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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 8:56:24 pm

‘Save Sharia’ campaign feeds Hindutva politics

Mumbai: Prominent Muslims and others have slammed the All India Muslim Personal Law Board’s ‘Save India, Save Sharia’ nationwide campaign, alleging that it could deepen polarization while willy-nilly supporting the very forces the AIMPLB claims to oppose. Launched on Sep. 17 – coinciding with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 76th birthday – the AIMPLB’s 3-month-long campaign is aimed at mobilizing public opinion around protecting the Constitutional rights, preserving the Muslim Personal Law...

‘Save Sharia’ campaign feeds Hindutva politics

Mumbai: Prominent Muslims and others have slammed the All India Muslim Personal Law Board’s ‘Save India, Save Sharia’ nationwide campaign, alleging that it could deepen polarization while willy-nilly supporting the very forces the AIMPLB claims to oppose. Launched on Sep. 17 – coinciding with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 76th birthday – the AIMPLB’s 3-month-long campaign is aimed at mobilizing public opinion around protecting the Constitutional rights, preserving the Muslim Personal Law within the framework of safeguarding India’s pluralistic and democratic character. The AIMPLB leaders said they are soliciting support of people, intellectuals, activists, social and religious organisations who value justice, democracy, peace and the Constitution, to strengthen constitutional supremacy, the rule of law, justice and equality, religious freedom, social harmony and national unity. Around 100 progressive Muslim and non-Muslim intellectuals, activists, organisations and supporters have warned that what the AIMPLB presents as a defence of constitutional rights, religious freedom and Muslim identity "could deepen divisions, and may provide political ammunition to right-wing forces". The progressive have accused AIMPLB of selectively invoking Art. 25-30 of the Constitution related to Religious Freedom, while ignoring that these rights are explicitly subject to public order, morality, and health. Moreover, they conveniently bypass Articles 14 and 15, which guarantee equality before the law and prohibit sex or religion-based discrimination. “Following the 2024 Lok Sabha elections where civil society and opposition parties rallied under 'Save the Constitution', the AIMPLB's campaign inadvertently gave the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Sangh Parivar a platform to posture as defenders of constitutional norms. Ahead of crucial state assembly elections, this campaign reinforces false narratives and fuels propaganda that Indian Muslims reject the law of the land,” said the intellectuals. They pointed out how the so-called ‘God-given Shariat Law’ in India is nothing but man-made personal laws and ‘male interpreted patriarchal interpretations’, defended by the AIMPLB. In its September 2016 Supreme Court affidavit in the Triple Talaq case (Sayara Bano v/s. Union of India), the AIMPLB’s affidavit claimed divorce rights belong primarily to husbands because men allegedly possess ‘greater power of decision-making’ and ‘control emotions’. It even argued that without a quick separation option, a husband ‘may resort to illegal, criminal ways of murdering or burning her alive’ - a disturbing rationalization of domestic violence. Claiming these laws are divine, the AIMPLB admitted that “India is a patriarchal society, and therefore personal laws of all communities are aligned with the patriarchal notion...” The progressives countered that Muslim-majority nations globally including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Tunisia and Morocco have codified and reformed personal laws to protect women's rights. “Millions of Muslims live in secular democratic nations with uniform family codes without putting ‘Islam in danger’. The Muslim community’s current legal predicament in India is the direct result of the AIMPLB and conservative leaders failing to proactively reform and codify Muslim Personal Law,” said the progressives sharply. They said that genuine family law reform must guarantee Muslim women equal rights regarding minimum marriage age, abolition of polygamy, mutual divorce, equal inheritance, child custody, adoption, and a ban on female genital mutilation and halala. While secular political parties rarely support the rights of Muslim women, the BJP and the Hindu Right wing do so with an obvious motive: ‘communal polarization’, said the progressives. “The sangh parivar sheds crocodile tears for Muslim women while ignoring relentless hate speech (Love Jihad, Land Jihad…) and hate crimes like mob lynching, bulldozing homes, demolishing mosques or economic boycotts, with chants of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ to intimidate and strike fear. This accompanies state actions targeting Muslims: Waqf Amendment Act, draconian anti-conversion laws, and a weaponised SIR (Special Intensive Revision of Electoral Rolls) to disenfranchise vast sections of the electorate,” they averred. The progressives have sought the active involvement of all enlightened forces, civil society organisations and secular political parties to ensure that the demand for a gender-just, religion-neutral Uniform Civil Code is rooted in equality and human rights, rather than weaponized for communal division. Among the signatories to the appeal are: Naseeruddin Shah, Amol Palekar, Zeenat Shaukat Ali, Anand Patwardhan, Sultan Shaheen, Teesta Setalvad, Ram Puniyani, Tushar Gandhi, Mallika Sarabhai, Ratna Pathak, Feroze Mithiborwala, Anita Cheria, Zakia Soman, Jyothi Yedulla, Noorjehan S. Niaz, Madhu Bhaduri, et al.

