UNIFORM CIVIL CODE: PROFUSION OF PERSONAL LAWS AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF SECULARISM IN INDIA

Abstract

Koenraad Elst said that “In the west, secularism implies pinpricking religious fraud and arrogance, but in India, secularists are the most eloquent defenders of myth and theocracy. Western dictionaries defines secularism as absence of religions, there interpretation of this term is quite contradicting from Indian perspective. In India secularism does not mean irreligiousness, it means plenitude of religions. The western interpretation of ‘secularism’ cannot prevail in a pluralist society like India. Secularism is accommodative and pluralist . Secularizing India has to begin with a uniform civil code that ensures equal rights to all citizens without exceptions. “Religion impinges on every human rights in the civil law whether its birth, death, marriage, divorce,  the religions have laws on all of these,” and so making India secular necessarily means demarcating religion out of our social institutions . 

Uniform civil code or UCC, these three words are enough to break the nation into overwrought exultation and agitated wailing. This civil code creates an atmosphere which divides the nation politically, socially, religiously. There can be many interpretations of this code but being a law student I would like to consider the legal implications of UCC. I strongly support the crusade for the implementation of UCC not because of any bias, but because it is the need of an hour. It is high time that India have a uniform law dealing with divorce, marriage, succession, inheritance and maintenance. The very first initiative taken by the supreme court of India concerning UCC was in the year 1985, where S.C in the case of Mohammad Ahmed khan v. Shah Bano Begum directed the parliament to bring UCC from the shadows where it was buried since its initiation in 1950. The issue was that whether a Muslim Woman is entitled to claim maintenance under Sec. 125 Cr.P.C81. It was held that Muslim women are entitled to claim to maintenance under section in 125 Cr.P.C. This is a secular provision and the benefit is available to every citizen irrespective of their caste or religion etc. It was further held that although the Muslim law limits the husband’s liability to provide for maintenance of divorced wife to the period of Iddat, it does not contemplate the situation envisaged by section 125 of the code of criminal procedure. The court held that it would be incorrect and unjust to extend the above principle of Muslim law to case in which the divorced wife is unable to maintain herself. The then chief justice Y.V Chandrachud observed that “A common civil code will help the cause of national integration by removing disparate loyalties to law which have conflicting ideologies.”