Congrats. You have really done some good homework for this part.

Indian Divorce (Amendment) Act passed in 2001 prohibits the conduct of a marriage between a Christian and a non-Christian in a church.

This is new information to me. Now Ill have to baptize her….

@ Kenney

“Now Ill have to baptize her”
I guess you dont have a choice…

Kenney,

Not only that, if, for any reason, one of the individuals who were married under the Christian marriage law ceases to be a Christian, the marriage is annulled.

This is the thing that happens when you have your laws linked to your religion. What the heck should the religion do about the marriage (not the ceremony, but the relationship)

@Uncle

Thanks.

Yes, it is better to do the research and show the people why things are bad than just arguing about the need to change.

In a democratic country like India, drastic changes in these cases is not possible. For a uniform civil code, first thing to be done is elimination of cast based vote banks. Presently it is not possible. remember the case of mary roy, mother of famous writer arundhathi roy, fought many years in supreme court for changing the Christian succession act. remember the impacts that made in the community. In hinduism, in kerala, ‘Marumakkathayam’ was there. it made many persons to suffer. In the muslim community, there also many things which irritates common people. But no body can challenge. The majority and minority concept is outdated in India. For getting benefits of Power, one can say I belong to majority/minority. Only when the ultimate goal changes from Power to humanity, we can implement such a code

Yes, comments can be moderated here. See…

They are not. Great.

Quote.
“An ideal unified civil code would allow a marriage between a Christian and a non-Christian from a legal perspective while leaving the decision whether to conduct it in a church or not should be left to the individuals and the church involved.”
Unquote.

It is surprising that even though inter religious marriages have been touched upon, and even when this is claimed to be a well researched post, the author did not / chose not / forgot to mention ‘The Special Marriage Act’ which has been there for almost as long as India been a free nation, 1954 to be precise and it allows performing and registering marriages between any two individuals irrespective of religion or caste. Absolutely any two.

Without getting into the debate of whether UCC is a communal matter or one of national interest, my humble point is - A lot of the concern over gender bias can be addressed if only people were educated about SMA instead of debating upon UCC which I think is a complete impossibility. It would remain an agenda for the political parties and would never go anywhere from there.

It is true a lot of property inheritance issues by the Muslims remain uncertain, since SMA doesn’t touch upon that area and Indian Succession Act doesn’t apply on Muslims. But UCC is not an answer to this concern. The Indian Legislators have the power to reform / srcap any law which is unconstitutional. Any personal law if and where unconstitutional can be nullified or amended. Nothing is stopping the state from doing it. The way Hindu Marriage laws were reformed and women were given better rights. And then Hindu succession act also has been reformed.

We don’t need UCC to bring such reforms. Seeking UCC amounts to an attempt to bring the entire gandhmadan mountain when only one leaf was asked for. And since we ain’t Hanumans we can’t get the mountain and the cure never reaches the place where it was required.

So much of human resources energy time is gone into debating a very futile matter this UCC. Bringing reforms within each existing personal laws would be a much simpler task than making one blanket law for the entire country.

UCC is like putting the entire earth back into sea and start churning all over again to get different results.

@Domestic Avalanche,

What point did you try to make by saying “comments can be moderated here…see” A 5 year old would know that comments can be deleted / edited by blog owner(s) what is the big deal?

I was checking if comments gets published without a screening process or not.

Are you new to Blogging by any chance?

Comments?

All it means is that we have a filter that holds certain comments for approval. Your comment escaped because it did not have any text/link that triggers such an action.

Ya that mind blowing knowledge is almost as old as the vedas on the blogging clock.

Comment moderation is something else. Never mind, you are new to blogging I get it. Let’s focus on UCC now shall we?

Yes ma’am. As you wish.

[...] thought I would quickly make this post coz it seems this would be one long debate. On this blog, a post was made on the need of Uniform Civil Code. The post is not all that bad, but is quite superficial and pretentious. It claims to be well [...]

@ Sanjukta
Nice to have you back in full throttle…

I think the authors intent was not to talk only about marriage - but about all the personal laws. A civil code is a set of laws that govern a person’s personal freedom/rights and duties.

