Introduction

The objective of this chapter is to offer a comprehensive analysis of the triple talaq controversy. It examines the claims and counterclaims made by different political actors on three core issues — the practice of instant triple talaq called talaq al-bid'ah, the Muslim Personal Law (MPL) and the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) — and their popular media representations.¹ These claims are examined in the broad framework of the debates on women’s rights and reforms in personal law in India with special reference to MPL.

The chapter uses the term discourse in two senses. In a broader sense a dis­course may be seen as a group of statements that provide a language for talking about or a way of representing the knowledge about a particular topic at a par­ticular historical moment. In this sense, discourse constructs the topic (defines and produces the objects of our knowledge) and influences how ideas are put into practice. Michael Foucault traces the role of discourses in wider social pro­cesses of legitimating and power, emphasising the construction of current truths, how they are maintained and what power relations they carry with them. Thus, discourse, according to Foucault, is related to power as it operates by rules of exclusion. Discourse therefore is controlled by objects, what can be spoken of; ritual, where and how one may speak; and the privileged, who may speak.² Lara Lessa summarises Foucault’s definition of discourse as ‘systems of thoughts com­posed of ideas, attitudes, courses of action, beliefs and practices that systematically construct the subjects and the worlds of which they speak.’³ This implies to the media discourses as well. A media discourse, as Anne O’Keeffe argues, means ‘interactions that take place through a broadcast platform, whether spoken or written, in which the discourse is oriented to a non-present reader, listener or viewer.

The chapter maps out the contours of the present debate to demonstrate how the identity, rights, and liberties of women in general, and Muslim women in particular, once again became an agenda for patriarchal negotiations. It is argued that women, in this schema, turn out to be mere receivers of what is being con­sidered and offered as an ‘appropriate’ and ‘rightful’ share of equality for them — whether it’s about a promise for model Nikah Nama or criminalisation of triple talaq. It will be really interesting to look at the larger debate on reforms in per­sonal laws in general and in MPL in particular in India.

II.