BJP's rhetoric on Uniform Code undermined by its silence on laws favouring majority

Uniform Civil Code goes against the grain of freedom. No government should tell you or me what I eat, drink, wear of believe. The Government can and must hold you responsible for messing with others food, space and loved ones. This is the arrogance of one group over the other showing them their place - this is the evil of the society we need to work on eradicating.

Mike Ghouse
www.MikeGhouse.net

HINDU APOSTASY LAWS?

Courtesy of  Scroll

rom apostasy laws to differential tax rules, there is no dearth of legislation in India based on religion. Adding these to its reform list would make the BJP’s job of introducing a UCC that much easier.

Shoaib Daniyal · a day ago

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s resounding win in the Lok Sabha elections has brought one of its pet issues back into focus: the establishment of a Uniform Civil Code to replace the current system by which followers of different faiths are subject to religious personal laws relating to marriage, inheritance and other matters.

In theory, the argument that religion should play no role in the laws of a secular republic is difficult to refute and indeed the establishment of a progressive legal code would do much good. But in practice, the BJP’s rather high-pitched espousal of the UCC has perhaps done more harm to the cause than help it.

The party’s portrayal of religious personal law as the one barrier standing between India and “true” secularism is hyperbolic. The situation is far more complex. Contrary to common knowledge, religious personal laws in India have not been static. Significant parts of these codes, especially those relating to minority communities, have already been reformed as a result of legal intervention resulting from cases challenging these statutes.

For instance, despite Rajiv Gandhi’s decision to reverse a court decision in 1985 Shah Bano case ordering a Muslim man to pay his wife maintenance, the courts have reaffirmed the rights of Muslim women to alimony. The egregious triple talaq rule was overruled in the Shamim Ara case in 2002, which held that the husband did not have a unilateral right to verbal divorce when there was “no substantial evidence” of the man having pronounced the three words.

It is rarely acknowledged but there are a number of other provisions in India that work on explicitly religious or communal principles, all of which are also in urgent need of reform. On these the BJP has maintained a studied silence, in some cases even propagating them. The notable provisions are listed below:

Gujarat’s apostasy law: it might come as a surprise that India has an apostasy law, but in 2003, a time of great communal polarisation, the Gujarat legislature passed the Freedom of Religion Act, a wonderfully Orwellian name for a law that restricts religious freedom. The act made it mandatory for a person converting to another religion to take permission from the district magistrate first. Only if the district magistrate is convinced that the convert has undergone a true religious transformation is the change allowed. That an ostensibly secular state sits in judgment of whether a person’s religious choice is true or fraudulent might have been funny, if it wasn’t for the four-year jail sentence the law carries.
Gujarat’s Disturbed Areas Act: In Gujarat it is illegal for Hindus and Muslims to enter into a property transaction unless it has the permission of the government. As of 2013, 40% of Ahmedabad was notified under the act. While religious ghettoisation is a fact in most Indian cities, this legislation makes it official government policy.
Religion-based reservations: A Presidential Order dating back to 1950 makes all non-Hindu Dalits ineligible for Scheduled Caste reservations, saying only Hindu Dalits can avail of reservations in government jobs, higher education and legislative bodies. This was amended to include Sikh Dalits in 1956 and Buddhist Dalits in 1990, but it has still not been extended to the other religious groups. This also means that Christian and Muslim Dalits are not protected against anti-Scheduled Caste atrocity legislation.
Tax breaks on the basis of religion: A well-known yet oddly uncontroversial measure, the Hindu Undivided Family provides, in the words of T Ramanujam, “almost a perfect medium for tax avoidance”. It is open only to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists.

Though legal intervention is helping to reform religious law, the process is slow and haphazard, very often depending on the interpretation of a single judge. In such a situation, the establishment of a standard, progressive UCC would help by speeding up the reform and making them available to all Indians at a stroke. As the reform of Hindu personal law in the 1950s showed, the benefits of such a move would be wide-reaching.

Given the physical insecurities of religious minorities in India, however, introducing a UCC will be difficult. It is strange that the party that is its greatest proponent, the BJP, simultaneously champions theological issues such as temple construction and the mainstreaming of Hindu systems of medicine. This has led to fears that the UCC will be used to marginalise the interests of minority communities while submitting to majoritarian impulses.

If it is serious about introducing a UCC, the BJP, and consequently the government, must adopt a principled stand against all religion-based laws, working concurrently to remove discriminatory legislation, such as those discussed above. In this bundled approach lies the best chance of introducing a uniform code.

Uniform Civil Code in not the Panacea

UCC IS NOT THE PANACEA
Uniform Civil Code for all Indians
Mike Ghouse

Our Laws punish one for murdering, stealing, raping and robbing. Has that stopped the violators? Bribery is a crime, has that stopped any politicians and a government servant from taking bribes? Don’t most people contribute to that behavior?

