The Constitution and Muslim Personal Law

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the constitutional position vis-a-vis personal laws in India; and discusses how fundamentalist and conservative forces have, over the last fifty years, sought to block attempts to reform Muslim personal law and shows how retrogressive amendments to the law of maintenance were introduced in 1973 and 1986. It discusses some of the debates around the reform of Muslim personal law, and examines the reaction of, both, women's groups and affected women to the Shah Bano judgement and the ongoing battle regarding the rights of Muslim women between these groups and fundamentalist, conservative forces, in the courts and outside. The Muslim League, whose former leader, Jinnah, had an extremely secular attitude to family law reform, opposed the Special Marriage Bill with all its might. In various cities leading liberal Muslim intellectuals, representatives of women's groups, jurists, journalists and others formed committees for the protection of Muslim women's rights.