MUMBAI: The Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA), an advocacy group, is run from a tiny office in a slum at Kherwadi in Bandra East. Yet, its passionate activists have a missionary zeal about bringing relief to Muslim women caught in marital discord. And their latest cause is a campaign against the unilateral and oral talaq .

Using the case of Mumbra’s Afshan Bano, who was recently served a unilateral talaq by her Gulf-based husband (a divorce without the arbitration mandated by religious texts), BMMA is reaching out to the Muslim masses through seminars, pamphlets and meetings. Citing the regularity with which unilateral talaqs are being pronounced, the NGO has declared a virtual war against this mockery. Apart from creating awareness , BMMA activists are also protesting the patriarchal mindset of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, which has been consistently stonewalling all efforts to declare the unilateral and triple talaq as invalid.

“Unilateral talaq is a gross injustice to a woman, who is not given a chance to present her case. It is ruining the lives of many women and must be banned,” says Noorjahan Safia Niaz, BMMA’s founder member. Last month, Niaz’s organisation held a series of meetings across the country and found that the number of unilateral divorces had gone up shockingly in recent years. In Mumbai alone, BMMA has received 72 complaints this year, most of them about unilateral divorce.

As part of the campaign, BMMA held a meeting at SNDT Women’s College in Juhu on September 16. Fortyeight qazis were invited but only four turned up—an indication , says Niaz, of the clergy’s reluctance to discuss this issue .

Understandably so—although it is qazis who could lead the war against the unilateral talaq, most prefer to toe the Muslim Personal Law Board line. Qazi Mehtab, an advocate and Mumbai’s Chief Qazi, says that he personally summons the wife of a man wanting a divorce before writing the talaqnama, but admits that most qazis do not follow the procedure, where arbitrators are supposed to be appointed and efforts of reconciliation made before a talaqnama is written. He, however, insists that according to the Shariat, a talaq uttered in absence of the affected wife is valid.

“Qazis have set up shop and write talaqnamas for a few hundred rupees apiece. This kind of talaqnama smacks of deep misogyny and needs to be abolished,” says Haseena Khan of Awaz-e-Niswan , another feisty Muslim women’s group that has been fighting against the oppression conferred on Muslim women by the religious patriarchy. And, of course, confronted as BMMA activists regularly do. Khatoon Sheikh, a BMMA member , gives the example of a man who divorced his wife in Pune on the ludicrous ground that she had accompanied her stepson to visit an ailing relative without informing him. When BMMA activists protested outside the local qazi’s house for writing the talaqnama, he referred the case to another qazi in Mumbai. “The qazi in Mumbai too has upheld the talaq. The woman is completely distressed ,” says Saeeda Jamadar , BMMA convener in Pune.

Sometimes better sense does prevail. A few months ago, BMMA activists confronted another qazi who had written a unilateral talaqnama and asked him to solemnise a nikah . “He refused, saying that no nikah could take place in the absence of the groom. We asked him that if a nikah was not possible without a groom, how could he sign a talaqnama without informing the bride? He realised his mistake and is now our friend,” says Sheikh.

Although Islamic countries like Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Morocco, Yemen and Sudan have banned the unilateral and triple talaq through codified laws, it cannot be abolished in India unless the Muslim Personal Law Board agrees. However, this body is so adamant about not doing so that it did not discuss the codification of Islamic laws at all at its April convention held in Mumbai. “Privately the members tell me that unilateral and triple talaq needs to be banned, but they don’t discuss it in meetings,” says Neelofar Akhtar , an advocate who is invited to AIPPLB’s meetings.

Why does AIMPLB oppose any move to ban unilateral talaq ? “Unilateral, oral and triple talaq may not be in the Quran but there are traditions of the Prophet which approve of such a practice. And Shariat laws comprise both Quranic injunctions and the Prophet’s traditions,” says AIMPLB’s Abdur Rahim Qureishi. But scholar Asghar Ali Engineer dismisses these arguments as based on a “weak” tradition, the authenticity of which is doubtful. “Activists have already prepared a draft of codified Muslim laws which, if implemented , can ban unilateral and triple talaq,” he says. “Now we need to create awareness and prepare the Muslim masses to force AIMPLB to declare unilateral talaq invalid.”