Unlikely Hero

Her small frame does not give out that Zeenat Fatima Rashid has fought and won a 12-year-old battle in an unending war against triple talaq....

Her small frame does not give out that Zeenat Fatima Rashid has fought and won a 12-year-old battle in an unending war against triple talaq. Nor do her self-effacing denials — ‘‘I am not the only woman to have fought this battle…I have only proved that triple talaq is not as easy as it is traditionally believed.’’

Zeenat, in fact, has little to even celebrate about. While she was looking after their nine-month-old son, studying law herself and doing the rounds of courts to get the talaq her husband pronounced on her null and void, her husband Iqbal Anwar went ahead and got married again. Since the Supreme Court order on August 14, he has been urging Zeenat to return home. But she is back in courts trying to get that marriage cancelled on account of bigamy. She vows she will be back, but as Iqbal’s only wife.

Zeenat’s problems began in 1990 when one August morning, Iqbal turned on her, repeated talaq thrice and threw Zeenat out of their house along with their son. Zeenat had no choice but to return to her father’s place.

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But the rest didn’t follow the script. Instead of moping and accepting it as fate, Zeenat went to a lawyer, personally went through volumes of interpretations of the Muslim Personal Law and the Shariat Act and decided to fight back. To boost her case, she also took a degree in law. ‘‘I wanted to know the law thoroughly so that there were no loopholes,’’ the teacher at Kendriya Vidyalaya, Maligaon, says.

‘Message has to go across to entire Muslim society’

• Are you happy with the judgement?
I am definitely happy, though I have so far won only half the battle. The bigamy case is still pending, and I am yet to be recognised as the only wife of my husband. I have proved the point that triple talaq is not that easy as has been traditionally believed.

• What will be the fallout and impact of the judgement?
It is for the Muslim society to analyse and understand the inherent message of this judgement and then ensure that hundreds of women are not subjected to humiliation and pushed to a disastrous situation because some people have been misinterpreting the Shariat laws and the holy Quran. I want to clarify that I am not the only woman to have fought this battle. There have been a few more who have won similar cases. What I feel is that this and similar cases be discussed widely and the message sent across to the entire Muslim society.

• Will the society really wake up?
It will take some time, and the media will have to help helpless women like me. More women should come out and fight this gross injustice. There is a need to challenge the male chauvinistic interpretation of Islam. Things are changing even in Pakistan. One cannot marry a second time unless a court of law permits. I am sure one day the whole picture of divorce will change all over India. Simultaneously, society will soon recognise that polygamy is the worst kind of barbarism faced particularly by Muslim women of this country.

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• Have you read the Quran?
Yes, of course. I have not only read and re-read it, but have also gone through several different versions in English. The Quran does not permit a man to have four wives just for the heck of it. The Muslim Personal Law is also male-biased.

Initially, the judicial magistrate dismissed her appeal and granted an unbelievable Rs 75 per month maintenance to the child. But the sessions court soon observed that when the wife has challenged a divorce, it becomes incumbent on the husband to prove his divorce with cogent evidence.

Iqbal then went to the Gauhati High Court, which dismissed his plea, upheld the sessions court order and directed him to pay interim maintenance of Rs 500 per month to the child.

In the meantime, the family court was constituted in Guwahati and the case moved there. When the family court held the divorce effective, Zeenat returned to the high court, which granted a stay on the order.

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It was around this time that Zeenat heard Iqbal was planning a second marriage. She filed another case, to try and stop him, but ignoring a notice served in September 1992, Iqbal solemnised the second marriage the same month.

On March 5, 1993, the Gauhati High Court finally ruled that a Muslim husband cannot divorce his wife on his whims and caprice and that a divorce must be preceded by pre-divorce counselling to arrive at a settlement. The HC remanded the matter to the family court for disposal. Iqbal then went to to the Supreme Court, which finally passed an order on August 14 this year upholding the high court order.

In fighting the case, Zeenat proved that her husband had forged the talaqnama (divorce document) in collusion with the qazi (priest), and that it was never communicated to her nor exhibited in court ‘‘as it was made after receipt of a notice from court’’ while Iqbal was trying to evade giving genuine maintenance to her.

The case of bigamy however still remains to be settled. Says Zeenat: ‘‘There is no validity of this second marriage as I haven’t been divorced…I wonder how an educated person, who is also a government employee, could go for a second marriage even as a case against triple talaq was on in the court of law.’’

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Hailed locally as a hero and activist, Zeenat also writes an occasional piece in local newspapers on women’s rights and exploitation. But she doesn’t see herself in the roles society now attributes to her. ‘‘I am not a crusader or an activist,’’ she says. ‘‘I have fought a genuine case against triple talaq that has been imposed on Muslim women by a male chauvinist society by misinterpreting the Quran and age-old Shariat laws. I have thoroughly read the Quran and have not found one instance where triple talaq can be pronounced so easily.’’