Former Chief Information Commissioner and Chairperson of the National Commission for Minorities Wajahat Habibullah has accused MJ Akbar of playing a key part in the decision of then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s decision to oppose the Supreme Court’s Shah Bano judgement. The 1985 ruling had held that Muslim men need to provide alimony to their former wives after divorce.

Akbar, who is currently the Minister of State for External Affairs in the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Narendra Modi government, who was then a member of the Congress.

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As Director in the Prime Minister’s Office, Habibullah had a close view of the events taking place in the Congress government at the time of the Shah Bano judgement. He claims that he advised Prime Minister Gandhi to back up the court on this matter and allow the alimony judgement to go through. Habibullah wrote in The Hindu on Tuesday about how his advice was rejected:

It seemed awhile that this advice had been accepted, although no response was received to my suggestion that the PMO politely decline the request to intervene. Then one day as I entered Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s chamber, I found MJ Akbar sitting across his table. Rajiv smiled cheerily, “Come in, come in Wajahat, You are one of us.”I found this greeting odd but was to discover the reason soon enough. Mr Akbar had convinced Rajiv that if the government were not to contest the Shah Bano judgment, it would appear to the Muslim community that the Prime Minister did not regard them as his own.  In what he perceived as the defence of their religious rights, Rajiv would show himself worthy of the support that the community had always placed in his family. 

This was the argument that Mr. Akbar developed in a Doordarshan debate with then-Minister Arif Mohammed Khan, in which Mr. Khan had argued that the Koranic provision or lack of it for maintenance was neither a compulsion nor closed to interpretation. But Mr. Akbar, more westernised, had argued that the Muslims needed the reassurance that only an amendment could bring.

Habibullah’s revelation comes at a time when the Bharatiya Janata Party government has shown an interest in abolishing the system of Muslim personal laws, which govern disputes relating to marriage and divorce.

After the Shah Bano judgement, the Rajiv Gandhi government introduced the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) bill in Parliament, which ostensibly sought to overrule the Supreme Court's decision and deny Muslim women alimony. At the time, the BJP had made this a political issue and accused the Congress party of appeasing Muslims by allowing them to have their own personal laws.