After Joining BJP, Triple Talaq Crusader Ishrat Jahan Hits Out at Mamata Banerjee

New Delhi: Ishrat Jahan, the triple talaq crusader who joined the BJP on Sunday, said she has entered politics to now fight evils like dowry and domestic violence, and take up issues like education of the girl child.

Jahan, one of the five petitioners in the case against instant triple talaq, had faced boycott from her community after the Supreme Court verdict, but that has not stopped her from continuing her fight. She said she would use the platform to work for all women, and not just Muslim women.

Her decision to join the BJP has also ruffled some feathers in Bengal, but she told News18.com that her mind was made after Prime Minister Narendra Modi took steps to uplift Muslim women. The Bill that criminalizes instant triple talaq has been passed in the Lok Sabha in the Winter Session. "He showed the resolve to solve our problems,” she said.

“I am in Bengal, a state run by a woman. Despite the fact that our CM is a woman, nothing has been done for gender justice in my case and in the fight of Muslim women. I was fighting alone, there was no cooperation from any corner or from political parties,” she said.

Even if women wanted to support her, she said “they were under pressure from patriarchy to not come out in my support.”

Thanking PM Modi for standing up for the rights of Muslim women, she said, “My husband and I separated in 2014, and then, one day he divorced me by sending a message. From then, my battle started. I was alone like many other Muslim women who were divorced like this. In such a scenario, the woman is always considered at fault. But we found support in the leadership.”

Her husband had divorced her over the phone from Dubai in 2015 by instant oral triple talaq. The practice was struck down by the Supreme Court on August 22.

“If a strict law had been made at the time of Shah Bano so many Muslim women would not have suffered. The All India Muslim Law Board knew all the way that this practice is not in line with the Quran yet they did not stop it. Lot of time has gone waste and the condition of Muslim women was deplorable,” she said.