Events & Issues
New
Delhi, 4 October 2018
Social Reforms
COURTS’ INDISPENSABLE SHARE
By Dr. S Saraswathi
(Former Director, ICSSR, New Delhi)
The Supreme Court has at last stepped in
vigorously to introduce vitally significant social reforms to end centuries of
injustice and inequality thriving in social life and relations. Late last week,
two major verdicts were given -- one to decriminalise adultery and another to
allow females of all ages to offer prayers at the famous Aiyappa Temple at Sabari
Malai in Kerala. These are in quick
succession to the earlier landmark judgement decriminalising gay sex.
Apart from the significance of the contents
of the judgements, they point to the
important role the judiciary has come to play in our country, to cleanse the
system of unwanted and archaic laws and the society of impure and prejudiced thoughts
and lead the country towards a rational and equalitarian social order.
Critics are not wanting, who indulge still in
archaic thinking that matters of worship and prayer, faith and beliefs, customs
and rituals cannot be subjected to State regulation as they fall in the realm
of religious faith and devotion, and cultural characteristics. But, nobody can knowingly
violate basic freedom and equality enshrined in the Constitution, and claim
immunity in the name of religion and culture.
Strong and true rationalists who question any
blind faith are not likely to join the fight for equal rights in a matter like
temple entry. Their object is to eradicate the hold of beliefs and rituals over
everybody. This is conveniently overlooked in the present controversy.
While Parliament finds it difficult to push
legislations due to party divisions on every issue, courts can come to the
rescue by directing essential social reforms needed in the country. The present
Chief Justice has succeeded in this endeavour to the extent possible in his
tenure that came to an end on 2nd October.
Agreed, there may be differences of opinion
even among staunch protagonists of freedom and equality as to the need for
judicial intervention in recasting generations of social practices like
prohibition of temple entry to women of a certain age-group or on certain days.
Ideas of purity and impurity, however irrational, do not allow smooth changes
for centuries not only in India, but all over the world. But, that cannot be
the reason for statutory or customary discriminations to continue indefinitely
in the fast changing material life and protected as personal law beyond State
regulation.
The Supreme Court’s readiness in social
reforms may find both friends and foes. Questions involved are also subject to
varied interpretations. To the devotees, an issue like entry into Sabari Malai
Temple is not a question of equal rights to be asserted as a Constitutional
right of gender equality, but a social convention inbuilt in our social and
cultural life so deep as to make women themselves free and willing partners in
the segregation.
Therefore, there remains the task of
educating men and women devotees on the Court’s decision if reform is intended
to be absorbed by the society and not remain on paper. Our education and
upbringing have to reflect court-directed reforms.
Another important reformative judgement was
given on the question of adultery by deleting Section 497 of the Indian Penal
Code as “unconstitutional” and manifestly arbitrary. It subjugated a married
woman entirely to the will of her spouse, as elucidated by Justice Chandrachud.
It is a position akin to slavery. The court’s verdict is likely to find popular
support more easily. Doubtless it deals with equality and equal rights.
Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code written
in the colonial era says: “Whoever has sexual intercourse with a person who is
and whom he knows or has reason to believe to be the wife of another man,
without the consent or connivance of that man, such sexual intercourse not
amounting to the offence of rape, is guilty of the offence of adultery, and
shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may
extend to five years, or with fine, or with both. In such a case, the wife
shall not be punishable as an abettor”.
The Section, as it is worded, grants the
right of ownership of his wife to the husband especially her sex life. It also implies
the right of the husband to lend or sell this right to another man; it is theft
of a husband’s property if his wife had relations with another man without his
knowledge and consent.
According to the judges, marriage does not
mean for the women surrendering her autonomy totally to their husbands. The concept
of individual freedom is not known to majority of Indian men and women, who are
taught the virtues of obedience and submission of wives to their husbands in
all situations. That the woman loses her identity and legal right with marriage
recognised under the doctrine of Coverture is not recognised in the
Constitution, as pointed by one of the judges.
Adultery is a crime in many countries in Asia
and Africa, and also in some States of the US. It is decriminalised in a number
of countries like China, Japan, Brazil, Australia, and several European
countries. In the ancient world, the offence was fit for severe punishment.
Scrapping of the Indian law on adultery is a strong and progressive judicial
decision, but it also needs to be taken to the people to become effective.
In the series of court directed reforms, the
crowning glory may go to the abolition of Triple Talaq – a matter of rights of
Muslim women. Last year, the Supreme Court had ruled by a majority that the law
that allowed Muslim men to divorce their wives by simply uttering the word
“talaq” three times was unconstitutional and un-Islamic. By this, it sent out
an unambiguous message that personal law can no longer be privileged over
fundamental rights. That case was initiated suo motu by the Supreme Court.
The opinion of the minority (of one judge)
was based on the notion that triple talaq was a matter of personal law and
therefore entitled to Constitutional protection. Some sections of people
believe that practices under personal law of any religion have to be protected
and cannot be annulled by legislation by Parliament or judicial verdict
irrespective of the injustice or irrelevance perpetrated.
The Bill introduced by the Government sailed
through the Lok Sabha, but blocked in the Rajya Sabha. The Government has
issued an ordinance making “triple talaq” a punishable offence after the Court
had adjudicated on the interpretation of the Quran even while upholding the
Indian Constitution.
This ordinance, irrespective of its worldly
or religious significance to the community concerned, introduces a vital social
reform in which the judiciary has been the main supporter to the law maker. Indeed,
no social reform relating to any particular community or to all citizens which
involves changes in current practices is possible without Court’s
interpretation of Constitutional rights. Family law is no longer a matter
restricted to families.
There is need for wholesale social reform
devoid of party and vote bank politics if all citizens of India are to march in
equal pace. The three cases cited above are only illustrations of Court’s indispensable
share in bringing about social reforms. ---INFA
(Copyright, India
News & Feature Alliance)
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