The Phantom of the Opera

Veeresh #1

England, France, and a couple of Scandanavian countries (probably Holland too, but I am not sure) allow separate Muslim personal law. In England such courts are even called ``Shariat Courts``. In other countries Muslims are struggling to establish their separate code. In US and Canada the geographical dispersion of Muslims is the biggest hinderance in the establishment of seprate personal law.

If there is one thing that makes me envy India, is its constitution that allows for a separate Muslim personal law. Similarly it also accomodates the Hindu personal law along with the secular civil code. This makes it the most egalitarian constitution in the whole wide world after the Ottoman legal code (Shariya law) which also guaranteed such egalitarian dealing. This is a unique and brave experience in the modern world. And I must say that this feature of Indian constitution makes it more Islamic in nature as compared to any constitution of any so-called contemporary Islamic country.

Law and legal codes are evolutionary process that keep on changing with time. Islamic law is no exception. I agree with Zafar to the extent that there is a need to ``modernize`` these laws but this change must come from with in. And I certainly don`t agree with him that a uniform legal code must be adopted.

I see that some with their slave-mentality agendas, who are those who cannot concieve that brown man can do anything good i.e. so called peudo-secualrs and hindu extremeists in their blind religious hatred of anything & anyone non-hindu want to change that. The day they will succeed, I think, will be the saddest day in the history of modern India.

Zafar,

Emotional bondage to any of our past heritages/links is always going to muddle the current need for upliftment of our society. Whether its UCC or any other comprehensive law that can provide free and impartial justice to one and all, we should move ahead with it.
I`m for a UCC, but the one written by an impartial panel of experts. Not one laid down under the shadow of any religion.

Faruk #7,
That was a good one from Vir Sanghvi.

Adios

This common civil code is a lot of balderdash. The only law that gets implemented in India is the law of Badmaashi. What India needs is less laws that are implemented rather than more that are not.

Faruk: I agree with your point about economic integration. If Muslims are smart, they will trade off the UCC etc for reservation quota in government jobs. That certainly is one way to achieve upward mobility.

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Zafar,
Good article. I totally agree with your points. As usual, both the BJP and the pseudo secularists are looking to politicise the Supreme Court`s remarks, for their own political benefit.

Here is a nice article on the subject from Hindustantimes

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_334911,00300001.htm

Towards A Uniform Civil Code
Vir Sanghvi
August 10

Here`s the funny thing about the debate over the uniform (or common) civil code: nearly everybody who has contributed to it over the last fortnight has said almost the exact opposite of what ideological consistency demands that they should say.

Take the Hindutvawallahs. Their broad position is that the idea of a secular India is a non-starter and that the sub-continent really consists of two nations: a Hindu nation and a Muslim nation. (In essence, this was also the position adopted by M.A. Jinnah and the Muslim League in the 1940s.)

To stick with this position, they should then logically claim that as Hindus and Muslims are two different nations, two different cultures and perhaps, two different peoples, then they should also have two different personal laws.

But of course they don`t say that. When it comes to a uniform civil code then they quickly adopt the rhetoric of their secular opponents, talk about one India and one personal law. Suddenly there`s no notion of two nations or two cultures.

As ideologically inconsistent is the secularist position. If you define secularism in the sense laid down by Jawaharlal Nehru (rather than the sense invented by Mulayam Singh Yadav), then the essence of India is that we are one nation. We may follow different religions (and we should be free to do so), and we may speak different languages but when it comes to the law, we are equal.

A harijan is entitled to the same privileges as a brahmin. A Muslim is as much a citizen of India as a Hindu or a Sikh. We may bend the laws and rules slightly to accommodate religious sensitivities (letting Sikhs off the obligation to wear motorcycle helmets for instance) but these will be exceptions rather than the rule. The essence of a secular state is one people under one set of laws.

And yet, today`s Nehruvian secularists don`t take the logically consistent position and recognise that 50 years after independence, it is absurd to have a Hindu marriage act or a Parsi family law or a set of Muslim personal laws. As long as these laws remain in the statute books, we`ll always be Hindus, Muslims, Parsis, Sikhs, Christians or whatever. We`ll never become Indians.

Instead, they go to the other extreme. They argue that the adoption of a uniform civil code would be a blow against secularism. The key to secularism, they suggest, lies in keeping religious laws alive.

These apparent logical inconsistencies are only resolved when you go beyond the stated agendas and follow the subtext beneath each publicly proclaimed position.

The Hindutvawallahs are not really saying ``we are one nation with one set of laws``, no matter their rhetoric. What they are really saying is this: ``yes, we are two nations. The Muslims have got theirs in Pakistan. But we Hindus were done out of ours by secularists like Nehru who insisted that India would be a secular rather than Hindu state``.

Their position on the civil code follows from this unstated position: ``we are a Hindu nation no matter what the secularists may claim. And if Muslims want to live in Hindu India then they should follow a Hindu civil code. If they want their own personal law then they should go to Muslim Pakistan.

