Fresh hue and cry over Uniform Civil Code , promoting regression to cement vote banks
Shekhar Datta
September 21, 2026
The union home minister Amit Shah
seems to have stirred the proverbial hornet’s nest afresh with his recent
announcement that by the year 2030 all the BJP-ruled states will implement the
Uniform Civil Code (UCC), as mandated by the Article 44 of the constitution.
Predictably, the practitioners of vote-bank politics in the clueless opposition
have raised a fire-storm over the issue with the Tripura leader of the
opposition and CPI (M) state secretary and politburo member Jiten Chowdhury
proclaiming that he will not let this happen in Tripura. How far he will
succeed or whether this will at all materialise in Tripura is a matter of
conjecture as of now because the election to the state assembly is less than
two years away.
What however flummoxes any observer
of legal and constitutional evolution in independent India is the political gymnastics
of the opposition over the sensitive issue during the past seventy six years. The Article 44 of the
constitution mandates that “the state shall endeavour to secure for the
citizens a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) through the territory of India”. This
provision which forms part of the Directive Principles (Part IV) which is not
judicially enforceable remains unimplemented till now. But , read with Article
37, it is clear that Article 44 can never be a dead or dormant letter as
Article 37 emphatically states that despite not being judicially enforceable
“…..the principles therein laid down are nevertheless fundamental in the
governance of the country and it shall be the duty of the State to apply these
principles in making laws”.
Besides, Article 38 (1) states
unambiguously that “the state shall strive to promote the welfare of the people
by securing and protecting as effectively as it may a social order in which
justice, social, economic and political shall inform all the institutions of
the state”. This is only a reiteration of the basic constitutional principles
enshrined in the Preamble of the constitution which forms part of the basic
structure. Above all, the Article 51-A which mandates judicially enforceable
fundamental duties categorically states in clause ‘e’ that the state shall
strive “…. to renounce practices derogatory to the dignity of women”.
Given this constitutional position ,
where lies the justification for opposition to introduction by law of the
Uniform Civil Code (UCC) which is in vogue in all modern democracies of Europe,
America and large parts of Asia except in the medieval Islamic theocracies of
Middle East and hate-spawned countries like the terror states of Pakistan or Bangladesh. Apart from this, the
much-reformed Hindu Code Bill-1955-1956 had been enacted way back to reform the
larger Hindu society. It was at that very stage that the President of the
country Dr Rajendra Prasad and several other stalwarts of the freedom movement had
called for introduction of UCC by way of reformation of the regressive Muslim
personal law. But the then Prime Minister Pandit Nehru and later his daughter
Indira Gandhi had dodged the issue , asserting that time was not ripe for the
reform, only to perpetuate the pre-independence Congress policy of appeasement
which meant abject surrender to the obscurantist forces in the Muslim
community.
But what followed this was much worse
as in the year 1985 the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi annulled a supreme
court judgment in the famous Shah Banu case by legislating the paradoxical
‘Muslim Women Right Protection Bill’ , bowing to the pressure of the infamous
Muslim fundamentalist brigade. The apex court had merely granted a monthly
alimony of only Rs 300.00 to a 62 year old, arbitrarily divorced and hapless
woman but the judgment had to be sacrificed at the altar of ‘secularim’ and
appeasement. But the appropriate time
for Congress and its lackeys in political forces has not come as yet for UCC,
even though in a most bizarre way the UCC has been in force in the tiny state
of Goa from before the liberation of the formerly Portuguese held territory in
1961 by Indian armed intervention. The Modi led Centre did a great service to
oppressed Muslim women by annulling the medieval ‘Triple Talaq’ in 2019, of
course in compliance with an order of the Supreme Court on a petition filed by
a UP woman Saira Banu.
Already, the BJP state governments in
Uttara Khand, Gujrat and Assam have implemented the contentious Uniform Civil
Code on the basis of recommendations made by expert committees of jurists ,
legal and constitutional specialists formed earlier . The government of West
Bengal is well on course to following suit as are other BJP ruled states. In
all these states tribal communities ruled by customary laws have been logically
kept out of the purview of the UCC and if the process becomes a reality in
Tripura, the indigenous communities with codified customary law will remain out
of the new framework of law in matters of marriage, divorce, succession adoption and son on.
What the opponents of UCC seem to
conveniently forget is that ‘The Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application
Act-1937 enacted by British parliament and introduced by the British government
in India under bondage was designed to deepen and accentuate the societal fault
lines in India in partisan interest of ‘divide and rule’. There is no
uniformity in the Islamic ‘Sharia’ law which was drawn from prevalent customs
in the Arabian desert society in the early medieval age and there are six known
authoritative editions of the so-called legal structure with contradictions
galore. Post the death of prophet Mohammed in 632 the Muslim rulers helped by
clerics had introduced elements of their own choice in the ‘Sharia’ law
structure and themselves violated them gleefully when convenient. It was more
of a human flaw than divine law that can never have so many editions. Moreover,
the ‘Sharia’ reduces Muslim women to shrouded non-entities as currently evident
in Taliban ruled Afghanisthan.
In India the so-called Muslim personal
laws had been sourced from a 12th
century book ‘Hedaya’ and was later based on sets of orders and injunctions
passed by Muslm rulers like ‘Fatwa-i-Alamgiri’ based on injunctions and edicts passed from time to time by Mughal emperor Aurangzeb
(1658-1707). But the most amazing thing is that the self-appointed guardians of
Muslim society always root for preserving personal laws of the community in the
matters of marriage, divorce, succession, adoption, infamous ‘Niqua Halala’
etc but never raise the demand for introduction of
‘Sharia’ provisions in the matter of criminal law that provides for cutting off
hands for stealing , stoning to death as penalty for adultery, caning for
misbehaviour and provision for blood money for any offence including murder or
retaliatory counter-measure etc.
Many Muslim countries including Saudi
Arabia have started a slow but steady process of reforming obsolete and
anachronistic laws but when will the Indian obscurantist Muslim leaders and
their patron angels in the opposition parties will come around to let the
constitutional provisions prevail for a democratic and legally egalitarian
society in India? As of now, the bankrupt opposition in India seem to be
labouring under the obsession that opposition to the government means all that
the government does, even if that means under-cutting the constitution , rule
of equitable law and subverting the constitution by street veto.
For the judiciary, suffice it to say
that the apex court in more than a dozen cases have deplored the absence of a
parliamentary legislation on UCC but have never passed a mandatory order. The
reason for this can be attributed to Article 372 in the constitution which
safeguards the continuation of pre-constitution laws like the British enacted
Muslim personal law of 1937. The solution to this lies only in the enactment of
a new all-encompassing Uniform Civil Code (UCC) applicable to all communities
with exceptions such as tribals with codified customary laws where necessary.
The liberation of people from early medieval anachronistic culture and equal
rights for all women cutting across communities and faiths must take precedence
over petty electoral interests of political parties.
(Tripurainfo)
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