By The Numbers
Worries on women's rights
THE pitched battles that some radical Islamist groups fought recently with the police for two consecutive days around the Baitul Mukarram national mosque to protest against certain provisions of giving women equal rights in the National Women Development Policy (NWDP), have engendered a deep sense of concern among the conscious people.
Hundreds of radical Islamists armed with bamboo sticks clashed with police for hours and beat them up. A huge number of students from madrasas across the city participated in pitched battles with the police. They acted on instructions from their teachers who were staying inside the mosque.
Hundreds of madrasa students also went on the rampage and stormed Hathazari Police Station in Chittagong on April 11 over rumours that an imam was killed earlier in clashes between police and religious activists in Dhaka.
Khelafat Majlish and Islami Shashontantra Andolan recently formed the Anti-Quran Law Resistance Committee to protest against the NWDP 2008, approved by the advisers' council on March 8. These radical groups have been claiming that the policy gives equal inheritance rights to men and women despite the government affirmation that there is no such provision in the policy.
In an effort to scotch the discontent, four advisers of the caretaker government met Islamic leaders on March 27 and formed a 20- member review committee headed by the acting Khatib of Baitul Mukarram mosque. The committee placed a 15-point suggestion to scrap major provisions of the policy aimed at women empowerment.
Around two dozens of Islamic groups launched violent street agitation using different names. A prominent political leader even threatened the government saying: "If our demands are not met, the fire ignited today will spread like wildfire across the country."
This is however, not for the first time that the radical Islamist political groups have gone rampant or defied the state of emergency. Many of them brought out a procession in the city, almost without any resistance, to protest against the Sector Commanders Forum's move for trail of war criminals.
The radical Islamist groups have now shifted their wrath to a more sensitive issue, the NWDP, claiming that the policy contains provisions against Islamic principles. It is of course true that there is nothing repugnant to Islamic principles in the NWDP. The policy says in Article 9(13) that women's right to retain their earned properties will be ensured. The policy does not contain the issue of women's inheritance rights.
A section of Islamic scholars said, the review committee could not pinpoint in its recommendations any verse in the Quran that the NWDP contradicts. Considering the policy as a good document for establishing rights of every human being, the scholars said, those who are violating laws and threatening the government with greater movements, have vested interests and should be brought under trial.
The Quran has made equal social rights of both men and women, the basis for their inheritance rights and it never says that women as human beings cannot have rights as men. The Quranic rule ensuring women's rights to inheritance was revolutionary at the time when women did not have any dignity in the then Arab society and a man's status was determined by the number of their wives and maids, said the eminent Islamic thinkers.
The Constitution of Bangladesh in Article 28(2) has clearly instructed the state to ensure equality of women in all spheres of life. The Chief Justice of the country has univocally said that progress and democracy cannot be ensured by denying half of the population their rights as enshrined in the Constitution. Former chief adviser Justice Muhammad Habibur Rahman has also said on April 30 to change our traditional attitudes towards women.
The radical Islamist groups also opposed formulation of the Muslim Family Law Ordinance in 1961 restricting child marriage and discouraging polygamy. They tried to instigate people against it. But the then government with dealt them with strong hands.
Most of the Muslim countries have moved away from the traditional provisions of women rights over the ages for women's development. Morocco ensured equal rights to women in every sphere of life, enacting the Family Act in 2004.
The radical Islamist political groups, who are vehemently opposing the constitutionally guaranteed rights of the female citizens of the country, were all along been inimical to women. The issue of NWDP, of course, is not Islamic but political use of religion. In fact, they have been looking for a pretext under the guise of a religious issue to divert public attention from the increasing demands of trial of the war criminals, side by side to instill fear in the society. Now they have got one.
A number of Islamic scholars have made it clear for the nation that the review committee has failed to say exactly how the provisions of the NWDP contradict the Holy Quran. It is indeed a significant development towards implementation of the NWDP. Islam does not discriminate between man and women and throws away the argument of men's superiority. There are reasons to believe that correct interpretation of the Holy Quran would allow equal rights to women in every sphere of life.
The women in Bangladesh, who are socially weaker, have the serious causes of repudiation of equal rights in terms of earned property by their husbands and parental inheritance by their male siblings. They are also vulnerable to many social repressions including dowry. Therefore, it is a dire need for the government to implement the NWDP for social security of the women without giving in to any pressure.
The recent rampage by the radical Islamists multiplies the need for correcting all the faults so far done by the immediate past government in tackling these elements. The government must not show a subservient attitude in tackling them. These elements have got no appeal to the great mass of people, as they always hide behind religion to achieve their nefarious political agenda. The caretaker government can deal them severely as it has no obligation to any vote bank.
Islam offers ample opportunities for deliberation and discussion as for resolving any issue. One really fails to understand as to what sort of Islamic edicts these radical groups want to introduce by resorting to violence.
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