Why India needs a uniform civil code?

Although, the necessity of a uniform civil code has had been discussed and debated in this country many times in the past, yet this debate seems to have resurrected once again in the wake of Supreme Court’s recent direction to the union government to let the Court know about the governments decision on this contentious issue within three weeks. This direction followed after the Court’s hearing of a petition filed before it by a Christian husband who had challenged the legality of Christian personal law as being antithesis to Constitutional norms (Right to equality) that prescribes two years minimum period of separation before filing a divorce petition even though, the same is through the mutual consent of both the partners. This is just one of the instances of inconsistencies that are prevalent in various personal laws applicable to various religious communities in this country which are based not only on conflicting ideologies, but also have different views on some of the purely secular matters such as inheritance, maintenance and divorce etc. In a multi religious country like India, uniformity in such matters, transcending all religious affiliations is thus called for if we are to knit a unified and integrated India.

Imbued by the same aspiration, the Constitution makers thus inserted a special provision in the Constitution under Article 44 vide Directive principles of State Policy enjoining the state towards establishing a Uniform Civil Code for the citizens of this country so that a uniform system of laws could be established in this country in purely secular matters like matrimony and inheritance; after all human rights make no distinction between one religion and the other. A majority in the Constituent Assembly amidst opposition from some of the Muslim members thus justified the provision for a uniform civil code in the Constitution on some of the following considerations:

1. That India had already achieved a uniformity of law over a vast area such as IPC and CPC etc;
2. That though there was diversity in personal laws in the country, there was nothing sacrosanct about them;
3. That the matters like matrimony and inheritance etc are purely secular activities and thus should be separated from religion;
4. That a uniform law in these matters applicable to all would promote national unity and
5. That no legislature would forcibly amend any personal law if people were opposed to it…

When many a progressive and enlightened sections among Muslims and Christians are in favour of amendments in all those hackneyed personal laws which have remained very discriminatory especially to their women, why not the government acts to initiate a debate and build a consensus on this issue despite repeated reminders from the Apex Court?

Unfortunately, even after 65 years of the commencement of the Constitution, no serious attempt has so far been made in this regard thereby, reducing one of the solemn mandates of the Constitution virtually a dead letter. The only tangible step taken in this direction has been the codification and secularization of Hindu Law. On the same lines, it is high time that Muslim and Christian personal Laws should also be codified.

The nay-Sayers or skeptics of UCC might believe that it would amount to an interference to their freedom of conscience or free profession or practice of religion by being imposed with a uniform code, they should however note that any secular activity say, matrimony or inheritance or any other secular activity associated with a religious practice has already been exempted by the Constitution itself from the guarantee of this religious freedom. In this sense, it could plausibly be argued that personal laws purely pertain to secular activities and hence fall within the regulatory power of the state just like other activities such as morality, economic interests or health of the society etc…

On the above mentioned propositions, it is thus vital nay need of the hour that law be divorced from religion. Because with the enactment of a UCC, not only the secularism be strengthened in this country, but much of the present day vices of separatism and divisiveness prevalent in the Indian society showing their ugly face now and then, will also disappear. Having such tendencies being contained, India will certainly emerge as a much more cohesive and integrated nation.

Let any fear may be allayed from the minds of concerned religious communities that a UCC does not imply the imposition of Hindu code on them; it will instead be a move towards the integration of all personal laws so that disparate loyalties to such laws could be removed which are based nothing more than on conflicting ideologies striking at the very root of national integration which our Constitution emphasizes in unequivocal terms. After all who would get in sync with such malpractices in a civilized society like ours where a Hindu Husband, married under Hindu law, embraced Islam to solemnize his second marriage so as to escape the consequences of bigamy? Many more questions of the similar kind need to be answered before we have a Uniform Civil Code in this country. It is high time that the government should wake up from its slumber so that the human rights of all those poor and destitute women could be protected who are left in lurch by the vagaries of undemocratic personal laws. The Supreme Court was forthright in observing in one of the celebrated cases:

“… that the law relating to marriage, judicial separation, divorce or inheritance is far, far from uniform in this country. Surely, the time has now come for a complete reform of the law of marriage and make a uniform law applicable to all people irrespective of religion or caste… We suggest that the time has come for the legislature to intervene in these matters to provide for a uniform code of marriage and divorce….”

By: Pritam Sharma