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Chapter 16 Obstacles to Women's Rights in India Kirti Singh Introduction While the Constitution of India adopted in November 1949 contains articles mandating equality and nondiscrimination on the grounds of sex, several laws that clearly violate these principles continue to exist, especially in the area of personal laws or family laws. Most of these laws, which contain provisions that are highly discriminatory against women, have either remained static or have changed in retrogressive ways.1 The Indian state has, however, made no effort to change these laws or introduce new legislation in conformity with Constitutional principles . In fact, the Indian government seems to have chosen to ignore these principles completely and acts as if they did not exist. The only personal laws in India that have been reformed to some extent have been the Hindu personal laws. Personal laws have been retained for reasons of political expediency and electoral gain and to deny equality to women.2 The onlyjustification put forth by the state, however, has been that it does not want to interfere in the personal matters of a minority community.In fact, whilesigning the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (the Women's Convention) on 30July 1980, the Indian government made a unilateral declaration that "with regard to Articles 5(a) and 16(1) ... the Government of India declares that it shall abide by ... these provisions in conformity with its policy of non-interference in the personal affairs of any community without its initiative and consent."3 But the government ratified the Women's Convention on 9July 1993 without reservations and istherefore obligated to implement the entire Convention. While some reforms have been introduced in the criminal laws, 376 Klrtl Singh ostensibly to deal with the issue of violence against women, these reforms have been half-hearted and inadequate. There is also an almost complete absence of laws dealing with the majority of women workers, who work in the rural unorganized sector.4 It is significant to note that even the changes brought about in the criminal laws during the last decade were largely due to massiveand sustained campaignsby women's groups and others. These campaigns forced a reluctant state to give more rights to women.5 On several occasions, however, the Indian government has paid lip service to the cause of women while acting in a totally contradictory manner. The Rajiv Gandhi government , for instance, after passing the Muslim Women's (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act of 1986, which deprived divorced Muslim women of their right to maintenance, actually came out with a "National Perspective Plan" for Women6 that recommended, among other things, a complete overhauling of the discriminatory laws and the passing of a common civil code by the end of the century, that is,by the year 2000. As anticipated, no action to change any laws as recommended in this plan has yettaken place. The government thus seems to have formulated this plan only to put up a false front that it was interested in advancing women's rights. The most significant barrier to women's rights in India, therefore, is a hostile state that is not actually interested in giving them any rights. Other factors that have adversely affected women's rights in India include the lack of implementation of laws by the state law and order machinery and the gender bias pervasivein thejudiciary at alllevels.In spite of the amendments to the rape and dowry laws during the 1980s, these laws have not been enforced or implemented by the state and its administrative machinery. Further, though certain challenges to personal laws as being discriminatory and violativeof the right to equality are pending before the Supreme Court of India,7 the Supreme Court and other courts have in the past mostly interpreted laws relating to women in an extremely narrow, conservative, and anti-women manner without taking into account the women's perspective and their situation in India. Illiteracy and poverty also have a major role to play.Most Indian women have no access to the courts or knowledge of the laws and, because of the dismal conditions in which they live, they cannot afford to fight for their rights in a hostile social and economic environment . These are the reasons at the domestic level that are primarily responsible for inhibiting the growth of women's rights in India. After outlining the Constitutional position, this paper briefly discusses various personal laws and analyzeswhether they are violativeof the...

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