The recent brouhaha over the Deoband fatwa forbidding rape-victim Imrana Ilahi, an ordinary Indian Muslim woman, from living with her husband after her father-in-law allegedly raped her, assumed the proportions of a national crisis in India and triggered the old debate of the uniform civil code. Former Law Minister Arun Jaitley went to the extent of saying that “the fatwa in Imrana’s case negates the rule of law.”

Now the debate has crossed the Atlantic. Imran’s tragedy has shaken up the redoubtable polymath Salman Rushdie, the ultimate symbol of a person suffering under a draconian fatwa, into writing a scathing attack on the Deoband fatwa and the culture of honour-and-shame prevailing in India and Pakistan.

Rushdie wrote in an opinion piece in The New York Times on July 10: “The "culture" of rape that exists in India and Pakistan arises from profound social anomalies, its origins lying in the unchanging harshness of a moral code based on the concepts of honor and shame. Thanks to that code’s ruthlessness, raped women will go on hanging themselves in the woods and walking into rivers to drown themselves. It will take generations to change that. Meanwhile, the law must do what it can.”

Further, in his op-ed, Rushdie has strongly criticized the Deoband seminary for issuing the controversial fatwa. “Darul-Uloom, in the village of Deoband 90 miles north of Delhi, is the birthplace of the ultra-conservative Deobandi cult, in whose madrassas the Taliban were trained. It teaches the most fundamentalist, narrow, puritan, rigid, oppressive version of Islam that exists anywhere in the world today. In one fatwa it suggested that Jews were responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Not only the Taliban but also the assassins of The Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl were followers of Deobandi teachings. Darul-Uloom’s rigid interpretations of Shariah law are notorious, and immensely influential - so much so that the victim, Imrana, a woman under unimaginable pressure, has said she will abide by the seminary’s decision in spite of the widespread outcry in India against it. An innocent woman, she will leave her husband because of his father’s crime. Why does a mere seminary have the power to issue such judgments? The answer lies in the strange anomaly that is the Muslim personal law system - a parallel legal system for Indian Muslims, which leaves women like Imrana at the mercy of the mullahs…”

There is nothing new about the diatribe against the Deoband seminary. However, while Rushdie may be correct in many of his observations about changes in culture and reforms in personal laws, I see the issue in a different light.

Let us begin from the beginning.

No one investigated to see whether the fatwa (religious edict) was issued in the right place or whether it held any relevance to this case. While the debate was raging, news broke out questioning the validity of the fatwa itself. First, according to the tenets of Islam, only Shariat or Islamic court have the right to issue a fatwa on personal matters and the Deoband school does not enjoy the status of a Shariat court. Second, Deoband has a right to issue a fatwa only on specific issues formally brought to its notice. In Imrana’s case, neither did Imrana seek advice or counsel from Deoband nor was the issue raised before the clerics by any authorised body. Third, Deoband also agreed that in a case like Imrana’s, the Shariat did not bar her reunion with her husband.

Actually, as per a report, the fatwa came in response to a query made by a journalist seeking information to write his copy. Deoband has now said that the fatwa had nothing to do with the Imrana case, as no such request or clarification was sought by Imrana or anyone else on her behalf.

The sordid saga of Imrana definitely raises many pertinent issues. Why was the story of a rape victim blown out of proportion? Why did the media make haste to deconstruct and sensationalize the story, especially with reference to the Deoband fatwa, which was not even relevant to the case? And why did the controversy snowball into a debate over Islam’s irrational and archaic personal laws still prevailing in a secular India?

What happened with Imrana was definitely ghastly and barbaric. And there is no way the perpetrator of the crime should escape the justice.

When I first heard Imrana’s story, I was dumbstruck. A Muslim woman had been raped in Uttar Pradesh by her father-in-law and Deoband had issued a fatwa saying that she could not live with her husband any more and she was supposed to regard her husband as her son!

My first reaction was: how stupid! It could never be so. How could Islam, a religion based on the tenets of equality and justice, allow this injustice to happen to a victim? Something was definitely wrong somewhere, I thought.

The argument in my head was clear.

Islam takes a very serious view of rape. It penalizes the rapist even with death, depending on the circumstances. The raped woman is a victim and cannot be punished, unless it is proven that she had encouraged, or tempted, or otherwise facilitated her own rape.

Clearly, here Imrana was the victim. How could this invalidate her marriage? As for the suggestion that she should now treat her husband as her own son, this was most absurd.

Brooding over the issue revealed many facets of the tragedy.

In this whole episode, apart from its humanitarian and gender inequality ramifications, the main issue is the dispensation of justice. What kind of people go to village councils in India? In my experience, it is the poor and the marginalized, the illiterate lot whose only resort for any dispute’s resolution is the village council. Poor folks are too afraid of the police to approach them. They know that often the police sides with the moneyed and the powerful. And if the case lands up in a court of law, they would be in deep trouble—they know nothing about criminal proceedings. But one thing they know is that in courts, hardy any justice is dispensed. What one gets is only trial dates, not justice. And one has to keep appearing in the courts until one dies. This is a terrible prospect for a hapless man or woman, Muslim or Hindu.

In a grave case like Imrana’s, people of any religious denomination should head for the police station. Instead, Imrana’s fate was first decided by the local village council and then came the un-sought for fatwa from Deoband. The media had a hot issue on its plate. If poor Imrana could help sell a few more copies or increase the TV ratings, then so be it. Who gives a damn about her as long as the bottom line improves? Tomorrow is another day. Everything would be fine until another Imrana happens. Then the old can of worms will be opened again: the archaic Islamic laws, the fatwas, the uniform civil code, the poor unfortunate Muslims…

But let me ask this: what is the pertinent question here? Is it religion or is it about poverty, illiteracy, and powerlessness?

I think it is more about the latter than the former.

Imagine Imrana was educated. Imagine she had a degree from a university. Imagine she had a job. Then, imagine what would she do if her father-in-law, or anyone else for that matter, had attempted rape on her. One, she would have kicked his balls. Or if she were to finally succumb, she would rush to the nearest police station and lodge an FIR. Her kick-ass story would still make great news, albeit in a different way. She would now be feted as another Nisha Sharma! She would be hailed as the courageous, bold face of the new Indian Muslim woman!

What is the moral of the story then?

I am not saying that Maulvis and madrasas are doing Indian Muslims very good. I am not saying that there is no need to change the outmoded personal laws. I am not saying that Indian Muslims should leave everything in the hands of the Ulema.

What I am saying is that apart from all these things, Muslims need education and jobs to come out of their ghettoized lives. Give every Imrana a solid education and open a window of modern life in their courtyards, then you will see them cocking a snook at the so-called obscurantism of Islam. Remember the recent news in West Bengal in which about 20 married Muslim students, all women, walked on their fogey husbands in search of a better life with education and career? Do you need more proof?

Imrana is more a proof of the failure of the state than a failure of Islam in India.