I do agree with your point though about reforming the current personal laws. It will go a long way into paving the way for a UCC.

@Sanjukta

This blog has an open comment policy. We do not delete anything unless its that bad. Infact I have only deleted a single comment so far… and that comment was from my mom.

Regarding UCC, above all arguments, I think its needed in our country as a statement of equality and secularism. We are a country torn apart by religion and I believe a conscious effort to unify will definitely help. It will be a warning to all religions “Religious laws are not above the laws of the state”.

@Sanjukat

I do understand the existence of Special Marriage Act. But, this is exactly what is wrong that I meant when I said we have to keep doing what we have done in the past and somehow expect a different result.

What has the Special Marriage Act done to close the bias? It has been an stop-gap measure than a solution to the problem.

A special marriage act is not the solution, just because if two individuals of the same religion are getting married now, they are going to do it in their personal law anywhere and all the inequalities exist. It is not just about the inter-religious marriages, but I am talking about the millions of same-religion marriages where the system makes sure that the women get a raw deal.

Whether people are educated or not, we cannot have a legal system that discriminates. Based on anything. There are millions of uneducated/conservative people who still practice un-touchability and other atrocities. Is that legal? Did we educate about them first before legislating to make it illegal?

So why is that you do not care about these issues just because the main victims are women? This is the problem in this country. Regardless of the status quo, we should have the audacity to admit or agree that men and women are equal. And discrimination based on gender is as bad or worse than discrimination based on caste or anything.

All I have to say is to quote Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of state of the United States. She said : “‘There’s a place in Hell reserved for women who don’t help other women.”

And yet, you agree that these individual laws does not address these issues. Then why don’t we reform everything? Yes, constitution calls for it, courts have been demanding it, and nothing stops the state from doing it. But why is it not done?

The fact is that every aspect of the personal laws are filled with absurdities and discrimination that does not have a place in a modern society. We do not need some sets of laws that were first enacted in the 1800s.

Are you saying is that we do not have bright minds that can compose a common civil code that is acceptable for all. With all due respect to Dr. Ambedkar, we have many people of his caliber here at this time.

Or are you suggesting that such a universally accepted civil code cannot exist?

@Sanjukat

I do understand the existence of Special Marriage Act. But, this is exactly what is wrong that I meant when I said we have to keep doing what we have done in the past and somehow expect a different result.

What has the Special Marriage Act done to close the bias? It has been an stop-gap measure than a solution to the problem.

A special marriage act is not the solution, just because if two individuals of the same religion are getting married now, they are going to do it in their personal law anywhere and all the inequalities exist. It is not just about the inter-religious marriages, but I am talking about the millions of same-religion marriages where the system makes sure that the women get a raw deal.

Whether people are educated or not, we cannot have a legal system that discriminates. Based on anything. There are millions of uneducated/conservative people who still practice un-touchability and other atrocities. Is that legal? Did we educate about them first before legislating to make it illegal?

So why is that you do not care about these issues just because the main victims are women? This is the problem in this country. Regardless of the status quo, we should have the audacity to admit or agree that men and women are equal. And discrimination based on gender is as bad or worse than discrimination based on caste or anything.

All I have to say is to quote Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of state of the United States. She said : “‘There’s a place in Hell reserved for women who don’t help other women.”

And yet, you agree that these individual laws does not address these issues. Then why don’t we reform everything? Yes, constitution calls for it, courts have been demanding it, and nothing stops the state from doing it. But why is it not done?

The fact is that every aspect of the personal laws are filled with absurdities and discrimination that does not have a place in a modern society. We do not need some sets of laws that were first enacted in the 1800s.

Are you saying is that we do not have bright minds that can compose a common civil code that is acceptable for all. With all due respect to Dr. Ambedkar, we have many people of his caliber here at this time.

Or are you suggesting that such a universally accepted civil code cannot exist?

Look let us first decide what is your concern: Is ‘gender bias’ the main problem or is having different personal law the problem bias or no bias?

