PERSPECTIVES- Paving the Way for Islamic Criminal Laws

Paving the Way for Islamic Criminal Laws Ashok Rudra ONE might have thought that everything that could be said against the Bill relating to the maintenance of divorced Muslim women, containing the word 'protection', and actually aiming at throwing them to the wolves, has already been said, not once but several times over by assorted commentators. But 1 am surprised that i have till now not seen or heard anybody expressing the fear which struck me like lightening from the very first mement that I read in the newspapers about the Bill. The dark thought was, once we start to amend our Constitution and our laws so as to accommodate the Shariat and the Koran, as interpreted by the conservative Muslim leaders, what will stop them from making the State accept, in course of time, such punishments as cutting away the arm for theft and stoning to death for adultery? As is well known, there are many countries calling themselves Islamic States which at this fag end of the 20th century have reintroduced such medieval barbarisms in the name of following the directions laid down in the holy books of Islam. On the other hand it is also known that there are many other countries with predominantly Muslim populations that have brought in various reforms in their laws relating to women, presumably violating the Shariaat and the Koran as interpreted people like our Syed Shahabuddin. The fact is that in a country that calls itself secular, in the name of the Koran and the Shariaat we are in the process of passing laws which will be more unjust to a section of its citizens than the laws in many countries which arc predominantly Muslim and which swear by Islam.