Fresh hue and cry over Uniform Civil Code , promoting regression to cement vote banks
Shekhar Datta
September 19, 2026
The union home minister Amit Shah seems to have stirred the proverbial hornet’s nest afresh with his recent announcement that by the year 2030 all the BJP-ruled states will implement the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), as mandated by the Article 44 of the constitution. Predictably, the practitioners of vote-bank politics in the clueless opposition have raised a fire-storm over the issue with the Tripura leader of the opposition and CPI (M) state secretary and politburo member Jiten Chowdhury proclaiming that he will not let this happen in Tripura. How far he will succeed or whether this will at all materialise in Tripura is a matter of conjecture as of now because the election to the state assembly is less than two years away.
What however flummoxes any observer of legal and constitutional evolution in the independent India is the political gymnastics of the opposition over the sensitive issue over the past seventy six years. The Article 44 of the constitution mandates that “the state shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) through the territory of India”. This provision which forms part of the Directive Principles (Part IV) which is not judicially enforceable remains unimplemented till now. But , read with Article 37, it is clear that Article 44 can never be a dead or dormant letter as Article 37 emphatically states that despite not being judicially unenforceable “…..the principles therein laid down are nevertheless fundamental in the governance of the country and it shall be the duty of the State to apply these principles in making laws”.
Besides, Article 38 (1) states unambiguously that “ the state shall strive to promote the welfare of the people by securing and protecting as effectively as it may a social order in which justice, social, economic and political shall inform all the institutions of the state”. This is only a reiteration of the basic constitutional principles enshrined in the Preamble of the constitution which forms part of the basic structure. Above all , the Article 51-A which mandates judicially enforceable fundamental duties categorically states in clause ‘e’ that the state shall strive “…. to renounce practices derogatory to the dignity of women”.
Given this constitutional position , where lies the justification for opposition to introduction by law of the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) which is in vogue in all modern democracies of Europe, America and large parts of Asia except in the medieval Islamic theocracies of Middle East and hate-spawned countries like the terror states of Pakistan or Bangladesh. Apart from this, the much-reformed Hindu Code Bill-1955-1956 had been enacted way back to reform the larger Hindu society. It was at that very stage that the President of the country Dr Rajendra Prasad and several other stalwarts of the freedom movement had called for introduction of UCC by way of reformation of the regressive Muslim personal law . But the then Prime Minister Pandit Nehru and later his daughter Indira Gandhi had dodged the issue , asserting that time was not ripe for the reform, only to perpetuate the pre-independence Congress policy of appeasement which meant abject surrender to the obscurantist forces in the Muslim community. The time for Congress and its lackeys in political forces has not come as yet, even though in a most bizarre way the UCC has been in force in the tiny state of Goa from before the liberation of the formerly Portuguese held territory in 1961 by Indian armed intervention.
Already , the BJP state governments in Uttara Khand, Gujrat and Assam have implemented the contentious Uniform Civil Code on the basis of recommendations made by expert committees of jurists , legal and constitutional specialists formed earlier . The government of West Bengal is well on course to following suit as are other BJP ruled states. In all these states tribal communities ruled by customary laws have been logically kept out of the purview of the UCC and if the process becomes a reality in Tripura, the indigenous communities with codified customary law will remain out of the new framework of law in matters of marriage, divorce, succession , adoption and son on.
What the opponents of UCC seem to conveniently forget is that ‘The Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act-1937 enacted by British parliament and introduced by the British government in India under bondage was designed to deepen and accentuate the societal faultlines in India in partisan interest of ‘divide and rule’. There is no uniformity in the Islamic ‘Sharia’ law which was drawn from prevalent customs in the Arabian desert society in the early medieval age and there are six known authoritative editions of the so-called legal structure with contradictions galore. Post the death of prophet Mohammed in 632 the Muslim rulers helped by clerics had introduced elements of their own choice in the ‘Sharia’ law structure and themselves violated them gleefully when convenient. It was more of a human flaw than divine law that can never have so many editions. Moreover, the ‘Sharia’ reduces Muslim women to shrouded non-entities as currently evident in Taliban ruled Afghanisthan.
In India the so-called Muslim personal laws had been sourced from a 12th century book ‘Hedaya’ and was later based on sets of orders and injunctions passed by Muslm rulers like ‘Fatwa-i-Alamgiri’ based on orders passed from time to time by Mughal emperor Aurangzeb (1658-1707). But the most amazing thing is that the self-appointed guardians of Muslim society always root for preserving personal laws of the community in the matters of marriage, divorce, succession, adoption etc but never raise the demand for introduction of ‘Sharia’ provisions in the matter of criminal law that provides for cutting off hands for stealing , stoning to death as penalty for adultery, caning for misbehaviour and provision for blood money for any offence including murder or retaliatory counter-measure etc.
Many Muslim countries including Saudi Arabia have started a slow but steady process of reforming obsolete and anachronistic laws but when will the Indian obscurantist Muslim leaders and their patron angels in the opposition parties will come around to let the constitutional provisions prevail for a democratic and legally egalitarian society in India? As of now, the bankrupt opposition in India seem to be labouring under the obsession that opposition to the government means all that the government does even if that means under-cutting the constitution , rule of equitable law and subverting the constitution by street veto.
For the judiciary, suffice it to say that the apex court in more than a dozen cases have deplored the absence of a parliamentary legislation on UCC but have never passed a mandatory order. The reason for this can be attributed to Article 372 in the constitution which safeguards the continuation of pre-constitution laws like the British enacted Muslim personal law of 1937. The solution to this lies only in the enactment of a new all-encompassing Uniform Civil Code (UCC) applicable to all communities with exceptions such as tribals with codified customary laws where necessary. The liberation of people from early medieval anachronistic culture and equal rights for all women cutting across communities and faiths must take precedence over petty electoral interests of political parties.
(Tripurainfo)
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