PM Modi should pass Uniform Civil Code to cement his legacy forever

In his book The Turbulent Years, current President and Congress stalwart, Pranab Mukherjee wrote that opening the Ram Janmabhoommi Temple site and overturning the Supreme Court verdict in the Shah Bano case were two of former PM Rajiv Gandhi’s biggest mistakes.

On April 23, 1985 the Supreme Court of India passed a judgement in the Mohammed Ahmed Khan v/s Shah Bano case, in which it ruled that the former had to give his 72-year-old wife alimony after divorcing her through triple talaq. At that time, as it does now, there was no uniform civil code and under Muslim Personal Law, a husband wasn’t required to pay alimony beyond the period of iddat (90 days after the divorce during the period when a wife isn’t allowed to remarry).

The Rajiv Gandhi government, which had a staggering majority in Lok Sabha (404 out of 553 seats after winning the 1984 General Elections), took its most regressive step to overturn the SC judgement and instead enact the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act 1986, which was thoroughly vilified and in Mukherjee’s words eroded Rajiv Gandhi’s image as a modern man.

While Mukherjee now has the maturity to observe how the judgement prospered the concept of much-vilified vote-bank politics, the reactions to the Modi government’s decision to consult the law commission over the implementation of the UCC show that opposition parties will cry wolf till the cats come home over the move.

Not surprisingly, this led AIMIM’s Asaduddin Owaisi to dub the decision a move to turn the nation into a ‘Hindu Rashtra’, while Congress – completely oblivious to the damage the Shah Bano case had done to their image – claimed it was a move to create an atmosphere of communal polarisation before UP Elections. Congress’ Abhishek Manu Singhvi said: “If it is political stuntbazi, we condemn.”

In its election manifesto in 2014, the BJP had promised the UCC and written:

“BJP believes that there cannot be gender equality till such time India adopts a Uniform Civil Code, which protects the rights of all women, and the BJP reiterates its stand to draft a Uniform Civil Code, drawing upon the best traditions and harmonising them with the modern times.”

In short, if the BJP-led Centre manages to push through the UCC, or whatever it wants to call it, it will be its greatest legacy.

Interestingly, the move assumes greater significance because the SC had also said it would prefer a wider debate over the constitutional validity of ‘triple talaq’, which many claim is abused by Muslim men to arbitrarily divorce their wives.

The anomalies due to the lack of UCC means that issues like personal status, rights related to ownership and property and issues like marriage, divorce and adoption are often different for different religions. While we’ve already seen how the issue can affect divorce, it even affects marital age as the Gujarat High Court once pointed out that the Child Marriage Act overrides Muslim Personal Law. If there was a universal code in place, different courts wouldn’t be forced to interpret each instance and decide what a religious code decreed. 

Any party therefore which opposes a common code should be viewed with suspicion and called out for its vote-bank politics. Irrespective of the circumstances of one’s birth or their chosen gender, religions, caste or sexual orientation, a democracy has an unalienable duty to treat each individual equally. Now equality might not be natural phenomena, and it’s unlikely we’ll ever completely eradicate inequality from the society but in the eyes of the law, all individuals should have the same rights.

It won’t be easy, but Modi more than anyone else will know that nothing comes easy. The man who has fought his way to the highest position in the land, knows it’s a huge task which will be opposed by a host of individuals, even some members of his own party and religious organisations but if his government manages to pull it off, generations to come will remember his legacy forever. In some ways, it will be as monumental as Manmohan Singh opening up the economy. In 1985, despite holding on to 404 seats, the Congress and Rajiv Gandhi acted in a cowardly manner that has been criticised since. The BJP has a similar majority now, and history won't judge them too kindly if they fail to implement one of their most logical manifesto promises.