Article 44 of the Directive
Principles of India makes the implementation of a Uniform Civil Code (hereafter
referred to as UCC) the duty of the State. But since Independence, nobody has
managed to implement it. Not just implementation, but our very narrow and
limited vision does not see the urgent need of separating religion from state.
Broad aspects of the UCC are as
follows –
- · Marriage
- · Divorce
- · Inheritance
- · Adoption
- · Maintainence
What the UCC seeks to do is to remove all religious laws pertaining
to the aspects above and bring in ONE UNIFORM law that shall have no basis in
religion.
Foe e.g – in marriage, we have
the Hindu Marriage Act 1955, The Indian Christian Marriage Act 1872, Muslim
Personal Law 1937 and if one chooses to marry in an irreligious fashion; the
Special Marriage Act 1954. The UCC directive of the Indian constitution seeks
to replace all these with one standard law to govern all religions. What this
would do is separate religion from state. Why do we need it? Because religion
fails to take morality into account. Religion is obsolete and immoral when it
comes to legislation. A widely used example is the Shah Bano case. Quoting wiki
-
“Mohd. Ahmed Khan v. Shah Bano Begum (1985
SCR (3) 844), commonly referred to as the Shah Bano case, was a controversial
maintenance lawsuit in India, in which Shah Bano, a 62-year-old Muslim,
daughter of a police constable and mother of five from Indore, Madhya Pradesh,
was divorced by her husband in 1978 but even after winning the case at the
Supreme court of India was subsequently denied alimony because the Indian
Parliament reversed the judgement under pressure of Islamic orthodoxy.”
In essence, Islamic Law has limited
provisions for the protection of women’s rights in a divorce. Amendments to
this law have provided for a lump sum to be paid as protection but that too
needs a lot of reform in how said lump sum is calculated and how this law could
be effectively implemented to begin with. In fact; under Islamic Law divorce
can be unilateral (decided by the man with no say for the woman). Shah Bano was
denied lawful alimony and maintanence because of religion (In this case Islam).
The UCC seeks to replace all
these archaic laws with laws based on morality. The Hindu and the Christian set
of laws have their own idiosyncrasies too and the UCC seeks to replace and
uproot them just as much as any other religion. An example is the case of Roop
Kanwar in Rajasthan. She was a Rajput woman who was immolated as late as 1987 after
her husband’s death and then hailed by idiotic Hindus as a “sati mata” or a “pure
woman”. Though 45 people were charged with this crime, only 11 were booked and
those too were acquitted in January 2004.
In actual fact and in my personal
opinion, the UCC should not only dissolve and uproot religion from the aspects
(marriage, divorce, adoption etc.) mentioned above but also apply to ALL laws
of the land. Religion and State should be completely separate. In a modern and
enlightened world, we need to see the harm that religion is doing and keep it
out of governance and administration. Reservations and quotas are another huge
example of how religion has subverted the judicial and the legislative systems
of India and has ruined meritocracy in almost all aspects of our lives; right
from admissions to colleges to government jobs to even the private sector
(which Nandan Nilekani is rooting for so loudly).
India is not really a secular
country. We just pretend to be. With most of our laws having a basis in
religion, there is no point in calling India a secular country. Secularism is a
word that is so misused in India that it has lost all meaning whatsoever. Let
us analyze what it really means.
Sec·u·lar·ism [sek-yuh-luh-riz-uhm] – noun.
·
Secular spirit or tendency, especially a system
of political or social philosophy that rejects all forms of religious faith and
worship.
·
The view that public education and other matters
of civil policy should be conducted without the introduction of a religious
element.
Note the glaringly obvious fact –
Secularism DOES NOT mean appeasing any particular religion over another. That
is idiocy. Secularism DOES NOT mean quotas. That is plain myopic. Secularism DOES NOT mean treating all
religions equally. That is common sense. What secularism DOES mean is that
religion and state needs to be separated. It means that religion has NO PLACE
in administration, governance, law-making and ANY aspect of implementation
thereof. We seem to have forgotten that in our rush to be proclaimed secular. What
secularism currently means is nowhere close to what it was intended to be by
our founding fathers. Going by the etymology of the word itself; the meaning
has been subverted in our very minds.
We need to realize how this
pseudo-secularism is hurting us and bring in an overhaul. Not just by
implementing UCC in law but in our own behavior on a day-to-day basis. By realizing
that religion needs to be kept behind closed doors. Our social conduct with our
fellow men needs to be devoid of religion. Devoid of prejudice and devoid of
the currently narrow and myopic thought-process all of us employ.
A small step in that direction
will be the implementation of the Uniform Civil Code.
I host a vodcast called The Left Field Show and I'd be very interested in having you on to discuss this issue - my channel is here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtTT9sAfukCEsKD_TJj4e6Q
ReplyDeleteSure thing. Would love that. Let me touch base with you separately through Hangouts to take this forward.
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