Hindu women have no identity by means of property ownership at all. A daughter is not the heir of her father’s possessions, a wife has succession to her husband’s assets if she give birth at least a son; a mother also gain assets of son but under the condition that such properties cannot be treated as stridhana. It implies that a Hindu woman in Bangladesh goes through an ever-dependent lifecycle. However, recent verdict from the High Court on Hindu widows’ rights to own deceased husband’s both cultivable and non-cultivable properties is undoubtedly a justice against age-long legal discriminatory norm prevailing among the Hindus in Bangladesh. Writer attempts find out the limitations of Hindu family laws in Bangladesh to establish women's right to property.

1. A giant leap on Hindu widows’ rights in
Bangladesh
Ahasan Uddin Bhuiyan
Recent verdict from the High Court on Hindu widows’ rights to own deceased
husband’s both cultivable and non-cultivable properties is undoubtedly a justice
against age-long legal discriminatory norm prevailing among the Hindus in
Bangladesh. It’s not less important than Raja Ram Mohon Roy’s successful
attempt to pass the Act Banning Shatidaah in 1829 or Ishwar Chandra Bidya
Sagar’s push for the Widow Remarriage Act, 1856.
A Jyotindranath Mondal had filed case with the court of an assistant judge in
Khulna against Gouri Dasi, the widow of Jyotindranath’s elder brother
Avimannu Mondal, since the land had been recorded in the name of Gouri after
Avimannu died in 1996.
The lower court went with traditions and stated that widows have rights
only to the homesteads and not to the agricultural properties. Gouri
challenged the verdict and Khulna's joint district judge delivered judgment in
2004 saying that Gouri has the right to the agricultural land of her late husband.
The High Court overruled Jyotindranath’s appeal to stay with the district
judge.
To pronounce the historic ruling, the court interpreted the Hindu Women’s
Rights to Property Act, 1937 along with a judgement of India Federal Court
given in 1941 and all the changes took place in Bangladesh state infrastructure
after 1972.
Before the verdict hitherto, widows get husband’s property inherently but on
condition of having no son. Thereby, they own the promissory right over the
whole property but for her life term only. Grossly they have no authority to sell
apart from graving necessity, they can sell minimum portion. Now, widows in
Bangladesh have the right to live with dignity.
The Court’s verdict however, is not the end of the world. The government is yet
to enact the law in agreement with the Court’s observations and instructions.
Most importantly, execution of the law and create awareness among all folks

2. will be the key challenge for the state mechanism. Previous experiences tell us
about the importance of awareness campaign for a newly formulated law.
We all know that the Hindu Marriage Registration Act was passed in
Bangladesh in 2012 but still ninety percent Hindu marriages in the country goes
unregistered and it’s just because of laxity of execution and publicity.
Widows’ access to property, by all means, is unquestionably a revolutionary
achievement but still many a miles to go herein Bangladesh to break the
patriarchal chain prevailing in the second largest community within the
territory. Current situation of Hindu women’s financial independence and
property rights in Bangladesh is a far cry from the state of their Indian
counterparts and even Muslim and Christian women in Bangladesh. Islam and
Christianity guarantee inheritance rights of women but Dayabhaga Hindu law in
Bangladesh hardly safeguards women’s alimony, martial property and
patrimony.
There is no ground for divorce in Hindu laws in Bangladesh as well. As a result
many Hindu women compromise with lifelong domestic violence and even in
some cases have to cost their lives. It hinders the remarriage process of a
woman in separation as well.
Hindu women have no identity by means of property ownership at all. A
daughter is not the heir of her father’s possessions, a wife has succession to her
husband’s assets if she give birth at least a son; a mother also gain assets of son
but under the condition that such properties cannot be treated as stridhana. It
implies that a Hindu woman in Bangladesh goes through an ever-dependent
lifecycle.
The denial of a daughter’s right to own her father’s property is provisioned to
compensate with the dower. The Vedic prescription of dower is still prevailing
in country and Hindu Community leaders (male-dominated and preachers of
patriarchy) are hardly ready to welcome the amendment to ‘mythical rules’ of
property distribution. A father burdened with the responsibility of marrying a
daughter only can feel the curse of dower. A huge number of domestic killing or
suicidal cases take place annually due to failure of meet-up the alimony by the
bride’s family to the groom.
The heinous practice spread among the Muslim communities in the country
severely. Government however, has become successful to control the extent of

3. claiming dowry and domestic violence related to greed among Muslims in the
country enacting and enforcing laws. Though it is still one of the major social
problems in the country but the number has decreased at a significant rate.But
irony of fate that there has no such provision to save Hindu women here.
India has brought significant changes in the Hindu personal law to ensure equity
and social safety to ensure human rights irrespective of the gender identity. The
Hindu Succession Act was passed in 1956, which established provisions that the
property of a male Hindu devolves in equal shares among son, daughter, widow
and mother. The Act thereby abolished the limited estate for female heirs. The
Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2010 to amend the Hindu Marriage Act,
1955 ensures that marriages can be ended by mutual consent before expiry of
the cooling period of six months. If India can, why can’t we?
The Elimination of all kinds of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) aims
to eradicate all sorts of discrimination against women all over the world and
establish their dignity. Bangladesh ratified it in 1984. But absence of legal
framework to ensure property rights of a larger community is surely
contradictory with the CEDAW. Article 28 (1) of the Constitution of the People
Republic of Bangladesh has ensured equal rights for all citizens irrespective to
religion, sex, race, caste etc. Article 28 (2) urged to secure equal rights of
women with men, while the following clause of the same article guaranteed
similar treatment for persons with disabilities and liabilities.
The state is still lingered to establish the constitutional rights of Hindu women
in the country and the most vibrant mouthpiece of the community Bangladesh
Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council itself works as pressure group to
persevere masculinity in disguise of persisting mores. It’ll be best to strike the
iron when it is hot. So, all activists, civil society members, scholars and policy
makers should take the situation of Hindu women in the country into account to
ensure the actual flow of development.
The writer is an Observer journalist and Law student
Link: https://www.observerbd.com/details.php?id=276069 ; Tuesday, 22
September, 2020