Gender and Community: Muslim Women's Rights in India

Margaret Kechnie is head of the Women’s Studies Program at Laurentian
University and the co-editor of Changing Lives: Women in Northern
Ontario.

Although Muslim women enjoy freedom from discrimination under
constitutional law, they actually live under personal law, which denies
them equal rights within the family and within society at large. In this
book, Narain argues that personal law discriminates against women and
that women’s goal of gender equality is valid.

In India, personal law is based on a person’s religious identity.
Thus, the rights of Muslim women are defined by religious traditions and
state policies that support patriarchal institutions. According to
Narain, the boundaries of community and gender, which require constant
negotiation and renegotiation, are an integral part of religious
fundamentalism within the Muslim community, and the construction of both
identify and culture have worked to perpetuate women’s subordinate
position. Personal law has been manipulated by fundamentalist leaders
who have defined the community interests as male and conservative and
have been successful in manipulating personal law to reflect those
interests, which in turn have been accepted by the state.

The issues Narain raises are important not only for Muslim women in
India, but also in the broader context of the accommodation of cultural
diversity in other countries that claim to support democracy and
diversity.