How many shameless men have an illegal second woman on their side? Certainly, more in numbers than the ones who have a second wife? The spousal abuse continues, the shameless men say that a woman is like a man’s footwear, that a woman must be kept in place. Dowry continues to be a demoralizing aspect of our society leaving several young girls remains single and some times victims of bad guys.

It takes time to bring about a social change. Many have suggested that UCC is the panacea; the real question is, is it?

The reasons Muslims were allowed to marry more than one wife are gradually disappearing; historically during wars many a women became widow and bad guys took advantage of them, they do that in every place in the world, instead of leaving them on street to beg and sell their flesh, the Muslim society wanted to give them dignity and respect; Women who cannot get married due to financial difficulties, it was a respect shown to them; Marriages that did not bear children and several social reasons. The condition was that the first wife must approve the other marriages to prevent a guy from marrying for sex, as marriage is a social institution.

Our motivation to change the laws should be driven by goodness to every one and not depriving some one from their right. Both sides dig in their heels and it becomes a power struggle, one wants to strip the rights and the other wants to challenge. Those that are small in their minds make it their business t to hassle Muslims, without verifying the facts on the ground. They need to clean their hearts from ill-will.

If there is goodwill, things will change. Less than a fraction of Muslims marry more than one woman, it is rarity and we should not base our laws on rarities. There are a higher percentage of men in India having more than one woman in their life, illegally of course.

All of us need to come together as Indians, not as Hindus, Muslims and others to have a generational plan, a 20 year plan to create societies with fewer problems. These values must be incorporated into our education system without derailing the existing one.

Mike Ghouse is a Speaker, Thinker, Writer, Moderator and a Blogger on Pluralism, Interfaith, civil societies, Terrorism, Peace, Islam, and India. He is a frequent guest on talk radio and local television networks offering a pluralistic perspective on issues of the day. His comments, news analysis and columns can be found on the Websites and Blogs listed at his personal website www.MikeGhouse.net Mike is a conflict mitigater and a goodwill nurturer. The theme is consistent in his speeches, writings and workshops he conducts.

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Convert to Islam, bypass bigamy laws?

21 Jun 2009, 0446 hrs IST, Insiya Amir, TNN
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Convert-to-Islam-bypass-bigamy-laws/articleshow/4681888.cms
Most people famously proclaim that love is their religion, but there are some who use religion for love. Perhaps one such is Haryana's former deputy chief minister Chander Mohan, who became Chand Mohammed to marry his new love Anuradha Bali.

Mohan was with Seema Bishnoi, his wife of 13 years, when he met and fell in love with Bali. The Hindu Marriage Act 1955 does not allow a man to take a second wife so Mohan converted to Islam. So did Bali. Both dropped their Hindu names and assumed Muslim ones.

She became Fiza Parveen. And thus began a salacious soap opera played out before the media - Mohan abandons Fiza, who attempts suicide. She accuses him of playing with her sentiments and using religion to make a mockery of her love. He returns to Bishnoi, then dramatically goes back to Fiza. Was religion used and abused to commit adultery?

It is not the first time a high-profile Hindu couple has converted to Islam to 'marry' even though the first wife is alive. More than two decades ago, film stars Dharmendra and Hema Malini married secretly. Women activists protested against the "illegal" marriage. Dharmendra, they pointed out, was already married and had teenaged children. But in order to give legitimacy to his union with Hema Malini, the couple had converted to Islam.

Advocate and activist Neelofar Akhtar says that such conversions and marriages are made worse because they both are a "sham". She points out that "there are no strict laws to register a conversion (so) people are misusing the religion to have more than one wife. In all Muslim countries, there are very stringent rules if a man wants to take a second wife". But in India "it is done this easily. There is need for a regulatory body to monitor such misuse."

Akhtar makes a good point. In 1995, the Supreme Court ruled in the Sarla Mudgal case that under the Hindu Marriage Act 1955, a Hindu husband cannot marry a second time simply by embracing Islam without lawfully dissolving the first marriage. He would be guilty of bigamy, the Court ruled.

V Mohini Giri, chairperson of the social service organization Guild of Service and former head of the National Commission for Women, says, "Dharmendra's wife Prakash Kaur could have fought her case in court. But, like most Indian women who have been conditioned to ultimately accept their husbands' mistakes, she didn't complain and the controversy died down". Giri has been trying to close a loophole that allows a Hindu man to have more than one wife by simply converting.

"There is a law now that all marriages should be registered, regardless of religion. However, that is not being properly implemented. While we know of only high-profile cases like that of a married Raj Babbar tying the knot with Smita Patil, there are scores of ordinary women who have been abandoned by their husbands who have misused Islam," she says.

Akhtar says the only change is that "women are becoming more financially independent and aware of their rights".

She says forgotten first wives now "gather the courage to divorce their husbands or at least ask for maintenance if they remarry".

Change of a sort then. But not enough.

Qn: What is the greatest punishment for bigamy?