that Akbar, who was earlier a member of Congress, himself had a role to play in the Rajiv Gandhi government’s decision to oppose the Supreme Court’s judgment in the Shah Bano case.

In the article published on 18 October 2016, Habibullah had claimed that after the Shah Bano judgment, it was none other than Akbar who had convinced the then-prime minister Rajiv Gandhi to oppose the judgment that had come out in favour of Shah Bano.

Then one day as I entered Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s chamber, I found MJ Akbar sitting across his table. Rajiv smiled cheerily, “Come in, come in Wajahat, you are one of us.” I found this greeting odd but was to discover the reason soon enough. Mr Akbar had convinced Rajiv that if the government were not to contest the Shah Bano judgment, it would appear to the Muslim community that the Prime Minister did not regard them as his own. In what he perceived as the defence of their religious rights, Rajiv would show himself worthy of the support that the community had always placed in his family.

Wajahat Habibullah

Habibullah had claimed in the article that he advised Gandhi to let the alimony judgment pass, but the Congress government introduced the Muslim Women (Protection of Right on Divorce) bill in Parliament to overrule the SC judgment despite his efforts.

In 1985, the SC had ruled in favour of Shah Bano, winning her the right to alimony from her husband after he divorced her and threw Bano and their five children out of their house.

The judgment drew a lot of criticism from orthodox quarters, especially the AIMPLB, following which the Rajiv Gandhi government passed the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986, with an absolute majority, thus restricting the right of Muslim divorcées to alimony from their former husbands for only 90 days after the divorce (which is the period of Iddah in Islamic Law).

If indeed Akbar had played a key role in restricting the alimony for divorced Muslim women, as Habibullah claims, then his passionate arguments today to ensure the relieving of “pain and distress” of Muslim women and to ensure “gender progress” of those affected by triple talaq is a stark departure from his previous stance in another landmark judgment.

(With inputs from PTI)