Kusum Choppra

This was first published on Jan-2007.   How much has the situation changed? What is this Uniform civil Code? Is it possible? Reasonable? Soon after Independence, Hindu inheritance laws were codified to give weightage to the females of the family. Later others ‘favoring’ women have been added. Despite this codification, dowry continues. Daughters’ inheritance remains as dicey as when the Christian community battled for those rights in the Courts.
 Meanwhile daughters have already been made as responsible for upkeep of aged parents as their brothers. Would the promulgation of a Uniform civil Code push the conservative elements off center stage and allow women their rights? Much of the focus has been on the "plight" of Muslim divorcees, especially victims of talaq, talaq, talaq. In that community, the order of male relatives who must support the woman has been laid down. Whether they do so or not, is another matter altogether. 
But what of our Hindu women, rejected by ...

This morning I shared an expose on Hindu monogamy and then got thinking. On paper Hindu women have as many, if not more rights than Muslim ladies. The key words are: ON PAPER. As a matter of fact, how many women actually claim their inheritance?   How many ask for khulla (Islamic divorce asked for  by the lady)? How many get it or divorce if married under the Special marriages Act? A man doing reluctant ‘justice’ to an unwanted wife would be perhaps more distasteful than total neglect. Dealing with   a ‘saut; is never a pleasant(Sic) exercise. Social and family pressures are as onerous on both sides. Instead of pointing fingers at each other, it may make more sense to come together as a sisterhood aiming at enlightening society to the incremental benefits of a more level playing field between men and women. In this, it is women across all social and other divisions who can play a decisive role as mothers and grandmothers in instilling in tender minds respect f...

Cyclone Hudhud’s fury left behind much more damage than Kashmir, on account of much higher levels of infrastructure in Andhra.   In Kashmir, the scariest issue was border security. Thankfully, Andhra and its tech minded CM Naidu are  gung ho about planned rebuilding to stave off future havoc from the annual cyclones, taking essential services and communications underground and minus that massive glass fronts that only smash or heat up in crises. India’s long experience in disaster management recently evolved into a ‘science’. When a warning translates into   people in low lying areas evacuated into temporary quarters in municipal schools on higher ground.   These are poor  sections with few possessions, bundles as precious as their little ones. Food packet preparation is galvanized; ditto vaccination shots etc.   Its all part of the drill.    The almost annual uprooting means that every one, but everyone’s aspiration is to somehow ...

He’s at it again, tilting against the windmills that kept him underground with a death threat fatwa.      In a recent speech, Rushdie drew on his ‘language making ‘ skills to throw up the term ‘mangled’ language of ‘jihadi cool’. He blamed ‘mangled language of religion’ for creating extremism amongst British Muslims, supposedly refugees from the terror in their own home countries.    Acknowledging that the mangling of language by religion was primarly Islamic—specifically the Salafist movement backed globally by Saudi Arabia, he also threw arrows at the Christian extremists in America and the Hindu extremists for their respective contributions. However what , he says, made matters worse was the addition of ‘jihadi cool’, described as deformed hate-filled medievalist language of fanaticism, backed by modern weaponry, that   has  made angry young men the most dangerous new weapon of today’s world. I liked his conclusion best: “If I don’t ...

We often talk of how the public suffers when justice is delayed horrendously. Here is a classic:   justice delayed by almost a quarter of a century for a former chief minister!!    Yes, believe that folks! He is a former chief minister of Gujarat, a distinguished well informed person whose team planned all the development which has now born fruit as the so called “Gujarat model”. The gentleman,   Mr. Madhavsinh Solanki had the misfortune of being kicked upstairs to Union Foreign Minister and sent to a Davos summit, which got him involved in the huge furor over Bofors kickbacks. What exactly happened in those halycon days of the Bofors scandal has never came to light to date. Mr Solanki had handed his political baton to his son and battled severe health issues.   Now, finally, after the Bofors case was nixed in Delhi’s courts, he managed to secure a hearing for his petition challenging the accusations against him and HOLD YOUR BREATH The fact that...