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is common knowledge that, if anything, the revivalist,
fundamentalist sentiment among Muslims has become stronger in the
last decade or so when hundreds of millions of petrodollars have
poured in from Soudi Arabia, Libya and other oil-rich countries, and
that the terrorist menace we now face in Kashmir is one offshoot of
this revivalist-fundamentalist upsurge. For, it cannot be disputed
that the Jamaat-i-Islami played a key role in whipping up initially
an anti-India hysteria in the valley and that hundreds of madrasahs
under its control, generously financed by its patrons abroad, have
provided the recruiting ground for Pakistan-backed terrorists and
secessionists.
I understand from Muslim reformists,
a rare species, that the position of poor Muslim women has
deteriorated as a result of the Muslim women (Protection of Rights
on Divorce) Act, which Rajiv Gandhi pushed through Parliament in
1986 under pressure from the ulema, because it has taken away from
them what little protection Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure
Code had given them earlier.This may or may not be the case. The
condition of poor Muslim women has been too bad to deteriorate much
further. But it is indisputable that Hizb-i-Islamia, an underground
outfit in Jammu and Kashmir, has forced even educated Muslim women
to return to the burqa. No secularist Hindu is likely to lose his
sleep on such an insignificant development! But they cannot deny
that this constitutes a violation of the spirit of rights conferred
by the Constitution as much on Muslim women as on anyone else.
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