Bridges may spring up in the unlikeliest of places. The signs of one such can be discerned in the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board’s request to the Centre and the state governments to amend the laws so that Muslim women can continue to have the right to ancestral property, including farm income, even after marriage. The gesture of the board is important in two ways. In the first place, it is making a statement about women’s rights. Personal laws of every religion put women at a disadvantage, and the concern of rights campaigners has long been focussed on the problems of divorce, maintenance and dispossession that afflict all those women whose lives are ruled by personal laws. For the AIMPLB to express the same concern indirectly, by actually offering a solution, is a move to be welcomed. Besides, the board has said that the income guarantee for women would be in accordance with the Shariat law, thus suggesting that there is no disagreement over the issue within the community. What is more significant, however, is the board’s appeal to the government. Property does not fall under personal law, therefore it is only the government that can ensure the change. The importance of this effort to bridge the gap between the religious and the civil cannot be underestimated in a country where personal law still holds sway in many communities, causing irreducible anomalies. Internal change in multi-layered societies has its own pace; it is up to the government to see how the bridge can be made firmer.

A few hints of a change of attitude had been felt earlier. The practice of triple talaq had been brought up for discussion within the community, although not much progress was made. The discussion about women’s property rights this time has been made in the larger context of the debate over divorce methods. As such, it must be seen as a way of guaranteeing security. But the main issue, it would seem, still remains unsolved. Given the many views of the different schools, the board feels that it cannot prohibit the practice of verbal divorce, nor can it interpret religious law afresh. It is not as if women cannot divorce their husbands too. But by doing so, they forgo the security money guaranteed to them in the marriage contract. Therefore the emphasis on property rights. Since the law is skewed in favour of men, the board is seeking to ensure justice for women from a different direction. The approach is practical, not philosophical, but it is better than nothing at all. Changing attitudes within a community will help alter perceptions about it while the community itself responds to changes outside.