The Uniform Civil Code
On Saturday, the 8th of October, the Law Commission of India released a questionnaire asking for public opinion on the possibility of a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) to replace Personal Law. The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) and several other Muslim organisations responded to this move by boycotting the questionnaire on October 14th. This revived a highly politicised debate that began way back in 1947 with the drafting of the constitution and Ambedkar himself.
What Exactly Is This Uniform Civil Code? In India there are four types of personal law to deal with issues related to family, property, marriage and divorce: there’s Hindu personal law, Muslim personal law, Christian personal law and laws that come under the Special Marriage Act 1954 (SMA). This last one is essentially a secular version of the other three that allows for marriage (and more importantly, divorce) irrespective of religion and caste, in a comparatively less gendered way. For now, just think of the UCC as an extended version of the SMA — the difference being that while the SMA is a choice that coexists with Hindu, Muslim and Christian civil codes, the UCC will replace these other codes to form one, big, umbrella code that everyone in the country will simply have to shut up and follow. I just realised, the name is actually pretty self explanatory.
Also before we move on, take a moment and look up Goa. It’s the only Indian state in which the UCC is already in place.
Now, Why Do We Need A UCC? In 1948, while drafting the constitution with the Constituent Assembly, Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar argued in favour of the UCC, saying that it was a means by which social systems (that come in conflict with certain fundamental rights) could be reformed. One example of this is apparent when it comes to women’s rights and the patriarchal nature of religious civil codes.
When I first heard of the whole UCC debate I assumed that the liberals would be fighting for it while the BJP fought against it, because it seems like the more democratic approach when compared to personal law. But surprise! It’s the other way around. For some absurd reason, it’s the BJP that’s pushing for the UCC while the Congress is opposing it. Um… this is where the politics come in.
Two Things That Happened: Between 1955 and ’56, the Nehru-led administration passed four Hindu Code bills that had to with marriage, adoption, succession and guardianship. These bills reformed Hindu personal law and were opposed by many extreme Hindu groups. One thing these groups constantly hold against the Congress is that the Congress never tried to reform Muslim personal law because Muslims formed an important part of their vote bank. Interfering with Muslim law is actually a lot trickier than doing the same with Hindu law because Muslims are a minority in India and attempts to reform Muslim law can easily be interpreted as attempts to weaken their position in a Hindu dominated nation. This brings us to the second thing.
In 1985 a muslim woman named Shah Bano went to court seeking maintenance from her husband who had divorced her as per the triple Talaq law. According to Muslim personal law, he had to pay maintenance only for the iddat period of three months. Shah Bano asked the court to intervene on the grounds of section 125 of the Criminal Code which entitles women to maintenance from their ex-husbands and initially won the case. Many people felt that this would have been a great time for Rajiv Gandhi to push for the UCC, but he didn’t. As a result of pressure from Islamic groups, the Congress under Rajiv Gandhi passed the Muslim Women’s (Protection on Rights of Divorce) Act 1986 which, contrary to what the name suggests, actually diluted the judgement and denied Muslim women the right to alimony after the iddat period. The BJP saw the legislature as discriminatory not just in terms of gender but more importantly (for them) because it meant that Muslim men didn’t have to pay maintenance while Hindu men and every other kind of men did.
So these Hindu groups sort of adopted the UCC as a way of saying that look everybody has to reform not just us, and it suddenly became theirs.
When I read this, it reminded me of the way my classmate decided against getting a lotus tattooed on her arm after I teased her about it being the BJP symbol. It also reminded me of how annoyed I get when I tell people I do yoga and they go oh yeahhh, Modi does it too. Yoga is not his okay, neither is the lotus or the colour saffron, or the UCC!
Why Are Liberals Opposing the UCC? To understand this we sort of have to step back and see the move as part of a bigger picture. As part of a “Hindu nationalist agenda to ‘discipline’ Muslims” as Nivedita Menon puts it, or, as a demand from the ruling Hindutva ideology that requires minority groups to “give up” (as Aakar Patel puts it) their constitutional autonomy (think Kashmir), mosques (think Ayodhya), and personal law (think UCC).
In October 2015, a woman named Shayara Bano petitioned the Supreme Court to ban triple talaq, polygamy and nikah halal after her husband divorced her. (And yah okay, I admit I got super excited when I heard the name Bano because I thought she was Shah Bano’s granddaughter and holy shit it would be so cool if it like ran in her veins or something. But no, Bano just means Lady.) She is now backed by both the National Commission for Women (NCW) and the Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA). The BMMA opposes the UCC, arguing that the politics has side tracked the real issue at hand which is gender justice and reforming Muslim personal law from within.
It’s interesting to note that while the AIMPLB claims to represent India’s muslim population, it is an entirely male board. Also, the difference between the two landmark cases is that in 1985, Shah Bano had very little support from the muslim population (women included) while today, Shayara Bano has the support of over one lakh muslim women registered with the BMMA.
Phew.
That was a long one. I think we’re more or less done. The court hasn’t yet passed a judgement on the Shayara Bano case so that’s something you should definitely look out for in the coming months. If you’d like to read up a little more on the UCC, there’s this three-part series on The Huffington Post that I found super useful. There’s also one on Scroll.in, which explains really well the need for reform of muslim law from within. It offers an insider’s perspective.
