Tag Archives: Uniform Civil Code

Culture, Feminism, Genders, Islamophobia, Law, Religion, Right watch

उत्तराखंड महिला समूहों का बयान उत्तराखंड समान नागरिक संहिता (यूसीसी ड्राफ्ट बिल)

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समान नागरिक संहिता के विधेयक के मसौदे पर उत्तराखंड महिला समूहों का यह बयान हम यहाँ छाप रहे हैं ताकि इस ख़तरनाक़ बिल पर और बहस हो सके।

6 फरवरी 2024

उत्तराखंड महिला समूह और प्रतिनिधि राज्य विधानसभा में पेश किए गए इस विधेयक को पूरी तरह से खारिज करते हैं।

  • संवैधानिक व्यवहार को अपराध बनाने वाला, नैतिक पुलिसिंग का परिचय देने वाला विधेयक अस्वीकार्य है।
  • प्रस्तुत हिंदूकृत समान संहिता विधेयक का एजेंडा सभी वर्गों के परिवारों में असमानताओं को दूर करना नहीं है, बल्कि मुस्लिम अल्पसंख्यक और वयस्कों के स्वायत्त व्यवहार को अपराधी बनाना है।
  •  मांग करें कि यह स्थायी समिति के पास जाए।
Continue reading उत्तराखंड महिला समूहों का बयान उत्तराखंड समान नागरिक संहिता (यूसीसी ड्राफ्ट बिल) →
Culture, Feminism, Government, Islamophobia, Religion, Right watch

Uttarakhand Women’s Groups’ Statement on the Uttarakhand UCC Draft Bill

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[We are publishing this response of the Uttarakhand Women’s Groups to the Uttarakhand Draft for initiating further debate.]

  • The Uttarakhand women’s groups and representatives reject this Bill in toto, in the form introduced in the State Assembly.
  • A Bill criminalizing constitutional behaviour, and introducing moral policing is unacceptable.
  • The Bill which is predominantly a cut paste from the Hindu family laws, does not remove inequalities in family across the spectrum of religious and secular laws, but criminalises the Muslim minority and autonomous, consensual behaviour of adults.
  • Demands that it is sent to the Standing Committee for further deliberations.
Continue reading Uttarakhand Women’s Groups’ Statement on the Uttarakhand UCC Draft Bill →
Culture, Debates, Democracy, Feminism, Genders, Government, Identities, Law, Politics, Religion

Response to Law Commission of India on UCC: Feminist Working Group on Law Commission Submission on the UCC

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In response to the LCI ‘s invitation to “stakeholders, including public and recognised religious organisations” to share their views on the Uniform Civil Code, some feminist groups and individuals came together in Delhi on July 4-5 2023 to draft a considered response. The UCC has been debated in feminist circles for decades, and a broad consensus has gradually emerged since the 1990s that gender justice and not uniformity should be the focus of reforms of laws pertaining to family, whether governed by Personal Laws (religious communities) or customary laws (Scheduled Tribes). The following response emerged on the basis of these discussions, which in turn drew on the long history of serious engagement with the issue in feminist circles for decades.

To,

The Hon’ble Chairperson and members,

Law Commission of India

14 July 2023

Sub: Response of feminist, queer and women’s rights groups and individual feminists to Public Notice of the Law Commission of India dated 14/06/2023, soliciting views on the Uniform Civil Code (UCC).

Respected Chairperson and members of the Law Commission of India,

We, the undersigned, write to you as representatives of feminist, queer and women’s rights groups, as well as concerned citizens, who have been working on issues related to gender justice and equality for women from diverse communities across the country. We draw upon our collective experience over many decades, as we respond to the current discussion on the proposed Uniform Civil Code.

Our submission is in three parts:

  1. Concerns related to the procedure adopted to initiate these discussions by the Law Commission of India (LCI).
  2. Comments on substantive issues of uniformity, equality and non-discrimination vis à vis gender justice.
  3. Governing principles for any efforts towards gender justice for all

Continue reading Response to Law Commission of India on UCC: Feminist Working Group on Law Commission Submission on the UCC →

Everyday Life, Feminism, Law, Right watch

Uniform Civil Code – Once again, where is gender justice?

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This article appeared in The Hindu today

For nearly eight decades, the women’s movement has discussed and debated the desirability and feasibility of a Uniform Civil Code (UCC), and has ended up posing a simple question – what is the value of uniformity? Is it for the “integrity of the nation” that uniformity in laws is required, as some judicial pronouncements have suggested?  If so, who exactly is the beneficiary? Which sections of people benefit from “integrity of the nation”, that abstract entity which is not exactly at the top of your mind as your husband throws you out on the street?

Or are uniform laws meant to ensure justice for women in marriage and inheritance?

In that case, a UCC would simply put together the best gender just practices from all Personal Laws. So yes, polygamy and arbitrary divorce would be outlawed (a feature derived from Hindu Personal Law). But conversely, as feminist legal activist Flavia Agnes has often pointed out, a UCC would require the abolition of the Hindu Undivided Family, a legal institution that gives tax benefits only to Hindus, and all citizens of India would have to be governed by the largely gender-just Indian Succession Act, 1925, currently applicable only to Christians and Parsis.

