GENDER AND `FAITH’ IN LAW: EQUALITY, SECULARISM, AND RISE OF THE HINDU NATION

Abstract

This article analyzes how concepts of gender, gender equality and secularism have been addressed by the higher judiciary in India in cases dealing with matters of religion. The discussion focusses on three landmark decisions of the Indian Supreme Court on gender equality. The cases involve challenges to discriminatory religious practices that target women in the Muslim minority as well as Hindu majority community. In each case, gender equality is taken up in relation to religion in ways that produce several problematic outcomes for women rather than ones that are unequivocally progressive or transformative. The judicial reasoning in each case resonates with the Hindu Right’s approach to gender, gender equality and secularism. Each concept is used to advance the Hindu Rights majoritarian and ideological agenda that seeks to establish India s a virile `Hindu’ nation. Ironically, interventions by progressive groups, including feminist and human rights advocates, who are opposed to the Hindu Right’s makeover of the Indian nation, have not proved to be disruptive of gender norms, nor have they pushed back the tides of Hindu (male) majoritarianism that are increasingly determining the terms of engagement on issues of gender and faith in law.