Cleric's power too large a challenge for the Indian Government

The 'culture' of rape that exists in India and Pakistan arises from profound social anomalies in their moral code, which is based on concepts of honour and shame. In honour-and-shame cultures like those of India and Pakistan, male honour resides in the sexual probity of women, and the 'shaming' of women dishonours all men. Any country claiming to be a democracy must secularise and unify its legal system, and take away power exercised by medievalist religious institutions that teaches the most fundamentalist, narrow, puritan, rigid, oppressive version of religion.

Ever since the Indian Government caved in and passed an act that nullified the Supreme Court's judgment in the Shah Bano case, denying alimony to divorced Muslim women, Indian politicians have not dared to challenge Islamist clerics' power.