Shah-Bano-eng
Shah-Bano-eng
Shah-Bano-eng
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Foreword - The <strong>Shah</strong> <strong>Bano</strong> Hullabaloo in India<br />
regards the third proposition, again it is difficult to find fault with the<br />
learned judges of the Supreme Court.<br />
Thus it is difficult to find a rational explanation for the outcry that<br />
the learned pontiffs and their supporters mounted in the aftermath of<br />
the <strong>Shah</strong> <strong>Bano</strong> judgement.<br />
The <strong>Shah</strong> <strong>Bano</strong> case sharply divided the independent Muslim<br />
intelligentsia from the reactionary pontiffs and their henchmen. At a<br />
reception hosted by a foreign embassy in New Delhi, Mrs. Humayun<br />
Khan, wife of the Pakistan envoy at New Delhi, told me, “Five Muslim<br />
Ambassadors from five Muslim countries were at my husband’s house<br />
last night. They all agreed that the Supreme Court of India correctly<br />
decided the meaning of the Holy Quran.” An impressive list of former<br />
Indian diplomats and vice-chancellors of universities met the Prime<br />
Minister, Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, and asked him to go slow with any<br />
legislation contemplated to nullify the Court’s decision.<br />
During the apogee of this agitation and controversy, in February<br />
1986, I was invited to address a mass meeting of 25,000 Muslims at<br />
Calcutta, in the open air Netaji Stadium. I supported the Supreme<br />
Court decision. As soon as I read out Imam Shafei’s ruling on this<br />
question, the large audience expressed their satisfaction at the<br />
decision of the Supreme Court. Shortly afterwards, in the municipal<br />
elections, they voted en masse for the Marxist party and government<br />
that had openly stood by the Supreme Court. But the politicians in<br />
New Delhi had set their course.<br />
Nevertheless, it is undeniable, as noticed by the eminent Judge and<br />
Jurist, former judge of the Supreme Court, Justice Krishna Iyer, that<br />
there occurred at this time an unprecedented uproar that echoed<br />
throughout the country and, indeed, the media world. This provoked<br />
even a sober and sympathetic observer like him to comment:<br />
The fundamentalist fusillade, fuelled by the “red flag” of “religion in<br />
danger” has inaugurated a “jurisdictional jihad” against the Court. The<br />
argument is that Muslim Personal Law is of Koranic vintage to be handled<br />
with care exclusively by Kazis and Ulema, unpolluted by heathen robes of<br />
the highest Court. This sacerdotal logic takes one to the silent legitimacy<br />
of the militant pleas that even Parliament cannot legislate on Muslim<br />
Personal Law. Bluntly put, behind this obscurantism is a poisonous<br />
political theory, a new testament of the dead two nation theory, a hard<br />
core negation of the secularity, integrity and authority of the State to<br />
adjudicate or legislate for Muslims. 5<br />
5. Manthan Quarterly, New Delhi, July 1986, pp. 35 fol, at p. 38.<br />
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