All I am saying is that if gender bias is the main concern we can address that by bringing reforms in Muslim personal laws you don’t need UCC for that. I repeat in simpler words, what I already said by a Hanuman metaphor, UCC is too big a cure for a very small problem. You don’t need the entire mountain you only need a leaf.

Just make changes in the biased laws and implement them. Just the way Hindu laws are reformed. It is not so difficult, certainly not as difficult as making and implementing UCC.

By demanding some thing that is not practical we are not doing any help to get rid of the bias anyway.

@Kenny
It’s not just about the religion. It’s not like all Hindus follow the same law and all Muslim follow another same law that is different from Hindu law. This point is already made by another commentator here. Hindus far away in Andamans and Lakshwadeep north east and the many tribes all over, each follow a different personal law.

So how is UCC going to be a sign of secularism?

Also being uniform is not being equal. You could serve the same soup in the same saucer to the fox and the pelican but would you call that equality?

Dont you think its totally absurd that I get a 6 year imprisonment if I have 2 wives when its perfectly legal for a muslim to have 4 wives ?

We are not talking about fox and the pelican here. We are talking about Homo Sapiens and the same soup can be served to every homo sapien.

It would be much easier to bring in a single uniform code, than making changes to all the different laws for different communities.

Which is easier, passing a single marriage law or changing 5 different laws for 5 different religions ?

@Kenney,

I agree. It is easier to bring in a single uniform code.

Let me ask you my friends, what exactly is impractical about it?

1. Is it about not being able to pass the legislation ?

2. Or is it about composing that legislation?

To pass the legislation, all we need is some political strong will by a few leaders. On the other hand, if we are talking about the next government, if BJP is going to be leading that, there is no way you cannot do it. They had the chance, they just passed it. It can be done. So there is no question there.

If it is about coming up with an acceptable legislation, do we not have enough legal minds in this country that can write simple sentences, collaborate and word a bill that can deal with all these. Come on, all it takes is the same or even less effort that one takes in reforming these antiquated laws. I can help, if someone needs it.

Or my friends, are you not sold to the idea that all the people in a country can have the same sets of laws? Why is that some religious laws dictate the legality of the nation? Separation of state and religion was called for since the inception of this country.

Give me one good reason why inheritance laws have to be different for different religions? How it helps the people of the nation, this differences in the law that rules their life?

Tell me one good reason why the adoption laws have to be different for different religions. Any advantage ?

Give me one good reason why there should be a difference in maintenance of a divorced couple between religions? Should a divorced woman from a Muslim community be supported the same way as a similar woman from a Hindu or Christian community? What is the reason why any one of these women has to be supported less?

If there is no reason and if you want to reform the individual laws to give the same maintenance support to all women, then why don’t we have a single law? What is the point of having multiple identical laws?

@Sanjukta

Let me try to explain…

Is it easier to say A=B or

A=C; C>D; FA; A=K

This is what the current law does.

Now we dont want confusion so…
Is it easier to say Man = Woman no matter what the cast/religion/region/culture is or is it easy to say:

In Hinduism - man = woman
In Christianity - man = woman
In Islam - man = woman
In Jainism - man = woman
In Buddhism - man - woman

Why are we bend on dividing the country on cultural lines, on religious lines….

Talking about practical solution - yes it is not that easy to implement as too many people have vested interest. Just imagine what will happen if tomorrow we change the constitution to say man=woman? well yes the religion and its leaders will no longer have any say in the what happens in the religion - so of course they will cause all the trouble they can…

Just think if tomorrow you dont need to follow any kind of religious law’s to get married/divorced/inheritance…basically the religion will loose its power over you - and loosing the power to control almost a billion people is just too hard for any one to digest!

About this divide and rule policy of most of our politicians…I hope you have heard of the Lion and Buffaloes story! The politicians/religion/culture/cast is keeping us divided … so that they can feed on us one by one.

If India can achieve so much in the past 60 years of independence - just think how much more India could have done as a country?

@JMJ

That is a good point. I could not have been able to explain it better.

Yes. We. Can.

[...] 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 community. One main sentiment that we have seen in our discussions that most of our friends expressed is the [...]