Politics is better left staying out of religion. A uniform civil code may be seen as an imposition on religion. Unlike India (which was born in religious riots), most nations in the world were mostly single religion when they had their constitution in place. India is not just a multi religion state, but also a multi regional (when u look at Indian history, u’ll never see a united India). A uniform code can antagonize one section against another. It is a tightrope to tread on. So, politicians smartly washed their hands off. With the rise in coalition politics and increasing power of regional parties, it will not be easy to have a federal policy.

To implement one need to face a situation, to put in to practice there are other fields and caste to be considered which makes the civil law difficult to be unified. British did not have a problem with caste and religion, but when we still practice them in a secular country like India the case to unifying civil law is a major danger towards the belief and practice of religion and rituals. After all the situation is like a couple have to marry twice both infront of mahall (the islamic mosque priest and committe) and the government staff to get registered. The idea is good, but have to see some black hands at some cases.
The more lazy our goverment is the better is to stop unifying, but all in one day no one or anything is going to get better.
I am partially against Unifying the civil law.

@Arby
You have stated all the reasons why our country needs a uniform civil code. Remember the word is “Civil Code”. Every citizen should be equal before the law.

@SAF
Think about the absurdity in the Muslim marriage law. A Muslim can legally have 4 wives and the same thing is a crime for a Christian. Ill end up in jail if I marry more than once.

You are allowed to marry anywhere you want, but registration is a must, cos marriage is a responsibility and its something that the government protects. The government needs to know who married whom if some legal issue arises later.

The government being lazy is no excuse for showing discrimination.

What I was referring was the process of making a uniform civil code will antagonize different sections of India. Once approved, it will do well for integrity, but the process of approval will take its toll on the Republic. For example, the marriage law u mentioned. Preferring one over the other or reaching a compromise will create a divide. So, politicians choose to maintain status quo and not raise any feelings of antagonism.

@Avalanche
I support the centralized marriage registration at any cost, coz later on when an argument comes with respect the the certificate and its validity the couples are going to suffer.
Here there is nothing called against any religious belief.
Considering the divorce, defenitly there will be problem within muslims. The islamic thalaakh system is put in to practice for the couples to learn the difficulty of divorce and the bad effects. Which when government central law says the couple can rejoin after a certain period of time if they really wish to, is against the belief.

So how do you see the centralized divorce system?

Which when government central law says the couple can rejoin after a certain period of time if they really wish to, is against the belief.

Give me one good reason as to why the government should care for your religious laws ?

@SAF

A unified civil code does not actually infringe upon any religious rights.

An ideal UCC would require the registration of marriage as well as divorce and should follow the very basic principles that are based on the human rights.

You also must know that even now, there is nothingthat stops two people from rejoining if they wish from a legal stand point, if they are divorced, they can go to the registrar and register their re-marriage. Whether Islam recognizes that or not is the private matter of the religion and the believers, government should not interfere with that.

How the current laws suppress the rights of women, not just in Muslim or Christian personal laws, but also in the Hindu Law. You cannot deny that.

@ Arby

You are right, there is a communal tone in the demand for a unified civil code now, especially when it is coming from RSS/BJP.

The key is to come up with a code that is acceptable to all sections of the society and yet not infringing the religious freedom in any way.

Can such a code exist? Well, all I am saying is that nothing is impossible if we make up our mind.

I’d rather say that it is better for the Congress to formulate and come up with this code than BJP because of two things

1) Because of the perceived (or real) bias of BJP agains the minorities, what ever they may come up will be fought against, saying they want to oppress the minorities.

2) Congress has a better standing in front of the minorities and having a lot of leaders in its ranks from all the communities, it can actually come up with the most balanced solution.

If there is one thing that the Left, the communists and their allies should do, it is that they should extend their hand into this process and since they claim that they do not even have a religion, I would think the communists can help come up with an impartial result. Whether those would infringe the religious rights is yet another matter.

@kenney

“Give me one good reason as to why the government should care for your religious laws ?”

You are right, the government’s duty is to protect the rights of all its citizens and if there is a religious law that violates the very basic human rights of a woman, it has to go.

Now the million dollar question is: Who has got the guts to do this?? Its the same like the Reservations and the amendments brought forward for financial reservations..What has transpired? Nothing! As long as the spineless and corrupt politicians have their vested and malignant interests aligned against Constitutional reforms, nothing is gonna take place, at least not soon.

India is known to the outer world as a place with the most notorious laws of social discrimination. And we are carrying that image into the 21st century. And sorry for telling this; Indian Judiciary and system is just better than a joke…just…

huh, not even 1 corrupt politician behind bars in 60 yrs of existance. gimme a break.

One thing that the courts should do is to take down all the laws that are against the constitution.

Read the Indian constitution, and you would be amazed how disconnected the current judicial system is from that fine document.

The Supreme Court and other courts have to take down all the crappy legislation that is against the constitution. If you want that, well, go ahead and amend the constitution, but that requires a good support, not just a flimsy majority.

