Sunday, April 04, 2010

Minority Apeasement

The media has been going Ga Ga over Shoaib and Sania affair. Even the Shivsena has kicked in which now a days means that the whole country is lapping it up and it has a good cheap publicity potential. While browsing through the news channels on an especially slow Sunday, I noticed one fact.


Even in Pakistan, remarriage is allowed only after the first wife agrees to it. But in India, a Muslim can marry four time (the consent of the earlier wife/wives is immaterial). Muslim male is given an extra ordinarily long rope in India. Most of it is because of their minority status. (This is my interpretation and please correct me if it is wrong).


Definitely the meaning of minority status of the vote bank definitely has a bit to do with it. But that is not the end all and be all of the point I am trying to make. So anybody who agrees just for the hackney eyed agenda of uniform civil code can switch off now.


The minority status also brings with it an inbuilt opposition to progress and change. A Muslim woman in a Muslim majority country has more chances of getting her word heard. The fight for her rights has less moral dilemmas. In a Muslim minority country like India, she has to standup for her community as well as fight for her rights. Moreover, her opponents in her community have an ace up their sleeve. They can just blame her of trying to emulate the majority. They can blame that she is bringing disrepute to their religion and values with her immoral and uncontrolled behaviour. Immoral and uncontrolled behaviour is one of the first accusation made against any woman fighting for her rights anyways throughout the history. But in this particular case, it is loaded with even more possibilities. The opressed part of minority, thus needs to stand up for her collective as well as fight against it at the same time. Which is multiple times more difficult.


So, a girl who would definitely have fought against Hijab in Pakistan/BanglaDesh/Iran fights against a law banning it in France.


A country who genuinely wants to succeed in implementing equality needs to understand this. It needs to count for it in their planning. It is just now enough to lay down a legislation to right the wrongs. It needs to do a lot of groundwork as well.