Urgency for a 'Uniform Common Civil Code' in India.

Three recent instances in the past week highlight the urgency for a ‘Uniform Common Civil Code’ in India.

Delhi high court in a recent judgment held the marriage of a 15 year old Muslim girl to be legally valid, rationale being the validity of such marriage under the Shariah Law. Under the Shariah law, as long as a girl has attained puberty, she is eligible to be married. In the eyes of the High Court, the Shariah Law supersedes other laws wherein legal age for a girl to get married is 18 and sex with a girl younger than 18 is punishable under the criminal law as statutory rape. Predictably, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board welcomed the ruling.

In an unrelated but coincidental incident, the Home Ministry at the Central level asked State Governments to try and post Muslim Police officers in areas with high Muslim concentration. One could only hazard a guess on what prompted this directive but a common sense interpretation would be that Central Government believes it is hard for Muslims to trust Hindu police officers and therefore they need to be put in hands of officers who share their faith.
In the last but probably the most significant incident, the Minorities Commission (read Muslim Commission) asked the government to allow Islamic Banking. RBI had earlier opined that Islamic Banking is not possible under the current regulatory framework. Finance Ministry has apparently asked the Central Bank to amend the regulatory framework to gradually allow roll out of Islamic Banking.

These three incidents highlight the fragility of our society and intellectual bankruptcy of our political system. Our constitution rightly recognized India as a secular country where everyone was free to practice any religion. Our constitution however stopped short of imposing a Uniform civil code on all fearing widespread religious riots. Through multiple articles, the Constitution deferred provision of a uniform civil code to the future generations and left resolution of conflicts between personal (religious) and national laws to the interpretation of judiciary.
Passage of Hindu Marriage Act and various other codes secularized all communities in India and brought them at par with the modern times. Muslims were the only sizeable community that did not agree to any sort of reforms and remained outside secular code. Reason being; mainstream politicians (read Congress Party) saw an uneducated, poor and antiquated Muslim community as a perfect vote bank that could be exploited forever while the guardians of the Muslim community (the Muslim Law Board and various other Muslim representative bodies) saw a large Muslim population living in the gilded age as passport to disproportionate power and influence and unending source of illegitimate money.

Whatever the argument may be for the Muslim community to be still living outside the purview of common law, the reality is we might now be entering a point of no return. If some of the State Governments are to indeed start policing Muslim areas with Muslim officers, would it be too farfetched to expect Hindus to disregard Muslim officers and vice versa on a much larger scale. Similarly, if a 15 year Muslim girl can be legally married, who would have the motivation to zealously go after underage marriages among Hindus and pursue those self proclaimed jurors (Khap Panchayats etc) seeking to enforce the ridiculously ancient rules regarding marriage, divorce and treatment of women among Hindus. Further, if Muslims can have Islamic Banking, what moral authority would the State have in preventing other religion or community based institutions that strictly design and provide services along such lines.
These are not isolated incidents. Our politicians and self-serving minorities’ commissions are using democracy as a tool to deepen the divide along religion, caste, language and regional lines. Rather than talking about gradually phasing out or restricting reservations, we are debating reservation in the Private Sector and extension of reservations along religious lines. We still frequently have riots for divisions and renaming of States and Districts along various allegiances when the real focus should be for growth and development.

It is time we demand a uniform civil code for everyone that is based on universally accepted principles of human dignity and take religion out of the State. Uniform civil code is the first step in unifying and creating a modern civil society that is the most fundamental pre-requisite for well-functioning of a democratic system. I know it is easier said and immensely difficult to be done but if we do not start the conversation now, we may well have passed the red line and the price to be paid to bring about the correction may turn out to be prohibitive or just way too high.