Writer~Dr.K.Vikram Rao
♂÷Prime Minister Narendra Modi must refaffirm and also reassure the masses of India that he will not allow Islamic fundamentalism and Muslim fanaticism to overawe him into repeating a Rajiv Gandhi of 1985. At that time the Congress Prime Minister undid the secular, democratic and socialist action of justice. Thereby divorcee Shah Bano was tortured. The Modi-led NDA government is committed to article 44 of the Indian Constitution. It must go ahead with one law for all Indians. That is common Civil Code. Modi is not a calf in politics as Rajiv Gandhi who became Prime Minister without ever being a minister. This trainee pilot became a Congress M.P. in 1982 and PM in just few years.
Millions of secular Indians cannot forget how Rajiv Gandhi upturned a most secular order of the Supreme Court and allowed intensified exploitation of happless Muslim women Shah Bano. What political mileage did Rajiv get out of this immature political act ? His party had won a record 414 seats of the Lok Sabha in 1984. Stile he was ousted just after four years, never to return to power again. His attempt to appease the religious reactionaries and fundamentalists by reinforcing the Muslim personal law ruined his future. His party could retain just 197 seats of the 414 it had, losing 217 M.P.s. And what was Rajiv’s nemesis ? He tried to favour the minority community over the majority, in total violation of what Bhimrao Ambedkar’s colleagues had written in the Republican constitution in 1949, two years after Swaraj.
And who gave “justice” to the gravely erred women Shah Bano ? The five-judge Supreme Court bench. It gave justice to the 62-years-old Muslim women who had been divorced after 45 years of nikah (marriage) by her selfish husband Mohammad Ahmad Khan. Rajiv Gandhi in his wisdom look away this judicial relief by an Act of Parliament, his Muslim Women (Protection of Right of Divorce) 1986. By this act Rajiv deliberately shackled the exploited and humiliated Muslim women, denyng them the right to live. The five-member bench of the Supreme Court which had struck a blow for humanity and equality consisted of Chief Justice Yashwant Vishnu Chandrachud (whose son Justice D.Y. Chandrachud is present CJI), Justice Murtaza Ali, Justice O. Chennappa Reddy, a Christian, Justice E.S. Venkataamaiah, later the 19th CJI, and two others. The victim Shah Bano’s lawyer was Daniel Latifi, whose grandfather was Badruddin Taiyyabji. He was elected the third president of the Indian National Congress in 1887, some 97 years before Rajiv Gandhi was nominated as the Congress party chief.
Rajiv’s autocratc and authoritarian act on the Muslim personal law had fallouts. The Congress Party faced serious troubles. Youthful, intellectural and dynamic Congressman Khan Mohammed Arif Khan (now Kerala governor) quit his ministry.Rajiv thus became a plaything for the hardened Mullahs and Maulanas. People voted out Congress nominees in 217 Lok Sabha constituencies. In the remaining 136 places Congress did not figure well. Shah Bano who had lost her personal struggle, finally had the last laugh in Rajiv Gandhi’s ouster.
So here is a signal for Narendra Modi. He must remember that masses had voted for his lotus in 2019 because his party manifeasto had promised : Ram temple, abrogation of Article 370 on Kashmir and the uniform civil code.
Therefore, in next year’s Lok Sabha poll the Indian people will cast ballot on the Issue of ending discrimination in personal laws. Those who wish to have distinct personal law can live anyhere from Libya to Talibani Afghanistan which are all Darul Islam, the land of the faithful. This is what Hameed Dalwai, founder of a Muslim Satyashodhak Sangh of Pune, had advised the diehard Muslims to quit secular India. This advice by this dedicated Lohia socialist is more relevant today.
