My husband hates me

Chapter 31

Jahangir Shaikh has always been a man of authority. He was the firstborn in his family, the only male out of his five siblings. His father knew he would be once a great man. There was a sufi man who used to sit in the footsteps of the masjid who had told his father that one day, 'Jahangir' would rule over the state.

He was thus named Jahangir, growing up out of his six siblings he was the only one who was sent to school, his sisters were wedded off when they were young. He was never attached to them because they usually were in the kitchen or with his mother, Jahangir, which was surprisingly attached to his mother.

It was his mother’s wish for him to join the army, so he served half of his life, paid off his father's debts, and got his sisters married. At the age of twenty-five, he was well recognised in the village. The sarpanch would often take his advice for panchayat matters.

Jahangir believed he could live a peaceful life, and retire early from the army, he had married his childhood sweetheart Shahida, but when he returned from the army Jahangir had realised that Shahida had fled the city with his cousin. To make matters worse, Jahangir discovered that Shahida and his cousin had not only left the city but also had taken a significant portion of his savings.

The betrayal struck him like a blow to the chest, leaving him reeling from the pain of the double treachery. In the tight-knit community where honour was everything, this scandal threatened to tarnish his reputation, a reputation he had painstakingly built over years of hard work and sacrifice.

That's when he had quit army at the age of thirty five, the sarpanch had let him be a mediator and offered his daughter's hand in marriage. His reputation was intact. Life was getting better, but the betrayal from his first wife had left a visible scar. And then he heard a similar case, a woman had tried running away, he had asked her to apologise but she didn't. 

She was actually smug about it, Jahangir Shaikh was well versed in hadiths, and he knew how to use them in his favour, since the woman was a married woman, but the couple never had committed adultery, he left out the parts and procedures according to which the trial had to be conducted. There were no testimonies, the man and woman denied having committed any sin.

But Jahangir was led by his anger and used this to his advantage. He misled their parents and established a law that every adulterer would be punished, and in his eyes, adultery was a crime worse than murder.

He manipulated religious texts to suit his narrative, convincing the village elders that such a law was necessary to maintain the moral fabric of their society. The sarpanch, out of respect and perhaps fear of Jahangir’s authority, supported him. Thus, the new law was passed without much opposition.

Jahangir's actions were driven by deep-seated insecurity and anger from his own betrayal. Feeling wounded by Shahida's deceit and the loss of his savings, he was determined to prevent others from experiencing the same pain. This led him to impose harsh laws against adultery, manipulating religious texts to support his views. His need to assert control and protect his reputation pushed him to enforce these laws, using his authority and the support of the sarpanch to create a rigid system in the village, driven more by personal vendetta than by justice.

Soon, this was widely accepted because this law benefitted the men because it gave them a powerful tool to control their wives and other women in the village. The fear of being accused of adultery, often with little to no evidence, kept many women in a state of constant anxiety.

The law also led to an increase in false accusations, as men used it to settle personal vendettas or to rid themselves of unwanted marriages. Women who had once felt secure in their homes and communities were now living in fear, knowing that a single accusation could ruin their lives.