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This judgment is part of a larger story where the SC has already demanded a report within 4 weeks from the Government whether there were Islamic or Shariat
courts in India. The court order was necessitated by a bizarre ruling by Islamic clerics in the case of a woman being raped by her father in law. The Islamic clerics ruled that the girl now be married to the rapist and did not even ask for the rapist to be jailed.
The ruling and the SC deadline come at a very inconvenient time for the Congress and its allies, which depend on the support of Muslims to win elections. These political parties think that supporting the Imams will win them elections. While the Imams do control large aspects of lives of poorer Muslims, they do not rule them. As seen recently in Bihar, Muslims rejected fundamentalist positions of Lalu Prasad Yadav for a more development oriented face of Nitish Kumar—Yadav had paraded an Osama bin Laden look alike as proof of his amity with Muslims.
Politicians are increasingly using ghetto-creating policies and fooling illiterate Muslims to think that
reservations, Islamic rule, and medieval form of justice are good for them. Through their greedy behavior they are denying Muslims education, development, and employment. Through divisive measures such as the
Sachar Commission, they are trying to divide populations so their inefficiencies and corruption will not get the focus that it deserves. More importantly, they are denying a peaceful integration of societies in India. |
