Why does the BJP want to implement Uniform Civil Code in India?

Ground Report| New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wants to implement the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) to build ONE NATION, ONE LAW the secular personal laws of the citizens, it's necessary for India to be United. After successfully executing the revocation of special status Article 370 to Kashmir and the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, the BJP will be looking to implement another long-pending agenda – the Uniform Civil Code (UCC).

“Even after 75 years of independence, we are not able to bring in a Uniform Civil Code. Government urged to bring and implement UCC”, BJP MP said.

BJP wants to implement Uniform Civil Code

The political harbinger would like to replace the personal law that governs matters such as marriage, divorce, maintenance, adoption and inheritance has always been a controversial issue as most communities have their own set of laws. In parliamentary Election 2019, BJP’s manifesto figured it out and promised to execute it.

BJP MP Kirori Lal Meena’s attempt to introduce a private member’s bill on the UCC in the Rajya Sabha last year was stalled by the opposition on the grounds that it could lead to communal tensions at a time when protests were being staged against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), which intends to fast-track the grant of Indian citizenship to minorities from Muslim-majority Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Uniform Civil Code

The UCC arose from Article 44 of the Directive Principles of State Policy in the Indian Constitution (DPSP policies can’t be imposed on the people) – which recommends the state to secure for its citizens a uniform civil code in the Indian territory. India already has a uniform civil code in the form of criminal and economic matters; individuals accused of committing a crime will be treated the same irrespective of religion, community, or gender.  Similarly, business deals and other trade-related agreements are governed by common civil law.

India is a diversified country that envisions a common set of civil laws on matters such as marriage, divorce, adoption, inheritance and succession for all citizens of the country, irrespective of their religion.

Article 25 of the Indian Constitution gives freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion. The Indian Constitution makes it clear that India is a secular country and secularism means equal treatment of all religions by the state, unlike the western concept.

UCC does not mean imposing a Hindu code on every religion. It is only in the case of personal laws that successive governments have dithered from implementing a uniform code.UCC means to bring in better things from different codes together and the most modern system that we have in our country needs to be also involved with other religious things. Goa is the only state which has the UCC  regardless of religion, gender, caste. In Goa Hindus, Muslims, Christian all are bound with the same law related to marriage, succession, divorce. 

Delhi High Court strongly advocated for UCC, In this order passed on July 7, Justice Pratibha M Singh said, “Modern INDIAN society has gradually become homogeneous. The traditional shackles of religion, caste and society are gradually disappearing. Therefore UCC only there should be no hope.”

In the Shah Bano case of 1985, the Supreme Court said, “The hope expressed in ARTICLE 44 that the state holds secure for its citizens ought not to remain a mere hope.”

Reality of today

This is a harsh reality that polarization is spreaded in the country either in twitter, television, parliament, panchayat, rural areas or urban areas. There is one topic only religion. It's not only in one community who is opposing UCC.

Some people have the perception that UCC changes things happening in the country. But first the modernisation of the idea is needed in our self.

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