I would rather go behind the wheel of life and stuff and say that once brahmins(which includes me by birth unfortunatly) were the helm of the society and hence enjoyed a lot of privileges. Now dalits and other lower castes (lower only by categorization) enjoy the same. Cycle of life.

And discrimination is different from reservation.

So many flaws in Law ?
I knew there were separate codes of law for different segments.Which i dint like at the first hand.

But if there are contradicting statements in law itself, then its logical for “Unification of Civil Code”.
Lawmakers please wake up !

Christians can dump their daughters
Muslims can have 4 wives
Sikhs can carry around weapons

This is sooo unfair….

Well, to start with, nicely said.
But, like the women’s reservation bill, it is a long shot that the unified civil code would actually work. Personally I feel that when religion comes into picture, everything else becomes blurred! Even if it gets around being implemented, people would take a long time to change their attitude towards such issues, cos every religion considers itself superior to the other, right?
Lots of times laws never offer any solace at all. How many times does a divorced woman get proper justice? And what about the social stigma that is attached to all these cases covered under the civil law??
Ah, well, what should be the priority?

Womens reservation bill ????
We are talking about Uniform civil code and that includes equality for man and women. A reservation would be against that !!!!

Leya, you are right.

The main beneficiaries from a modern unified civil code would be women. Period.

And in the current system, regardless of the religion the section that is discriminated against the most is women.

No wonder the biased politicians never seem to have the courage to go about this.

Well, da has my thoughs exactly. But I also meant that no well meaning law ever gets passed.

How do you think we can make it possible to get this law passed?

I mean what are the obstacles that you see, and why are they there?

It is possible only if one man dictatorship is implemented in India. We must have to wipe out all political manipulators who are taking advantages in these types of discriminations to stagnate their power.

Haaaa guess who is talking about dictatorship, The Communist

Actually this cannot be enforced by law!…but as a new rule coined by Me! suggest - Any system is chaotic in origin - Order is natural evolution - I am sure these diversified laws will merge in time..maybe not in our life term ..but its sure to happen in the future…
Actually we can see these diversified rules being melted away in modern societies ans cities and existing still in full power in villages
In a metro civilization i dont think there is a discrimination for women either…….

So TIME is the dictator…and education is the accelerator for a Unified Civil Code

Anoop
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If you feel this blog is loading fast!….contact me at anoop@gnusys.net for a free demo of the platform on which this blog is hosted

dear friends,

I agree to the nessecity of Uniform Civil Code and its keen importance in our Nation, especially in context of various communal-religious based issues.

But, I would like all my friends to think, is it so praticable in our country?

Because in our country, we have a throughly rooted system, that mixes religion and its rituals in all spheres of society.

It took more than 100 years for Europe to separte clergy from the Political sphere. We must understand, the clergy came into power in EUROPE, only after 6th century. But it took almost one century to liberate their influence that they have been excerising over the society for more than 6 centuries

Then think of our country, were from its inception, religion was part and parcel of our lifestyle. How can we liberate its influence, just in one single day, thro’ an act?

We must know, to bring Uniform Civil code in France, one of the most secularist nations of the world, it took them more than 150 years, despite of the fact that French revolution stood for secularist values.

Our country is highly diversifed. To bring uniform civil code in our nation, would put many people and communities in disadvantages, perhaps within one religion itself.

For example, Kerala has highest level of Positive sex ratio, just because it followed a unique Matriarchal system, where Ladies have the power and children are directly under influence and power of the mother, not father……… This made the status of the ladies very high in the society and families without ladies are considered to be bad or ill doomed, in many Hindu castes of Kerala

Just because of Uniform Hindu Act- the matriarchal system was replaced by Patriarchal system as followed by Hindus all over the nation, Men started becoming dominant in the society. Infact I even doubt, the rising issues that affect in Kerala, is a direct relation of tensions of Malayalee dilemma of having a Matriarchal past with modern Patriachal system.

