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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 8:56:24 pm

‘Save Sharia’ campaign feeds Hindutva politics

Mumbai: Prominent Muslims and others have slammed the All India Muslim Personal Law Board’s ‘Save India, Save Sharia’ nationwide campaign, alleging that it could deepen polarization while willy-nilly supporting the very forces the AIMPLB claims to oppose. Launched on Sep. 17 – coinciding with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 76th birthday – the AIMPLB’s 3-month-long campaign is aimed at mobilizing public opinion around protecting the Constitutional rights, preserving the Muslim Personal Law...

‘Save Sharia’ campaign feeds Hindutva politics

Mumbai: Prominent Muslims and others have slammed the All India Muslim Personal Law Board’s ‘Save India, Save Sharia’ nationwide campaign, alleging that it could deepen polarization while willy-nilly supporting the very forces the AIMPLB claims to oppose. Launched on Sep. 17 – coinciding with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 76th birthday – the AIMPLB’s 3-month-long campaign is aimed at mobilizing public opinion around protecting the Constitutional rights, preserving the Muslim Personal Law within the framework of safeguarding India’s pluralistic and democratic character. The AIMPLB leaders said they are soliciting support of people, intellectuals, activists, social and religious organisations who value justice, democracy, peace and the Constitution, to strengthen constitutional supremacy, the rule of law, justice and equality, religious freedom, social harmony and national unity. Around 100 progressive Muslim and non-Muslim intellectuals, activists, organisations and supporters have warned that what the AIMPLB presents as a defence of constitutional rights, religious freedom and Muslim identity "could deepen divisions, and may provide political ammunition to right-wing forces". The progressive have accused AIMPLB of selectively invoking Art. 25-30 of the Constitution related to Religious Freedom, while ignoring that these rights are explicitly subject to public order, morality, and health. Moreover, they conveniently bypass Articles 14 and 15, which guarantee equality before the law and prohibit sex or religion-based discrimination. “Following the 2024 Lok Sabha elections where civil society and opposition parties rallied under 'Save the Constitution', the AIMPLB's campaign inadvertently gave the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Sangh Parivar a platform to posture as defenders of constitutional norms. Ahead of crucial state assembly elections, this campaign reinforces false narratives and fuels propaganda that Indian Muslims reject the law of the land,” said the intellectuals. They pointed out how the so-called ‘God-given Shariat Law’ in India is nothing but man-made personal laws and ‘male interpreted patriarchal interpretations’, defended by the AIMPLB. In its September 2016 Supreme Court affidavit in the Triple Talaq case (Sayara Bano v/s. Union of India), the AIMPLB’s affidavit claimed divorce rights belong primarily to husbands because men allegedly possess ‘greater power of decision-making’ and ‘control emotions’. It even argued that without a quick separation option, a husband ‘may resort to illegal, criminal ways of murdering or burning her alive’ - a disturbing rationalization of domestic violence. Claiming these laws are divine, the AIMPLB admitted that “India is a patriarchal society, and therefore personal laws of all communities are aligned with the patriarchal notion...” The progressives countered that Muslim-majority nations globally including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Tunisia and Morocco have codified and reformed personal laws to protect women's rights. “Millions of Muslims live in secular democratic nations with uniform family codes without putting ‘Islam in danger’. The Muslim community’s current legal predicament in India is the direct result of the AIMPLB and conservative leaders failing to proactively reform and codify Muslim Personal Law,” said the progressives sharply. They said that genuine family law reform must guarantee Muslim women equal rights regarding minimum marriage age, abolition of polygamy, mutual divorce, equal inheritance, child custody, adoption, and a ban on female genital mutilation and halala. While secular political parties rarely support the rights of Muslim women, the BJP and the Hindu Right wing do so with an obvious motive: ‘communal polarization’, said the progressives. “The sangh parivar sheds crocodile tears for Muslim women while ignoring relentless hate speech (Love Jihad, Land Jihad…) and hate crimes like mob lynching, bulldozing homes, demolishing mosques or economic boycotts, with chants of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ to intimidate and strike fear. This accompanies state actions targeting Muslims: Waqf Amendment Act, draconian anti-conversion laws, and a weaponised SIR (Special Intensive Revision of Electoral Rolls) to disenfranchise vast sections of the electorate,” they averred. The progressives have sought the active involvement of all enlightened forces, civil society organisations and secular political parties to ensure that the demand for a gender-just, religion-neutral Uniform Civil Code is rooted in equality and human rights, rather than weaponized for communal division. Among the signatories to the appeal are: Naseeruddin Shah, Amol Palekar, Zeenat Shaukat Ali, Anand Patwardhan, Sultan Shaheen, Teesta Setalvad, Ram Puniyani, Tushar Gandhi, Mallika Sarabhai, Ratna Pathak, Feroze Mithiborwala, Anita Cheria, Zakia Soman, Jyothi Yedulla, Noorjehan S. Niaz, Madhu Bhaduri, et al.

