A matter of faith

An important ruling strengthens women's rights

In the melee over the Gujarat election campaign, a critical judgment by the Supreme Court went mostly unnoticed in the public discourse. The essence of the judgment is that no law sanctions that the religion of a woman must merge with that of her husband’s after marriage. This ruling has far-reaching implications for both women’s rights and the much-maligned value of secularism embedded in the founding principles of the Indian republic. It offers Indian women the right to choice and, by extension, an independent status in marriage. As importantly, it confirms the pre-eminence of civil law over the personal law