In fact, we we compare the sex ratio of Kerala in 1960s with Sex ratio of today, we find there is a decline in female, though it remains largely positive.

Likewise, for adoption of unified civil code, in christianity, all the denominations and different chruches must go and unified under a single entity, as like United Church of England or French Church etc. Is it easy possible in our nation?

Moreover, there are several issues, regarding inheritance etc, which all are characteristic to each society or state. This cannot be brought under a common law, because India is not just one country and one culture, as we find in France or English. We cannot have a Hindi culture for the nation, unlike English culture over England or French culture over France or German over germany.

Its a long dream for having our nation, a Unified civil code, as our nation is not just single nation, but comprises for several nations, several lifestyles and several culture. We need to respect them and take into account.

What I suggest is each state for having a uniform civil code, depending upon its culture and context, covering most of issues and requirements of separte judicial body for looking in civil matters, like Judicial civil marriage made compulsory for all marriages to have a legal status etc.

English men were too birlliant in doing business since centuries ago, it was their business mind that lead to the invade of india by ‘Divide and rule policy’. It was them who gave idea about a central rule and central ruling system which we still practice.
After Independence India outshined in building up constitution and parliament and ruling principles which no one ever thought India could make up a republic declaration in months after independence.

What english men left is still in practice, thats what we see the split laws even though they all originate from a single point. Diverse laws as per community and central with respect to the master of law.

Need to make a unique central law system is very high but practically its quite impossible with respect to belief and custom. Arabs ve islamic values so they adopt islamic rules.
And so is with other religious rich countries.

The distributed architecture is more stronger in any sense than a centralized one i bet.

Registration of marriage is now compulsory for all communities. This is one step forward towards achieving the so called equality envisaged in our Constitution. Does any body remember the protests raised by a particular community against this act of Govt.? At last the Muslim community had to told that this registration of marriage is in addition to the conventional wedding as per their religion. The fact is that any marriage now in India would become legally valid only if it is registered with proper authority. Conventional wedding is immaterial before a court of law. Now the criticism is that the Govt. have violated its promise while enacting the law.

“Likewise, for adoption of unified civil code, in christianity, all the denominations and different chruches must go and unified under a single entity, as like United Church of England or French Church etc. Is it easy possible in our nation?”

No sir, there is no question of nationalizing any religion.

It is just about the laws of the land dealing with marriage, adoption, inheritance etc. Religion is separate.

As Uncle has mentioned, already the church/temple weddings are not valid in a legal stand point. As soon as the religious wedding is done, you are required to register it with the local government authorities.

@SAF,

You are right, it was the british who wanted to keep people divided came up with different laws for different religions.

But these have nothing to do with any religion. We should have a single set of laws that treats everyone regardless of the religion. Why has it not happened so far?

@Avalanche
The problem is not only with religion, take a look at the layer of economy by which people are divided. With in the same religion there are economic divisions, so once a unified law comes, the low level people are going to suffer a lot. Thats where distributed law empowers the centralized. For the time being the low level people have got their rights atleast in the law through the religious power or powers.

Could you care to explain at least one example in the civil law through which the low level people have got better rights?

Education : Reservation
Consumption : Ration suppply system

Are nt they a part of law??

No sir, they are not part of civil code.

Civil code/personal law only pertains to marriage, adoption, inheritance and one or two additional aspects.

Right now in education, consumption etc everybody is treated equally in front of the law regardless of the religion (except incentives for financially weak, which is an aid) These are not what we are talking about here.

Since there is a misunderstanding, I’d explain it in the next post in the series.

What ever you all may say, in a secular country religion is a person matter and its something to be kept inside your house or better to yourselves.

I hate to see religious processions blocking roads, small churches in every junction, loud speakers for every silly religious occasion.

The worst thing is that govt gives a tax exemption for all this nonsense. How do you explain that in a secular country

The term civil code is used to cover the entire body of laws governing rights relating to property ownership and otherwise in personal matters like marriage, divorce, maintenance, adoption and inheritance.

