Narrative of the forked tongue
from a classic turncoat
From Shah Bano to triple talaq, lies and deception are being used to cheat women of rights. It won’t work.
Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi restored this liberty to Indian women.
The practice of triple talaq was a clear violation of the Holy Quran. Islam has stressed equality in rights between men and women; divorce is permissible, but only after consideration and counseling, with conditions that include maintenance for the wife. Surah 2 Verse 228 of the Quran is categorical: “And women shall have rights similar to the rights against them, according to what is equitable”. Verse 241 is equally explicit: “For divorced women maintenance should be provided on a reasonable scale. This is a duty on the righteous.”
Indian Muslim leaders, more self-righteous than righteous, have distorted their own faith to institutionalize male oppression in the name of religion. Previous governments have never dared to challenge this vice-like grip. A watershed moment came in 1986, in what has become famous as the Shah Bano case. She was married in 1932 to Mohammad Ahmed Khan. In 1975 he suddenly and arbitrarily pronounced triple talaq, and drove her out of her home. In 1978, she appealed to the Indore High Court for just Rs 500 as maintenance; Khan was earning around Rs 60,000 a year. He told the court he had given her a total of Rs 3,000 and that was enough. To cut a long story short, the final judgment rested at Rs 179.20 a month. That was all.For this pittance, Muslim leaders within the ruling Congress formed an alliance with misogynists and fear-mongers to mobilize protests across the country, intimidate a weak-kneed national government with threat and bluster, and nullify, through Parliament, the Supreme Court’s pronouncement.
( Were you not with "kaaangires" at that time, my dear Akbar? what did you do ?)One further example should suffice to establish the extraordinary lengths to which some Indian clergy go in pursuit of gender oppression. As is common knowledge, alcohol is prohibited in Islam. Every Muslim country, irrespective of other variations in law, invalidates any talaq uttered under the influence of alcohol. But Indian clerics have even upheld drunken talaq.
Where is your Op-ed on Drunken talaq?"In 1989, he took a brief detour into politics with his election to the Indian Parliament in November 1989 from Kishanganj in Bihar on a Congress(I) ticket.[6] He lost the seat in the 1991 Lok Sabha elections.[7][8] He served as late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's official spokesman.[9]
In 1991, Akbar joined the Government as an adviser in the Ministry of Human Resources, and helped policy planning in key areas of education, the National Literacy Mission and in the protection of heritage. He resigned from the post and quit politics in December 1992, returning to journalism and full-time writing." wikipedia
Politics[edit]
Akbar was a Congress MP from Kishanganj in Bihar between 1989 and 1991, he was also a Congress party spokesperson in 1989.[13]
M J Akbar joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in March 2014 as the national spokesperson of the party.[13][14][15]
He took oath as Minister of State for External Affairs in Rashtrapati Bhavan on 5 July 2016.[13][18]
Personal life[edit]
Akbar is married to Mallika Joseph, his contemporary at The Times of India. They have two children, Prayaag an alumnus of Dartmouth College[19] and Mukulika a Law graduate from Jesus College, Cambridge.[20][21]
Books[edit]
- Nehru: the Making of India (1990)
- Riot After Riot (1991)
- Kashmir: Behind the Vale (1991)
- India: The Siege within - Challenges to a Nation's Unity (1996)
- The Shade of Swords: Jihad and the Conflict between Islam and Christianity (2003)
- Byline (2004)
- Blood Brothers - A Family Saga (2006)
- Have Pen, Will Travel (2010)
- Tinderbox: The Past and Future of Pakistan (2012)
- A Mirror to Power: The Politics of a Fractured Decade, HarperCollins India, 2015. wikipedia
