Centre Announces ‘Muslim Women Rights Day’ on August 1 to commemorate 2 years of triple talaq law, Asks To Thank ‘Modi Bhai Jaan’, Twitter Erupts In Mockery

The Ministry of Minority Affairs announced on Saturday that “Muslim Women Rights Day” will be observed across the country on August 1 to commemorate the enactment of the law against triple talaq. Union Minister for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi tweeted a poster encouraging people to thank Prime Minister Narendra Modi by using the hashtag #ThanksModiBhaiJaan.

The practice of granting instant divorce was classified as a criminal offence through a law enforced by the BJP-led government on August 1, 2019. The law attracts up to three years imprisonment with a fine.

Tweeting that there is a significant decline in triple talaq cases after the law came into effect, Naqvi claimed that “Muslim women across the country have overwhelmingly welcomed this law”.

The announcement drew ridicule on Twitter, with many equating the law as a means to send Muslim men to jail.

Formally called the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, it was the first bill introduced in Parliament after the BJP-led government was re-elected to power in 2019.

The Opposition had raised strong objections at the introduction of the Bill itself. They said that the government was trying to separate husband and wife when instant talaq had no legal validity.

“The Supreme Court has already declared the triple talaq illegal but did not ask the government to criminalise the offence. If the husband is in jail, how will he give maintenance?”, Congress member Mohammad Jawed had asked.

He accused the BJP government of trying to create “a hostile atmosphere for Muslims so that they are branded terrorists, lynched on the street or sent to jail in matrimonial disputes”.

AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi had vehemently opposed the bill as anti-Islamic and anti-women. “Who would give maintenance to the woman when her husband is in prison? Should a woman wait for three years for her husband to return from jail? Who will be ready to live with a woman who has sent her husband to jail?” he had asked.

DMK’s Kanimozhi had asked the government to bring in the women’s reservation bill and crackdown on honour killings if it really wanted to empower women. “Why are Hindu men not being sent to jail for abandoning their wives? We oppose the bill; we are not going to leave the minorities of this country to live in fear.”

Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) member N.K. Premchandran had said: “The Supreme Court has not given you any directive to frame a law on the triple talaq but the Supreme Court has given you a specific directive to make a law on mob lynching.”

“Yours is a clear political motive to target the Muslim community. Why three ordinances on triple talaq?”, he had asked.