top of page

By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 3:26:24 pm

Trauma beneath the burqa

Sunni Muslim women seek ban on polygamy Representational image | Pic: PTI Mumbai : A landmark survey among Sunni Muslim women living in polygamous marriages has exposed a deep and dark pattern of emotional, economical and social injustice besides severe health constraints, all of which combine to arrest the progress of the community, especially among the economically weaker sections.   Conducted between July-November by Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, the alarming study of 2,508 Sunni Muslim...

Trauma beneath the burqa

Sunni Muslim women seek ban on polygamy Representational image | Pic: PTI Mumbai : A landmark survey among Sunni Muslim women living in polygamous marriages has exposed a deep and dark pattern of emotional, economical and social injustice besides severe health constraints, all of which combine to arrest the progress of the community, especially among the economically weaker sections.   Conducted between July-November by Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, the alarming study of 2,508 Sunni Muslim women in 7 states found that polygamy was more widespread than earlier believed, said BMMA co-founders Zakia Soman and Noorjehan Niaz. Present were Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy (IMSD) activists like Javed Anand, Feroze Mithiborwala and some victims of polygamy.   Of the 2,508 veiled respondents, a shocking 87 pc (2,188) said that their husbands had 2 wives, 10 pc (259) reported husbands with 3 wives, and the remaining 3 pc (61) revealed their husbands had 4 or more wives.   Signalling a historic shift on the perceived ills of polygamy, 87 pc of all the women demanded the application of IPC 494/BNSS 86 on polygamous Sunni Muslim men and 86 pc want full codification of Muslim Personal Law with legal protection, transparency and accountability, said Soman and Niaz.   The eye-opener survey found that the first and second wives in such marriages were aged between 31-50, and 59 pc had only secondary school education, with accompanying acute financial insecurity. 65 pc of the first wives earned less than Rs 5000/month, the rest had no income, and the second wives’ economic conditions were even worse.   The situation of the first wives was pitiable from the time of marriage -  84 pc of them had no income, and later, 79 pc of all the women had nil income, 61 pc first wife and 32 pc second wife never received ‘Mehr’, and those who did, the amounts were as piddly as Rs 786 (30 pc) and around Rs 5,000 (43 pc).   Against this, 32 pc of the first wives coughed out dowry (between Rs 50,000-Rs 200,000), though the incidence of dowry was much lesser among the second wives, with the polygamy plague affecting an estimated 20 pc of the Sunni Muslims community, who comprise around 88 pc of the total Islam followers in India.   Though 97 pc of the BMMA surveyed women admitted that the formal consent (‘Qubool Hai’) for marriage was taken by the Qazi, 83 pc never read their ‘Nikaah-nama’ (marriage certificate) and 38 pc had no idea of the crucial document that was held by their husbands/relatives.   They further revealed that at the time of ‘Nikaah’, a staggering 60 pc of the men were educated till Class X or less, 66 pc earned meagre (below Rs 20,000/month), and while first wives were usually saddled with lower-income families, the second wives hitched onto men who were more stable financially, said the BMMA study.   With families crumbling, 47 pc first wives returned to their parents’ homes but depended on them or charity for survival as 40 pc of all women received no maintenance and 5 pc got less than Rs 2000/month.   The second wives also didn’t fare better – 29 pc faced desertion as husbands rejoined the first wife - though a total 89 pc of all Sunni Muslim women confirmed that the scourge of ‘Triple Talaq’ has declined, indicating that legal reform can help transform lives.   “The study unequivocally concludes that polygamy causes profound emotional trauma, economic deprivation and psychological harm, kids suffer, religion is misused to justify injustice while the Islamic tenets of justice, compassion and fairness are discarded,” said the BMMA leaders.   Polygamous ‘cloak-and-dagger’ kills families Usually, secrecy shrouds second weddings - 88 pc of the first wives rued their permission was not sought, and 85 percent were never even informed by the husband. On the other hand, 68 pc of second wives were aware of the first wife, but the remaining (32 pc) were tricked into marriage.   The husbands’ patriarchal arguments for a second wife included – 31 pc claiming to ‘love’ some other woman, 30 pc justifying it as an Islamic religious right, infertility, for begetting a son or family pressures, while 17 pc cited no reasons at all for repeat matrimony – and 13 pc men resorted to plain deception to lure their second wives, claiming either divorce, desertion or death by the first wife.   Not surprisingly, an overwhelming majority of the Sunni Muslim women trapped in polygamy want the practice legally banned, and even in the purported ‘exceptions’ (infertility, terminal illness or incompatibility), most abhor re-marriage as the solution, the BMMA survey revealed.

Silent Sentinel

India’s newest naval induction, INS Mahe, is an unassuming vessel by the standards of great-power fleets. It is a 78-metre, 900-tonne shallow-water craft designed not for blue-water bravado but for the disciplined business of hunting submarines. Yet its commissioning is far more consequential than its modest frame suggests. As underwater warfare emerges as a pivotal arena of Indo-Pacific rivalry, Mahe signals a shift in India’s maritime posture towards stealth, distributed capability and growing industrial self-reliance.


With over 80 percent indigenous content, Mahe is a marker of industrial maturity. For a country long dependent on foreign suppliers for undersea-warfare hardware, the arrival of an indigenous platform optimised for littoral operations is not trivial.


For years, Indian naval planners have watched the dramatic expansion of regional submarine fleets, not least those belonging to China and Pakistan. Islamabad is expected to receive six Hangor-class submarines from Beijing, a transfer that will materially alter the balance in the Arabian Sea. China operates one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing undersea fleets and has shown a readiness to deploy vessels deep into the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). Both countries are investing heavily in underwater platforms because submarines offer strategic reach, deniability and the ability to threaten critical sea lines of communication.


The Mahe-class is an answer to this evolving threat. Equipped with torpedoes, anti-submarine rockets, and advanced sensors, Mahe provides the Navy with the means to detect and neutralise intruding submarines before they slip into traffic-heavy coastal corridors. It fills a crucial niche between deep-water assets and coastal patrol craft, acting as the first line of defence at the very threshold of India’s maritime domain.


The IOR is undergoing a submarine build-up unprecedented in its history. China uses submarine deployments as strategic signalling, underscoring its ambition to project influence across the region. Pakistan’s expanding fleet, supported by Chinese technology and financing, is designed to complicate Indian naval planning and strengthen its own deterrent posture. Littoral states from Southeast Asia to West Asia are similarly upgrading their anti-submarine warfare capabilities.


India’s response has been to develop a layered anti-submarine warfare envelope: a networked system of sensors, aircraft, helicopters, corvettes and shallow-water combatants arrayed across its coastline. The commissioning of Mahe strengthens that lattice.


There is also a political and industrial dimension to the vessel’s arrival. Its high level of indigenous content dovetails with the government’s ambition to build a self-sustaining defence manufacturing ecosystem. For a navy that will require dozens of platforms in the coming decade, indigenisation is not merely a slogan but a strategic necessity.


Named after the historic coastal town of Mahe on the Malabar coast, the vessel reflects India’s deep maritime heritage even as it prepares the country for a future in which power increasingly lurks beneath the waves. With the Mahe-class entering service, India has signalled that the contest for control of the Indo-Pacific will not only be fought on open waters but also in the quiet, contested shallows.

Comments

bottom of page