Delhi: A court ruling that was hailed as a victory for Indian Muslim women - banning the practice by some husbands of "instant divorce" or triple talaq - has turned just a few months later into a hot potato, with the opposition ranged against the government in parliament.
The government has drafted a law that makes "triple talaq" - saying the word talaq three times in one go, dissolving the marriage on the spot - a criminal offence. It provides for three years in jail and no bail for any Muslim husband accused of it.
Apart from his wife, any third party can accuse him of the offence. He can be arrested without a warrant.
The opposition parties, while supporting the bill in principle, believe these provisions are too severe. They want the draft law to be diluted.
Ranged alongside them are many Muslim women's groups who fought to have triple talaq declared illegal by the Supreme Court, which it did last August in a landmark ruling, but who feel the pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction.
At the time of the Supreme Court ruling, there was much celebration that India's 90 million Muslim women had finally been liberated from the fear of hearing their husbands say "talaq, talaq, talaq". Their marriage stood dissolved and, as most Muslim women in India are uneducated, they usually faced destitution.
The husband had no obligation to give his divorced wife alimony or maintenance and was free to marry another woman the next day if he wished.
But when the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party followed up the Supreme Court ruling with a draft law to criminalise triple talaq, the earlier unity among women's rights groups vanished. A few support it while others want it to be amended to make it less draconian.
The Bebaak Collective, a group that fought to have triple talaq banned, warned in a statement that "the move to imprison Muslim men will add to the prevailing insecurity and alienation of the Muslim community".
Top lawyer Indira Jaisingh said the bill did not allow for reconciliation.
"How will it help a Muslim wife who wants to keep her marriage to have her husband in prison? If he is in prison, who will support her?"
The draft bill was passed by the lower house of Parliament on December 28, when none of the opposition parties raised any major objection.
However, when the bill was introduced in the upper house on Wednesday, opposition members objected loudly, demanding that the bill should either be diluted or sent to a select committee for further scrutiny.