The secularists engage in the same kind of double-speak. In their hearts they know that it makes no sense to have so many religious personal laws. Worse still, many of these Personal Laws, as the furore over the Shahbano case demonstrated, are regressive and deeply unfair to women. So that`s not the real reason why they oppose the adoption of a uniform civil code.

Their concern is entirely different and it centers on the Muslim community. One of the greatest failures of Indian secularism — and let`s face it, till 1996, the Congress pretty much ran the country with only a few brief interruptions — has been its inability to draw the bulk of the Muslim community into the national mainstream. The majority of India`s Muslims today remain poor, badly educated and under-represented in most spheres of activity, from the all-India services to the lists of India`s top industrialists. (Muslims account for over 12 per cent of our population, yet their representation in nearly every area is much lower.)

One consequence of this has been the ability of unpleasant, narrow-minded leaders to hijack the community by preaching a divisive kind of politics. (And I don`t just mean the Shahi Iman kind of person; the Samajwadi Party and the BSP are hardly models of progressive politics and yet, they attract Muslim votes.)

These leaders have convinced India`s Muslims that no matter how poor they are, no matter how much discrimination they face, they will be all right as long as they retain their own identity by following a Muslim Personal Law. The provisions of this Personal Law mean nothing to most Muslims — the most quoted provision is the right to have four wives but all studies show that many more Hindus have multiple wives than Muslims — but the very existence of this law is treated as a badge of independence for the community.

When secularists say that they oppose the adoption of a uniform Civil code, what they really have in mind is this. They fear that Muslim leaders will rouse the community into protesting against the removal of Muslim Personal Law; that many, if not most, Muslims will feel that Hindus are discriminating against them. And that these consequence will damage Indian secularism.

Hence the irony: you must be unsecular and uphold religious laws to protect Indian secularism.

I don`t think that the secularist fears are necessarily groundless. Just as Hindus have our nutcases, our Sadvi Rithambharas and our Togadias, the Muslims also have their own fanatics and maniacs. It was this kind of person who created an unnecessary furore over the Shanbano judgment in the 1980s and ensured that many Hindus were fooled into believing that the essence of Muslim Personal Law lay in the right to keep marrying new wives while refusing to pay maintenance to the old ones.

But my point is this: how long are we gong to deny the importance of secular values merely because we think that it is expedient not to give Muslim politicians another excuse to provoke their community?

One of the things that went wrong with Indian secularism in the 1970s and 1980s was that we lost sight of first principles. Every decision was subject to the pressures of so-called Muslim public opinion (such as the ban on The Satanic Verses) and a desire to win votes by appealing to the lowest common denominator.

Push a secularist, show him the constitution and he will usually concede that a uniform civil code is a good thing in principle. But, he will add, the time is not yet right.

Not yet? Not 56 years after independence? Then, when will it ever be right?

I hold no truck with the Hindutva approach to a common civil code. No civil code will work in a secular country like India if it involves just copying out Hindu Personal Law. But that doesn`t mean we can`t adopt a civil code that incorporates the best features of all religious personal laws. Why can`t a commission be set up — to draft a secular civil code for a secular India? Why is that, necessarily, `anti-minority?`

I doubt very much if Hindus will object too much if certain aspects of Muslim Personal Law are incorporated (judging the sangh parivar`s envy of the `four wives` provision, they might actually welcome one or two lifts from Muslim tradition). Nor do I see Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and the like objecting to a single, secular, progressive code.

The problem will, of course, be the response of the so-called Muslim leadership. Even if care is taken to study Muslim Personal Law and incorporate its best bits in the new code and even if the body that drafts the new law has substantial Muslim representation, there will still be those (and that includes cow-belt political parties headed by Hindus) who will seek to make political capital out of the view. They will be the usual cries of `discrimination` and of `Islam is in danger.`

But a strong society and a confident nation should be ready to take that risk. If we are fair in our dealings, and we are true to the principles on which this country was founded, then we should fear nothing and let nobody — no matter how noisy — prevent us from dong what is right.

Secularism is about protecting the minorities. But it is also about creating an India where religion remains a personal matter. And where the law and the state treat all men and women, no matter what their caste or creed, in exactly the same way. That`s what a uniform civil code will represent.

Re Article

Zafar,
I for one am in favor of the uniform civil code. What’s right for one Indian is right for others. The current debate was sparked by a Christian who felt the same way.

Regards,

Faruk

Common law for every one - just like the rest of the world. Not based on any religion.

If it is religious based law - then their is no end. Emotions get involved and further bifurcations begin - like the Sunni zakat Law - the Shia zakat law - etc - etc - as in Pakistan.

Pakistani Law, which is now quasi-religious in many areas, is unjust and cruel not only to the non-Muslims but also to the Muslims.

