This chapter examines the implications of recent judicial decisions on women’s rights in India. It explains that the judicial fervour of the nineties to reform Muslim personal law was not supported by individual Muslim women during the litigation process and highlights the parallels between the contemporary judicial zeal to modernize and civilize the Muslim community with the colonial zeal to reform the Hindu society through regulations on sati and child marriage in the last century. Though court judgements were portrayed by the media as serving the cause of women’s empowerment, their...

This chapter examines the implications of recent judicial decisions on women’s rights in India. It explains that the judicial fervour of the nineties to reform Muslim personal law was not supported by individual Muslim women during the litigation process and highlights the parallels between the contemporary judicial zeal to modernize and civilize the Muslim community with the colonial zeal to reform the Hindu society through regulations on sati and child marriage in the last century. Though court judgements were portrayed by the media as serving the cause of women’s empowerment, their communal hue can be seen once these pronouncements are stripped of the veneer of gender justice. They also do not further the cause of women’s rights in actual terms.