Q.  Recently, a two-member bench of the Supreme Court asked the government of India what steps it was taking towards formulating a Uniform Civil Code.  Is this not a step in the right direction and what is the CPI(M)’s stand?

A.  This is not the first time that the Supreme Court has raised this question.  It has done it on different occasions and under varying circumstances.  This time it was in response to a Christian gentleman who had appealed to the  court to reduce the ‘waiting period’ before a divorce could be granted to one year from two and who had cited the example that Hindu couples had only to wait for one year.  Earlier, the Supreme Court had raised the issue when Hindu women whose husbands had abandoned them and married others after converting to Islam had appealed for justice to the Court.  It should be noted that nothing stops the SC from passing judgments in these cases.  Conversion for the purpose of bigamy is not permitted and not considered conversion; the ‘waiting period’ for Christians could also have been reduced.  The enactment of a Uniform Civil Code is not necessary for these welcome steps to be taken and many such steps have been taken in the past that have given relief to Muslim women with reference to maintenance and bigamous marriages entered into by their husbands.  These have always been welcomed by the Left, by the women’s movement and others and have not elicited much opposition from conservative sections either.

It is a fact that many sections of different Personal laws are not gender-just and discriminate against women in matters of inheritance, custody and guardianship of children, divorce etc, and the issue of a Uniform Civil Code is often used to attack particular minority communities, especially Muslims, as being anti-women.   It is necessary, however, to understand the history after Independence of, on the one hand, the struggle for gender justice within communities and, on the other, on the attitude of the government of the day to the demand for gender justice from different communities. During the  Constituent Assembly and parliamentary debates on the issue of removing the injustices that Hindu women suffered in matters of inheritance, guardianship and custody of children, divorce, widowhood, child marriage etc, it was none other than members of the Hindu Mahasabha and the Jan Sangh (whose present-day incarnations are the greatest proponents of a Uniform Civil Code)  who were the most vociferous opponents of any change in what they held to be Hindu Law based on religious texts.  The reforms could only be introduced piece-meal over many years and Hindu women’s equal right to inheritance became a legal reality less than a decade ago.  It must be emphasized that despite the changes in the law, Hindu women still suffer much injustice and discrimination in practice – child and infant marriages are rampant in many parts of the country, the demand for and the taking of dowry is still the greatest unchecked and least recognised crime.

The struggle for gender justice is a long and difficult one and even changes in laws often remain on statute books, invisible on the ground.

In such a situation, the slogan of a Uniform Civil Code which is raised whenever gender injustice meted out to non-Hindu women is discussed, actually becomes a red herring that deflects attention from the serious and difficult debate and struggles that women of all communities are waging and gives a handle to the conservative sections of their communities to oppose such struggles.

Several decades ago, within the Christian community, large numbers of women and men worked along with sections of their clergy to draft amendments to the Christian laws that discriminated against women.  Despite the widespread support that the move had from within the community, the government did not and would not bring in the necessary legislation in order to appease fundamentalist groups within the community and its clergy.  The much-needed reforms are still on the back-burner.

Similarly, many women’s organisations like AIDWA and courageous Muslim women’s organisations like the Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan have been campaigning for change in Personal laws that discriminate against women like the laws permitting unilateral talaq in one sitting, polygamy, denial of guardianship rights etc.  Signatures of lakhs of Muslim women supporting these demands have been collected several times and submitted to the government.  They have not even been acknowledged.  Recently, the BMMA has conducted an intense campaign for codification of Muslim Personal Law and has brought out an important draft but no government has shown any interest in taking this effort forward. 

If the Courts took cognizance of these efforts of women belonging to minority sections, it would vastly help the cause of gender justice.

Today, in a situation of acute communal polarisation and increasing attacks on the minorities, especially Muslims, the slogan for a Uniform Civil Code – always raised as a war cry – only does a disservice to the cause of women’s rights because it makes an embattled community unite behind its clergy and conservative leadership which, in any case, are not supporters of women’s rights.  As a result, the question of gender justice gets marginalised.

Does that mean that the struggle for women’s rights should be given up?  Not at all.  There is a need for more and more gender-just secular laws to be enacted and enforced.  Recent examples are the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act and the Prevention of Sexual Harassment in the Workplace Act which apply to women of all communities.  Of course, the central and state governments have done little to implement these acts and there are campaigns in different states on this issue.  It is also true that many of the amendments proposed by the Verma Commission in the wake of the Nirbhaya case were rejected by parliament, for example the proposal to make marital rape a cognizable offence but an Act that was an improvement over the earlier law did come into being.

The struggle for a comprehensive law against so-called ‘honour crimes’ is being supported by the CPI(M).  Despite the fact that AIDWA and the NCW have prepared draft legislation, the central government is refusing to make the necessary enactment because of the political influence exerted by groups that are extremely regressive in their outlook towards self-choice marriages, inter-caste and inter-community marriages despite the constitutional and legal sanction that these enjoy.

The CPI(M) is committed to the struggle for equal rights for women in all fields.  It was one of the few political parties that took up the cudgels in support of the Shah Bano judgment.  Its state units are in the forefront in struggles against ‘honour’ crimes, caste and communal atrocities and also on issues of violence against women etc.  At the same time, the CPI(M) feels that the slogan of Uniform Civil Code is being used to further polarisation and not to end gender injustice.  Not even its vociferous supporters – the Hindutva forces – have done any homework on what such a Code would include.  How would it be made applicable and acceptable to not only religious minorities but also tribal communities, different groups with strong, emotional ties to their ways of marriage, divorce and inheritance which are often more progressive than what is on the Statute books? 

The CPI(M) would welcome and support a move to enact gender-just legislation applicable to all communities and also to its honest and serious implementation.