Bhubaneswar: The All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA), CPM's (Communist Party of India-Marxist) frontal women's body, today (Nov 20, 2004) demanded immediate reforms in the Muslim personal law to end the 'retrograde practices' of unilateral triple talaq, polygamy and 'halala'.

Calling for a more woman-friendly orientation of the law, eminent women's rights activist and AIDWA president Subhasini Ali said these 'outrageous practices' along with rights to custody of children and maintenance of divorced women also needed review.

"The Muslim Personal Law Board, which had assured Muslim women of positive intervention on their demands including a model 'Nikahnama', has backtracked. Now it says it can only act in an advisory capacity," Ali said at AIDWA's four-day national conference, which began in Bhubaneshwar on Nov 18.

However, the recent pronouncements of the board against arbitrary triple talaq and for equal property rights for women were a step forward, she observed.

Citing the instance of an Oriya Muslim woman being forced to undergo 'halala' (the practice whereby the wife has to marry and have conjugal relations with another man if she wants to remarry her divorced husband) AIDWA general secretary Brinda Karat said the woman was ostracised when she defied the fatwa of the maulvis.

"The husband had been drunk when he divorced her through triple talaq. The couple wanted to remarry without going through 'halala'. But local maulvis opposed it," Karat said.

The highly publicised case of Gudiya, who was forced to go back to her first husband through a fatwa of religious leaders, also pointed to their hold over the community, she said.

The communally polarised situation of the country was reflected in the larger number of Muslim women wearing burkhas today than earlier, Karat said.

''One's dress is personal. Wearing a burkha is not a sign of 'conservatism' or backwardness' just as wearing a mini skirt is not a sign of modernity. But the choice must be that of the woman's," she said.

"In Kashmir, fundamentalist forces have targetted women who have refused to wear the burkha" Karat lamented.