- Padmini Baruah, Zan aur Zameen: A Comparative Analysis of Muslim Women’s Right to Inherit Land in India and Pakistan
(Click on the above link to access the Paper)
In this paper, the author has chosen to focus on the question of how women acquire land through inheritance under Islamic law. An attempt has been made to compare the state of affairs in the two major players of the region, namely India and Pakistan. This analysis hopes to reveal differences between a state which is dominated by Hindus and has an ostensibly secular state policy, and a state which is constitutionally defined as an Islamic republic . Women are a minority in both these countries, but Muslims are only a minority in India. Thus, through this paper, the author seeks to understand the trajectories that both countries took around the question of Muslim women’s right to inherit after the end of colonialism in 1947.
The author is a Robert F. Meaghar Fellow at the The Fletcher School, Tufts University. She graduated from the National Law School of India University in 2016. Her areas of interest include gender studies, political Islam, digital inclusion and migration.
