The National Assembly has come a long way on the issue of recognising Hindu marriages to ensure this minority’s civil rights. On Monday, the National Assembly completed this effort by unanimously passing a bill for regulation and termination of marriages among Hindu families.

The absence of a law for registration and other aspects of Hindu marriage, including divorce, was a gross injustice to women, especially from low-caste marginalised groups, who were bearing the brunt of this cultural taboo. “We will never allow the government to have a divorce clause in the Hindu Marriage Act. We have no concept of divorce in our religion,” said Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, patron of the Pakistan Hindu Council, in 2011. Though religious beliefs must be respected, the Pakistani state cannot enforce them through law to give Hindu women one set of rights and the rest another.

The non-existence of a law for registration and termination of the marriage has been creating problems related to property transfer and in the procuring of travel and identity documents. In addition, after the death of the husband, the wife and children of the deceased cannot prove their relationship for succession and inheritance and widows face difficulties in claiming pensions. Not to mention that the need to give Hindus equal marriage registration rights and legal protection is a basic constitutional right of Pakistani Hindus.

Sindh took the lead by passing a law on the registration of Hindu marriages on February 15, 2016, but previous acts were empty gestures at best as they left the provision of divorce out of the bills tabled due to pressure from those who control minority politics. That wrong has now been righted.