'And if anyone doesn't like it, they can move to Pakistan.'
'Triple talaq,' as the controversial practice is also known in India, allows a husband to separate from his wife merely by uttering "talaq," the Arabic word for divorce, three times consecutively, whether verbally, in written form or even through a tweet or text message.
In 2017, the Indian Supreme Court ruled the practice unconstitutional, but the new legislation prohibits it outright, threatening violators with up to three years in prison. The law passed the upper house of parliament on Tuesday, with 99 votes in favor and 84 against, after making it through the lower chamber last week. It now awaits approval by India's President Ram Nath Kovind.
Comment: Despite not having a majority in the upper house, and opposition from some his NDA partners, the Modi govt. was able to get this bill passed.
Regional parties divorce Congress in Rajya Sabha Triple Talaq battle
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The signs of the opposition wilting were evident last week when the contentious bill to amend the RTI Act was passed in Rajya Sabha where the anti-BJP camp held the upper hand for last five years.
But the passage of triple talaq legislation takes the issue beyond technicality of numerical superiority into the realm of ideological challenge to the "secular" bloc in the times of strengthening saffron-hold.
There are signs that the massive BJP victory in 2019 polls has shifted the ground from under the "secular", interchangeable with anti-BJP, politics. It was a collection of regional parties — JD(U), TRS, RJD, TDP, NCP, SP and BSP which joined hands with Congress and the Left to keep the bill at bay for over two years.
As BJP under Narendra Modi marched from strength to strength between 2014-19, there were suggestions in Congress that the party relent on issues that the saffron camp has managed to stigmatise with its "appeasement" slur.
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As it transpired on Tuesday, most of these regional parties did not mind siding with the government, ironically by walking out of the voting and dressing up their support as protest.
If none of them bothered with more than a fig leaf, the reason is that they are reconciled to the post-2019 political reality and are willing to make concessions. While SP and BSP may be keen to be on the right side of the Centre in view of enforcement agencies, TRS and JD(U) rule states with minority presence and take pride in their "secular" hue.
Several iterations of the law failed to make it through parliament since the first version was introduced by India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2017, with some opposition MPs arguing that the punishment proposed for offenders goes too far. The opposition Indian National Congress (INC) fought the law's passage, and critical MPs tried and failed to send the law back to a select committee in the upper house prior to Tuesday's vote.
The INC and other opposition figures have also accused the Hindu nationalist BJP of targeting Muslims with the bill, questioning the need for new legislation when the divorce practice was already legally invalidated in the country's highest court.
"The Supreme Court had struck down triple talaq, ... then what is the need to criminalise an imaginary thing?" said senior INC leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi, according to India Today, though the lawmaker added that he broadly supported the effort to protect women.
Senior INC leader Raj Babber also deemed the outcome of the vote a "big jolt" for familial law in India, adding "This is a historic mistake," India Today reports.
In contrast, Smriti Irani, Women and Child Development Minister and an advocate for the law, praised its passage in a tweet on Tuesday, heralding the bill as a "victory for millions of Muslim women," and part of a "social revolution."
Law Minister and BJP lawmaker Ravi Shankar Prasad also defended the development, stating the previous Supreme Court decision was insufficient to protect women.
"The judgement has come, but no action on triple talaq has been taken," Prasad said, according to the BBC. "That is why we have brought this law, because the law is a deterrence."
Prasad added that some 574 cases of 'instant divorce' had been reported since the Supreme Court verdict in 2017, which he said underscored the need for additional legislation.
Comment: Narendra Modi has changed Indian politics for the better by tackling the issues that no other political party would dare touch since the country's independence in 1947. By empowering tens of millions of Muslim women with this bill, he has done more to reform Islam than any other leader in the past century.
During the recent parliamentary election, Modi received large support from all sections of society, including businessmen (of all sizes), farmers, Dalits (so-called untouchables), backward casts, the upper caste and remote tribal groups, thus dismantling more than four decades of entrenched voting habits.
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