\n<\/p>\n
Narendra Modi<\/a>, India\u2019s prime minister, is concerned about divorce. In particular, he and his Bharatiya Janata party are concerned about divorce within India\u2019s minority Muslim community.\u00a0<\/p>\n Their dismay is focused on the ease and speed with which Muslim men can legally end marriages simply by uttering \u201ctalaq, talaq, talaq\u201d, under the Islamic law that regulates marriage and divorce among India\u2019s Muslims. It is radically different for Hindu men, who must prove in a civil court that their wives have wronged them in order to formally\u00a0end a marriage<\/a> over the women\u2019s objections.<\/p>\n Muslim women\u2019s groups have petitioned the Supreme Court to ban<\/a> the \u201ctriple talaq\u201d \u2014 which Muslim clerics insist is rare \u2014 arguing it violates constitutional promises of gender equality. Mr Modi has thrown the BJP\u2019s weight behind them, repeatedly denouncing a practice he says facilitates \u201cexploitation\u201d of Muslim women.<\/p>\n Instant divorce \u2014 in which women can be abruptly cast out of marital homes \u2014 is indeed a brutal practice. But many Indians are dismayed at the way the BJP appears to be demonising Muslims<\/a> over the issue \u2014 particularly with unsavoury rhetoric suggesting Muslim men have rapacious\u00a0sexual appetites<\/a>.\u00a0Deeply-embedded in the BJP campaign is the idea that Muslim women are uniquely vulnerable to marital abandonment, while Hindu women are more protected \u2014 and their husbands far better behaved.\u00a0<\/p>\n Yet that, lawyer Kirti Singh says, is a laughable proposition. \u201cAs if Hindu men are not doing the same,\u201d she tells me. \u201cIt\u2019s just that they don\u2019t bother to get a divorce. They just separate and do their own thing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n