Dear Zafar,

(Like your handle, btw)

Point by point:-

a) Your interaction with flesh & blood Indians needs to appreciate that Togadia & ilk are probably as relevant to the man on the street Indian as are a vast variety of Muslim clergy. Sure, there will be bloodbaths and there will be aberrations. Those are under no circumstances ``pogroms`` as the message from Nashqbandi tries to portray.

b) If you cannot see the Hindu-Muslim etc bhai bhai slogans anymore, it is because the vast unwashed hordes have got quite tired of shouting it on behalf of their ``phantom leaders``. It is my take that more and more are simply practising co-existence (call it integration if you must) as the rooftops go increasingly deep blue (from previous green/saffron).

c) A step by step attempt has got us nowhere in 56 years, probably made matters worse. The only people who benefit from such time-pass are the phantoms you choose to evangelise.

d) In non-Mughal India, most of South, East, North, Cental, and West India, royalty India, upper-middle class India, government service India, Armed Forces India, infotech India, electoral India, media India, taxi & auto-rickshaw driver India, milkman and dhobi India, Dharavi and Salt Lake India, Hamdard Roohafza India, Railway India, porters for Amarnath India, daily-wager India, farm labourer India, bangle-maker India, banker India, and a variety of other Indias, Muslims are as well integrated as anybody else.

e) In some remnants of relics thrownback to Mughal India, there is a solid resistance to any sort of integration, we keep hearing bleats about Qaum Khatre Mein hai, and your resistance, or rather your batting on behalf of those who are against a UCC, is relevant only and only there. Deobandi, Barelvi, all these are not representative of India anymore, are they? They are there, they have their role (whatever it is) but they do not become the benchmark?

As I have said before, Zafar Anjum, let my people go.

regards/Veeresh

re: Zafar Anjum

A well encompassing article.

Uniformity of a legal codex is fraught with problems and these problems are always present in a multicultural society. I would agree with you in the sense that a better option would be harmonize the Muslim family laws within the Indian civil code itself and from that, to gradually move towards legal intergration. The concept of seperate but equal laws always end up being more unequal and this code, if taken in its rightful intention can adress those injustices. On the other hand, intergrating Muslim rights and laws within the gambit of a uniformal legal code will not solve the concerns of inequalities and the denial of legal rights and protections.

Even more pressng than the issue of legal intergration within one law is the need to seek a more benign economic intergration for the Muslims in the Indian society. As long as the Muslims resist joining the Indian economic mainstream on the basis of having their own political and cultural niches in the Indian society, they will need the logic of seperate but equal laws. The example of Candian Quebecois is quite telling in this regard. A minority that wants political equality by creating a seperate (legal) electorate for itself makes it problematic for itself to fully intergrate in the economic life of its nation. The tragedy of the Muslims of India, historically, has been that they have equated political apartheid on the basis of an economic agrument, without realizing that economic reality and criteria for progress does not account for a seperate but equal status quo.

The best means to uniformalize the Indian legal code would be for the Muslims to intergrate themselves fully into the Indian economic life and to use their influence in the Indian economic rubric as a lever to influence the protection of their legal and political rights and to use their economic influence to safe guard their minority status. Muslims minority status in India will always be under threat, politically, as long as the Muslims lack economic influence in India to articulate their political rights and ensure those rights. Politics and laws are the extension of economics by other means and the Muslims have to understand this maxim and its implications.

Ciao

Zafar Anjum:

A concise but all-encompassing coverage indeed!

If the populace can be enacted into unity & uniformity then a lot many enforcers ( in & out of uniform) be out on the street--jobless & perkless.

The divorce principal is in vogue today and masculinists ( those women seeking equality with men--feminists, to my uneducated mind, is the wrong label for it) are crying hoarse that sometimes peacful separation is far better than a traumatic coexistence. No one can ever dispute such insightful observation--I don`t. Some of them even go further and say that a union should never ever have happened to begin with & should not be encouraged to happen anymore.
Granted, but the question remains that what to do with the egg which is now an omlette.

In simple and even simplistic parlance the whole exercise is not as noble as pretended. Ceasing & desisting from certain policies & practices can achieve more for harmony than piling up act upon acts.

As Shaw quipped:`` Motion, my dear, is not necessarily action``.

Dear Mr. Malik,

Thanks for your comments. Please be sure that I am not writing on behalf of the phantoms.

My article is based on my interactions with flesh and blood people. Nowhere in my article I have said that I am against a uniform civil code (``... why deny this to those of us who choose to stay in India?). It is a complex issue. My humble suggestion is to start a step by step reform in the personal laws. I guess this will pave the way for the UCC. After all, some headway is better than no headway.

[``...and if you won`t respond, never mind, I shall understand``--Well, you are a genius.]

Best regards,

Zafar

In other countries Veeresh babu they do not get slaughtered in government/state led pogroms simply for being Muslims and nor are they told that either you become like us or you can go to the graveyard or to pakistan...

..therefore i`d imagine they feel very threatened for their identity and wish to preserve it and separate family law is one aspect of this...allahu alam.

Dear Zafar Anjum,

Do Indians living in other free and democratic and multi-society countries insist on and get separate laws for themselves?

To the best of my knowledge, all Indians of all religions accept the common civil code of their adopted countries.

Then why deny this to those of us who choose to stay in India? Please speak for yourself when you respond, not on behalf of phantoms.

yours sincerely, and if you won`t respond, never mind, I shall understand.

Veeresh Malik