As Rajasthan mulls UCC, activists say genuine concern, not poll dividends, should be guiding spirit

Jaipur: The Rajasthan government is mulling bringing in the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in the state following Uttarakhand's decision to table and pass the UCC Bill. Women rights activists, however, say the spirit of the code should be genuine concern for women and not for scoring political points, especially before the general elections.

Cabinet minister Kanhaiya Lal Choudhury, who said such a bill is the need of the hour, informed the Assembly yesterday that Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajanlal Sharma has given his consent to bring in the Bill in the Assembly. He said, “If time permits we will bring it in the ongoing session or else in the next session.”

Emphasising the need for UCC, state education minister Madan Dilawar also said that a proposal for forming the draft committee for UCC Bill would soon be sent to the Cabinet. He said different laws for different communities do not do justice and hamper unity.

Exempting the Scheduled Tribes from its purview, the Bill proposes a common law on marriage, divorce, inheritance of property and live-in relationships for all citizens, irrespective of their religion. UCC is one of BJP’s main poll agendas, which it plans to implement at least in BJP-ruled states ahead of the general elections.

Goa is the only state (which has the Goa Civil Code) which governs its residents in regard to laws on marriage, divorce and succession. Muslims who register their marriage in Goa are prohibited from engaging in polygamy and triple talaq. The Goa Civil Code is based on the Portuguese Civil Code and introduced in Goa in 1867.

For Muslims, the UCC is going to affect the marriageable age as UCC proposes to raise the marriage age from 18 to 21 for both men and women in line with the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 and the Special Marriage Act, 1954. This issue has been debated in courts as Muslim law allows puberty, around 13 years of age as the age of marriage.

On succession, the nature of testamentary succession through a will and intestate succession i.e. in the absence of will, will change drastically for Muslims. Currently Muslims may bequeath up to one third of property to anyone of their choosing through a will. The remaining property or the entire property when there is no will, then would be divided in accordance with Quran and the Hadith, which is basically to ensure that legal heirs are not entirely dispossessed. However if UCC is implemented, then if the deceased person does not leave behind a will, then there would be no restriction on how much of their property can be bequeathed or to whom. The UCC draws from the Indian Succession Act, 1925, retaining a majority of the provisions.

The practice of bigamy or polygamy are outlawed in the UCC Bill. It places a condition for marriage under Section 4 of the Bill that neither party can have a living spouse at the time of their marriage. The proposed code also criminalises certain Muslim marriage practices such as Iddat and Nikah Halala, without explicitly naming them.

Zakia Soman, founder of Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) and a women rights activist, told Deccan Herald, “Looking at it objectively, UCC has gender justice at its heart. In itself, it is a good thing especially the legal protection part, the raising of marriageable age, banning of bigamy, polygamy, unilateral divorce, equal share to daughters and sons."

"But the key point is that the spirit of the code should be genuine concern for justice for all women, irrespective of religion and not for narrow political gains just before the elections. Its spirit should not be antagonistic to any religion, especially minorities. It should build trust amongst all communities and not alienate minorities. Like registration of marriages and live-in is a progressive thing but not possible for poor people. The reforms in family laws have to come from within. Although the government doing it is the next best option. But it cannot be drastic, must be consultative. It should create a place where law and society move together. It should address the patriarchal and misogynistic mindset against women and take into account the social and legal factors before implementation,” she added.

Noorjehan Safia Niaz, one of the co-founders of BMMA, which has for long demanded that halala marriages be declared invalid and made a punishable offence, told DH that although their organisation has been demanding mandatory registration for Muslim marriages, ban on polygamy, “There is no openness and clarity till now as regards to equal inheritance, adoption, and other issues which would affect Muslim women. What would be in it for the benefit of the Muslim women? We have a 25-point demand for the betterment of Muslim women but many of those have been overlooked. So we need a wider debate, in Assembly, in Parliament nationally before we adopt the UCC. What would be the basis of it? It cannot be abruptly implemented. It has to be adequately debated and discussed.”

For the Hindus, the key change would be in the process of succession. If UCC gets implemented there would be no difference between ancestral property and self-acquired property for intestate succession. Also, partners in relationships would have to compulsorily register with a Registrar for starting and ending a relationship, a record of which will be kept in police stations. The code also proposes a six-month jail term for not producing a certificate of the relationship. In essence, the Bill seeks to equate heterosexual live-in relationships to the status of marriage.

Kavita Srivastav, national president , People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), told DH: “The implementation of UCC would be a disaster. It takes away autonomy, criminalises constitutionally legal adult behaviour. It is simply moral policing. It does not remove inequality in any way and is going to affect the minorities, especially the Muslim community.”