Muslim Personal Law is already modern in this sense, since it has since the 1930s, enshrined individual rights to property, unlike Hindu law, in which the family’s natural condition is assumed to be “joint”. In the decades of the 1930s and 1940s, contrary to later discourses about Muslim law being backward, it was Hindu laws that were considered “backward” and needing to be brought into the modern world of individual property rights. Continue reading Uniform Civil Code – Once again, where is gender justice? →

Debates, Feminism, Law

Debating Muslim Law after Shah Bano – the Model Nikahnama Initiative: A Suneetha

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Guest Post by A SUNEETHA continuing the discussion on Uniform Civil Code on Kafila.

In popular imagination Muslim women’s unequal position in marriage is symbolized by cases such as Shah Bano or Imrana. It is understood this is the result of the religion-based Muslim personal law and the rigid control of women by the community in general and ulema in particular. Not many are aware that the same religion-based marriage law also offers tools for changing Muslim women’s position in marriage. In the last ten years, an ordinary document that every Muslim couple signs at the time of marriage – nikahnama or marriage contract – has assumed such a role. It has been innovatively used to initiate discussions and push for changes in the community’s thinking about the Muslim women’s position in marriage. In these efforts, a large number of “religious” and “non-religious” Muslim groups got into a conversation and set off a consensus-building process on the issue of a Muslim woman’s “entitlements”.

This discussion assumes importance in the context of the ongoing debate on UCC.  The debate on the UCC entered a new phase when, unhappy with the removal of Muslim women from the ambit of S 125 Crpc that guarantees all divorced women a minimum maintenance and the promulgation of a separate provision for divorced Muslim women called Muslim Women’s Maintenance Act 1986, many women’s groups renewed their demand for a UCC in 1990. Such a Code, it was hoped, would bring marital equality to women of all religions. When the Bharatiya Janata Party hijacked this demand to castigate Muslim men, (as if Hindu men were free of misogynist and patriarchal behaviour), such a hope was irretrievably lost. In the post-Babri Masjid demolition period, when there were pogroms against the Muslim communities, such a law would have found it impossible to garner support from the Muslims, especially if it were made by the BJP dominated Parliament. As anyone familiar with law knows, a consensus is important for law-making so that it is accepted and followed. But the changed situation of unparalleled parliamentary dominance of BJP brings newer challenges to all those working on issues of gender justice in all communities.

Muslim women were caught in this unenviable position since the 1990s – of having to address their own situation – under-age marriages, non-payment of mehr, arbitrary talaq, cruelty in marriage, maintenance after talaq, multiple marriages of men, resistance to women’s employment etc. while taking care that the Muslim men are not vilified further. Continue reading Debating Muslim Law after Shah Bano – the Model Nikahnama Initiative: A Suneetha →

Debates, Feminism, Law

A Response to ‘Uniform Civil Code – the women’s movement perspective’: Rohini Hensman

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Guest Post by ROHINI HENSMAN

Nivedita has done us all a service in kicking off a wider debate on personal laws than the ones which have been taking place within feminist groups. One of the most important points she makes is that we have correctly moved away from the demand for uniformity. Uniform laws need not be either gender-just or secular, which is what we are aiming for; indeed, patriarchal theocracies have extremely uniform family laws! She has also raised several other questions that need to be discussed. I look at some of them here in the hope of taking the debate forward.

Polygamy: Unless polyandry is also allowed, polygyny is not gender-just, and ought ot be opposed. The fact that the vast majority of Muslim women, who are directly affected by the existence of legally sanctioned polygamy, are opposed to it, makes this an obvious move for feminists. To support polygamy on the grounds that it offers more protection to second or third wives sounds like a perverse argument. If we accept it, we should also be demanding that polygamy be made legal in other personal laws! Second or third wives would surely be better protected by being able to sue their fake husbands for fraud and get hefty damages.

Contractualising all intimate relationships: Although legal recognition of stable non-marital relationships would be desirable, contractualising all intimate relationships may not be such a good idea. Continue reading A Response to ‘Uniform Civil Code – the women’s movement perspective’: Rohini Hensman →

Debates, Feminism, Law

Uniform Civil Code – the women’s movement perspective

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The BJP has once again raised the issue of a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) for all Indian citizens,  posed in a way that presents the BJP as ‘secular’ and pro-women, and opponents as communal or ‘pseudo-secular’ and anti-women. Since Independence, there has been very little change in the contours of the debate in the public domain, both within the BJP as well as among public intellectuals not necessarily aligned with the Hindu Right. The only change that has come about since the 1990s is that the UCC is now also posed as a ‘women’s rights’ issue and not only as a matter of national integrity, which requires the eradication of multiple legal systems. This new equation of ‘women’s rights’ with the UCC is at least partly a result of the interventions by the women’s movement in the debate in the 1990s. However, within BJP (and mainstream) discourse, it is assumed that only minority women need saving, for ‘we Hindus’ have already given ‘our’ women equal rights.

The women’s movement has developed this debate in complex and multiple directions over the decades, which this essay will briefly outline.

The debate over the UCC in contemporary India is produced by the tension between two notions of rights in the Fundamental Rights (Part III) of the constitution. The bearer of rights is both the individual citizen and the collectivity – the former is the subject of Articles 14 to 24 which ensure the individual’s rights to equality and freedom and the latter of Articles 25 to 30 which protect religious freedom and the educational and cultural rights of minorities [1]. It is from the latter that religious communities derive the right to be governed by their own ‘Personal Laws’. Since these Personal Laws cover matters of marriage, property inheritance and guardianship of children, and since all Personal Laws discriminate against women, the tension in Part III of the constitution can be read as a contradiction between the rights of women as individual citizens and those of religious communities as collective units of a democracy. Continue reading Uniform Civil Code – the women’s movement perspective →