Lateral upgrade to ailing annihilation

Writer: Mangesh Kulkarni
Mangesh Kulkarni
Sep 9, 2024
3 min read

Updated: Oct 21, 2024

Lateral upgrade to ailing annihilation

Being the first person from the private sector to be appointed as chairperson of Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) as part of the government’s lateral initiative, Madhabi Puri Buch also holds the honour of being the first woman to hold the top post as capital market regulator.

But the laurels that the former private sector banker enjoyed in her earlier stint with ICICI Bank, was marred with allegations that she and her husband were having a stake in offshore entities, which were used to artificially inflate shares of Adani group companies.

Terming the allegation as `character assassination, Buch clarified that all disclosures have already been furnished and the fund in question did not invest in any securities involving the Adani group.

When it rains, it pours. This allegation was subsequently followed by Congress Party allegation that Buch had received salary and post-retirement benefits from ICICI Bank after she quit the private sector bank.

In its clarification to the stock exchanges, ICICI Bank asserted that the payments made to Buch were purely retirement benefits after her exit from the bank and they were neither salary nor employee stock options.

Prior to these allegations, Buch tenure at SEBI was all about bringing in quick reforms on operational issues by changing the format of consultation paper to bring in larger responses digitally. Being data savvy, the rationale of her decisions were democratic based on big data analysis derived from the responses received to the consultation papers.

Further she bifurcated the duties of the SEBI staff between operations and enforcement, which were done by the same persons earlier. Having worked for the private sector in the capital market domain space, Buch had a better understanding of the subject compared to officers from the administrative service in the past that reflected even in her orders as a whole-time director at SEBI before becoming the chairperson. As a whole time director at SEBI, her orders on adjudication issues were more directional to the capital market space, according to experts in the compliance space. She was also quick to revamp the old provisions of the 90s at SEBI.

Being tech and data savvy, Buch enhanced regulatory surveillance and detection of market manipulation, insider trading and fraud while also emphasizing on strengthening corporate governance by introducing stricter rules for independent directors and enhancing disclosures for related-party transactions.

To put in perspective, the annual report of the capital market regulator in the just concluded financial year revealed that the number of investigations related to insider trading jumped to 175 in 2023-24 from 85 in the preceding year while probes related to front running jumped over three times to 83 from 24 in the preceding year.

Transparency in mutual funds by implementing measures to protect retail investors along with tightening norms for initial public offers, particularly in the SME platforms were some of her other positive initiatives including confirmation of denial of any market rumours within 24 hours for the top 100 listed companies which will be extended to top 250 companies from December 1. However increased transparency and compliance with tightening regulations led to increased operational costs for the market participants and hence faced resistance from certain quarters. Born in 1966, Buch completed her primary education in Mumbai and graduated with specialization in Mathematics from Delhi and later obtained a management degree from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. In between, she got engaged to Dhawal Buch, a director at a consumer goods multinational at the age of eighteen and got married at the age of 21.

Besides ICICI Bank, Buch also worked as a lecturer at a college in England, worked at Greater Pacific Capital in Singapore and ICICI Securities as its CEO. She also worked as executive director on several private sector companies and as a consultant for New Development Bank (Brics Bank).

What now remains to be seen, is whether Buch, who survived the 26/11 terror attack when she along with her husband, was attending a meeting at Taj, be able to overcome the current ordeal. Keeping fingers crossed for the times to come.

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