Aaah.. that sounds sense
After all how is it possible to unite all the civil laws under one roof??

[...] from the first post, it is clear that the constitution unambiguously calls for a uniform civil code throughout the [...]

Nice Post…!!!

In my opinion to make the civil law centralized it is very necessary to split our country on behalf of religion.
Because every religion have different laws (civil), eg Muslim divorce is know as Thalaakh, after which if the couples decide to reunite, the girl has to get married to some other man, get divorced and then only she is allowed to reunite. Thats what quran teach us, no regional law can overcount that. If it happens, then its for sure that the goverment is breaking another human right.

@SAF
We are alll humans first, its only after that we became muslims and christians.

How can you say no to a particular religion or religious law while unifying the civil law? Is it practically possible?

“its only after that we became muslims and christians.”

I disagree with this Kenny. Unfortunately, our religion and caste is determined even when we are in the womb of our mother. You are free to determine your own caste and religion once you attain the age of 18. Until then you belong to the caste and religion of your parents.

Guys - I think there is a confusion over the Civil Code.

The definition of Civil Code is:
“A civil code is a systematic compilation of laws designed to comprehensively deal with the core areas of private law. A jurisdiction that has a civil code generally also has a code of civil procedure.”

Thanks to wikipedia! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Code)

Like the famous saying goes “your freedom ends at the edge of my nose” Well the civil code try’s to define this edge.

We believe that the law is blind - ie - the law does not know rich and poor - powerful or not ….now how come the law is taking a peak at the persons religion and culture?

By modeling a law around a religion or community - is the law not trying to play favoritism? Just for example: after Divorce the man from the Muslim community does not have to pay anything… well if a man from another religion divorces his wife - he has to pay. So the best solution is to convert to Islam before applying for divorce….there you go a big gaping hole in the law.

The civil code is a law that protects a person as a human being and has nothing to do with religion or culture.

Talking about the practicality of a unified civil code for India - I do agree that it is going to be difficult. But then - it has to start somewhere…otherwise tomorrow we will have a situation were once the unified civil code has been implemented, certain sections of the society will start demanding reservations as they were deprived of some of the facilities. And we already know how bad the reservation system is…

Once the woman’s reservation bill is passed; more than 50% of our parliamentarians would have come in through the reservation system. (20% of the backward class and 30% of women)

I am sure that none of us want such a situation…we all want to be treated equally - no matter what our religion or our culture says.

Just for example - if we start implementing what our religion/culture says - Muslims will be stoned to death, Christians will be forgiven, I have no Idea what will happen to the rest of the people…

Then the solution? First we need to separate religion from everything else (we Indians seem to be mixing any thing and every thing with religion) Once that separation is done we need to have a healthy debate as to what you mean by personal freedom (how long you can stretch your nose). Then we need to model our civil code around a person being a human being and not as a hindu/muslim/christian…

@Uncle,

I guess the point is that we are all humans first, not chronologically, but existentially.

@SAF

You are right, there are discrepancies in the law like the alimony thing that you have mentioned.

We need to solve that. It does not have to be an infringement of any rights.

For example, according to Catholic Church, people can get married at 16 and 14 respectively, but in India everybody are required by law to be at least 21 and 18 to get married. But it is ok.

Also, it is against the teachings of Quran to consume alcohol, but it is legal. However if you follow the religion, you can abstain from alcohol.

This is the separation that I am talking about. I will discuss that later.

‘Unified Civil code’ does make sense!!!

[...] have seen in the first post that the constitution mandates a unified civil code and then that the courts have always asked the government to step up and fulfill the constitutional [...]

[...] far, we have seen what the constitution and the courts say about a common civil code and also seen how it does not target any single [...]

high time we do the job required! The common code is long overdue

I was against unifying civil law. But now, if the law is not unified our women community (specially muslims) will suffer at 99% of their security. Women will be exploited under the existing distributed laws.

Thanks SAF