Lawyer daughter helps complete mom’s unfinished battle against triple talaq

Priya Hingorani, who played a role in Shayara Bano’s case, is the daughter of Shah Bano’s lawyer. 

What are the chances that a woman who was involved in the case that would culminate in triple talaq being legally abolished in 2017 is the daughter of a woman who fought the battle against the practice in the 1980s but didn’t make much headway?

Turns out, Priya Hingorani, a Supreme Court advocate, who played a role in Shayara Bano’s case, is the daughter of Shah Bano’s lawyer in 1982.

A day after the SC declared triple talaq illegal and unconstitutional, Priya takes us through her mother, Kapila Hingorani’s journey, as she led the legal fight for justice for Muslim women three decades ago. “The fight for justice for Indian women has come full circle,” she says.

“My mother was always frustrated to see the government of the day using women for political gains,” she says. The vote bank politics that went on in the name of women’s emancipation, upset Kapila no end, says her daughter, who was in her early 20s when the Rajiv Gandhi government overturned the apex court’s 1985 verdict.

The Supreme Court at the time had given 62-year-old Shah Bano the right to alimony from her husband. Her mother and other NGOs involved in the case immediately called a meeting to decide the future course of action.

“She never anticipated that the case would snowball into this mammoth controversy.” But those times were different, she reckoned. “The Muslim clergy had mass support.”

Now, Muslim women have risen to fight their battle themselves. During Shah Bano’s time, it was NGOs, lawyers, etc. who took up cases for Muslim women. With organisations like the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Aandolan coming to the fore and Muslim women becoming petitioner themselves, they have finally gained their own voice, she explains.
“My mum always believed that they (Muslim women) have to come and fight themselves…It has taken some time, but that’s exactly what has happened,” she said.

In a 3:2 verdict that has been hailed as a big victory for gender rights, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court Tuesday declared the practice of instant divorce unconstitutional.

Speaking of the inherent inequality in the personal laws, Priya said, “My mother used to say there is no Indian woman. There is a Muslim woman, a Hindu woman, a Parsi woman, etc.” It is just convenient to label something as a personal law and allow an unequal practice to perpetuate in its name, she explains.

Yet, her mother never took into account the religion of the women she was helping, Priya explains. “She was one of the pioneers of the women’s movement in India in the 80s,” she says. Priya, whose father Nirmal Hingorani was also a lawyer, has been involved with women’s issues for nearly three decades herself. Her two siblings are lawyers too.

While she agreed that vote bank politics has not eroded completely, this time around, the government has taken a firm stand in favour of Muslim women, and that is a huge difference, she said. Explaining that it is absolutely crucial for the government to be on board with rights activists, she says, “These women are going to now vote for the BJP because it took a stand for them”.