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Dear Rahul Gandhi, your smash patriarchy push must cover Kerala cleric on Muslim women too

If patriarchy is wrong when it comes from the Manusmriti or Hindu traditions, why should it be acceptable when it comes from a Muslim cleric like Kanthapuram AP Aboobacker Musliyar?

When you spoke about patriarchy and invoked the Manusmriti, you said something that should not be controversial in a modern democracy: a woman belongs to herself.

Not to the father who raises her. Not to the husband she marries. Not to the son who may one day inherit from her. To herself.

As a woman born of Indian soil, I felt that this is exactly what you want to hear from a political leader — a vision of an India where a woman is treated as an individual in her own right, not defined by her relationships.

Those words sound progressive, inclusive, and vast. And if we could actually build a society around that idea, it would be a beautiful society to live in. We have already been trying to build it, shattering old glass ceilings and rewriting our destinies. But I know it is not enough. The foundations are laid, but the storms still crash through. The laws exist on paper, but fear still lingers on the street. Its boundaries survive in families, communities, institutions and, sometimes, in the language of tradition itself.

While I was happy........

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