In today’s Lok Sabha session, delegates debated over the practicality and feasibility of implementing Uniform Civil Code on Indian citizens to change personal laws. After the session, one thing is clear : “Secularism is just a word to hide the hindu nationalist sentiments of the Modi Govt” pointed out by Gaurav Gogoi.
In an issue like this, as clearly stated by Rahul Gandhi, there can be no real neutrality. Some communities will have to bend over in search for uniformity, which will evidently end up being the minority, with a hindu nationalist party being the majority.
Throughout today's session, a multitude of points were raised, both in favour and against India's lack of a UCC. One of the most important points that was raised was “Is the implementation of secularism really secular, if it’s oppressing minorities?” by none other than the president of the INC, Sonia Gandhi. She went on to explain how UCC would be a way to curb religious freedom of minorities, something that is granted to the people by the constitution. This was poorly countered by Jyotiraditya Scindia who stated that the first law reformed by Nehru was a Hindu personal law.
For the BJP, today’s agenda was simple. Overpower the opposition with their overwhelming majority, by backing up every weak point raised by their party. This was seen when there was unanimous voting towards the topic "If not UCC then what?", a motion raised by a BJP member, but when the time came to speak, the response from their side was underwhelming.
Nupur Sharma, the ex spokesperson of the BJP claimed most minority religions had aggressive laws that could only be controlled by the implementation of a UCC. This is days after she was caught making offensive comments about the Muslim Prophet. After that, can we really take what she says as constructive discussion, or is it just Islamophobia?
After debating over whether or not UCC could be implemented, the debate turned to alternatives for the UCC, and whether or not they would be sustainable in a country as vast and diverse as India. Points were raised by Tejasvi Surya, who loudly exclaimed that triple talaq and polygamy were sustainable, before clarifying that he was being “sarcastic”. Asaduddin Owaisi raised questions about “If you are not able to win wars on the borders of our country, why are you trying to start new wars in it”, restating the issue of communal violence. He and Tejasvi Surya had a heated debate about this point, with the former also attacking the latter’s character, to which Tejasvi raised a right to reply, and lost.
Jyotiraditya Scindia tried to come up with ways to implement the UCC, most of which did not hold up under scrutiny. One of the ways was to take the “best of all worlds” while picking and choosing laws, that would be ultimately decided by a separate board. But, would the board be able to represent all the people of India, and not just make laws that represent the majority?
Throughout the first session, BJP leaders were called out multiple times by the Chair for being disruptive and not following decorum, banging the table unnecessarily, raising abusive slogans and overall showing disrespect.
In the second session, Mamta Banerjee spoke about how it is the Modi Govt and “his buddies in RSS” that decide the framework of the UCC. She added that “Throughout our time in the session there has been no point made on how it will be implemented, who would be given that power to alter the laws, what laws would be considered ''wrong”? This lack of information brings us back to believe in the fact that BJP has been known to misuse the law”
After a lot of beating around the bush, Yogi Adityanath finally suggested forming a separate committee which would have a proportional amount of representation of all communities, to which Nitish Kumar aptly replied that it would just be like a subset of the Loksabha. Yogi added that if it were to be implemented, they would do it in a few BJP controlled states, for 3 years. This raises the question of how “uniform” the code actually is.
So what would the BJP actually implementing the UCC imply for minorities in India? Rahul Gandhi raised the problem of Hindus being in majority in the country and would be in the mentioned committee leading to the suppression of the minorities.
For instance, Ramesh Potria suggested to ban the madrasas, which are an integral part of muslim culture and its propagation. Every BJP leader went on and on about Islamic laws and how they would need to be reformed. The opposition retaliated with facts about how the Ramayana and Mahabharata are taught in CBSE schools as a part of their coursework. To this he countered by saying that it was just the “history of the nation”. So in the future, will this enforce the “hindu past” of our nation, with muslims seen as invaders?
These hindu nationalist propagandas of the Modi government lead to uncertainty and fear amongst the minorities.
Is UCC just a cover up for making the whole nation follow hindu personal laws? If UCC is implemented, will India remain a secular nation, or will it turn into a majority dominated state.