Honour for cancer survivor

Quaid Najmi
Jun 14
2 min read

Odissi exponent Shubhada Varadkar gets Akademi award

Mumbai: Renowned Odissi virtuoso, Shubhada Varadkar has been honoured with the prestigious Sangeet Natak Akademi Award – the country’s highest honour in performing arts – as an acknowledgement of her artistic excellence and a tribute to her passion for dancing.


Unlike many others, Varadkar plunged into dancing relatively late - after completing her Matriculation from the Chembur High School, honouring the family’s traditions of “education first, everything else later”.


The Varadkars were deeply committed to academics and public service, traits that passed down the generations. Her father Manohar Varadkar, was a freedom fighter who later worked at BARC Chembur in the administration department, while her mother Manik participated in the Samyukta Maharashtra Movement.


“I spent nearly 10 years learning Bharata Natyam under Guru Shree Mani and later did my ‘arangetram’ performance after completing my graduation from Ruia College,” said Varadkar, 65, at her Borivali home.


Somewhere down the line, the multi-faceted personality – she played inter-university for the Mumbai University cricket team, then became a lecturer in Economics at her alma mater, she also worked as a news anchor for Doordarshan (1987-1994) – changed her dancing tracks.


Varadkar had a chance encounter with the legendary Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra, she discussed and learnt a lot about Odissi. She finally decided to embrace the classical dance form, giving her best to the art, trained to conquer all with her dazzling and dedicated performances.


Over the decades, her performances have enchanted audiences with her lyrical movements, expressive story-telling and a deep emotional connect, both in India and on the global stage, over the past four decades. Today, she is regarded as one of the most illustrious ambassadors of Odissi dance outside its native state, Odisha.


“I started with Bharat Natyam initially. Then I switched to Odissi… I felt I could explore a lot more through Odissi and it has brought me immense satisfaction and honours in my journey of performing arts,” Varadkar smiled in a chat with ‘The Perfect Voice’.


She admits that for the love of dancing, she had to gradually give up all her other passions of cricket, teaching, television with Odissi becoming her ‘fulltime passion and devotion’.


When she was soaring the heights of glory, during a performance in London in 2006, she was detected with ovarian cancer and had to cut short her tour to rush back home.


The gritty Varadkar underwent the full treatment protocols, but again after nearly 20-years in 2025, cancer returned in a different location in the body, the lungs – shocking the medicos.


In 2013, Varadkar penned down the long and inspiring struggle in her autobiography in Marathi, “Mayurpankh”, and following immense public response, she translated it into English as “The Celestial Plume” (2019).


Sanskrita Foundation for arts & sports
Around the time she was detected with cancer, in 2006, Shubhada Varadkar launched the ‘Sanskrita Foundation’. “We train students both in dancing and sports, especially those hailing from underprivileged backgrounds. We have multiple training centers for the youngsters for dancing and sports.”

Nurturing her flock of students, Sanskrita Foundation regularly organises classes, cultural festivals to promote classical arts and sporting events for the talented ones who lack resources or avenues to showcase their potential.

 

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