IMHO, presently, the judiciary and the govt are held up in a deadlock accusing each other for almost anything while the common man suffers. The Supreme court and lower courts would never find enough support from the politicians and the govt as many of these people are well served by these weak laws. The case of reservations shows just this. If they were all so good hearted, they would have done something more substantial than just throwing open some more seats. The same analogy can be used here too. These political parties need lines of fault to operate and thrive on. It would be self defeating for them to even consider closing these divides. With the recent events at Orissa (indians killing Indians) I believe our nation just lacks tolerence, to say the least.

dear friends,

One thing, which I must say, is that, we all tries to percevie India as One single nation and wanted to implemented civil law which is normally guided by cultural and social norms, to be uniformed.

Well, as I have mentioned, we must see, India is just a Union of States, with a federal structure. It doesn’t mean we have ONE SINGLE CULTURE or ONE SINGLE SOCIAL NORMS………. We never heard any culture or language called Indian. Its rather several cultures like Malayalee, Tamil, Kannada or Hindi etc makes Indian Culture. Thus our society is just like a piece of cloth made of various kind of fabric threads…… We can recommend for a Uniform wash or uniform kind of pressing. It could, to certain extend marginalize various minorities culture.

Well I am here not saying RELIGIOUS Minorities, but cultural minorities. For example, in Andamans, various tribes follows its own system of marriage, inheritance, etc all legal as per Law of Andaman and Nicobar islands. Likewise Lakshadweep islands has its own inheritance, even if its a Muslim Island, where women inherit literarily all the ground property, whereas Males are not given any land property. We must understand, the same Islam, has several kinds of cultures in India, as per the local culture

These are very much part of local culture and heritage.

A uniform civil code for a national level, would be a MAJORITY influenced law, thus could marginalize cultural-lingustic minorities. This could tear up the social fabric of the nation

In this context, I wish to make all friends, to remind, how when India Government tried to make Hindi as the statutory National Language for Government communications in 1960s, provocked Tamilans to have Anti-Hindi agitations, as its against their culture and language.

When a national level code is devised, its mostly influenced by North Indian lobby. This could be determinal for the interests of the nation

I wish, each State to have a uniform civil code, limiting itself to only certain provisions.whereby, it limits the creating national level problems as well as make sense of the nessecity of Uniform Civil code

Well, I must make a small correction here…. There is a mentioning here, that its because of British rule, we couldn’t have Uniform Civil code, as it was they who introduced Divide and Rule.

But I have some small differences here. Because, though it was British who adopted this policy officially, prior the British rule, thro’ out of the Indian History, we had Un-Uniformed or differeniated civil code.

In Mahabharat, Kind Yudhistra while during his cornation time as King of Hastinapur mentioned that, each caste needs different code of punishment and treatment. This was clearly demonstrated, when he sentenced a Brahmin who committed murder to death thro’ needle pierceing, whereas a Sudra who was partner to the crime, just flogging. Similar theory was explained in case of civil laws……..

In Chanakya’s Arthashastra, there is often mentioning how the kind should differeninate its citizens on all civil matters, as it should make a sense of society’s diversified actions. This theory was adopted during Maurayan and Gupta empires…. During Islamic rule there were open divide and rule between hindus and muslims and within various sects of Muslim and Hindu castes…………

Perhaps, as a documented matter, it might be British who formally took it as governing principle. But we must understand, for more than 5000 years, in India, we didn’t have any uniform civil code and its difficult to implement, a law, that justifies uniformity, as for past 5000 years, it was differeninated rule that governed iNDIA

Still, I feel there is some need for the Uniform Civil Code, atleast it should be initiated.

With regards
Arun

So the point is that whoever started the divide and rule, it is not working.

We cannot assume that we can keep doing something that we were doing for 5000 years and somehow expect it to have different results in the future.

As a modern nation, we cannot have a set of rules that discriminates against women when it comes to owning property or inheritance.

We cannot discriminate against women in marriage and divorce/alimony.

For heavens sake, this is not 13th or 14th century. This is the 21st century! Yes, I agree with you Arun, we have to act now. And it should be initiated.

However, a civil code does not interfere with the customs or any society.

Property ownership rules should be same for all the citizens of the country. Can you disagree?

Our sons and daughters should get an equal inheritance from us. Can you disagree?

In the event of a divorce, our society has to make sure that the women are not forced out into the streets. Can you disagree?

We are not saying that India is a uniform mass of people. We are creating the laws that are derived from a common set of modern values that disowns any exploitation of any section of the society. I will talk about that later.

@ Ash
Rightly said!

@ Arun
Well the Idea of a common civil code for each state is not a bad idea. But then we must make sure that these differences in law between the states are minor and are acceptable on a national level. I would rather say there should be a national Civil Code Guideline around which all the states should frame their laws. And the national Guideline should make sure that there is no room for loop holes. This is also good cause if you have a scenario where two people from two different states are involved - applying the law of any one state will be discriminating to the other person.

@JMJ

I agree the times when people spent their lives confined to a single state is long gone. When we have a common personal law, it should apply throughout the territory of India. This is what the constitution asked for and this is what we haven’t gotten because someone did not have the spine to implement it right away.

Talking about spine…not someone - most of our political leaders dont have one…

No wonder the percentage of people voting during elections in cities (by cities - I mean the educated crowd) is going down - vote or no vote it does not make a difference - it is like choosing between the bad and the worst…

[...] 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 mandate.  During the discussions,  and also in the [...]