Today’s first session of Lok Sabha was like any other – uproars, gagged MPs, blame games, and most importantly, very little productive discussion.
In a dramatic development, Nupur Sharma appeared in public for the first time after her infamous incident, to be a part of this Lok Sabha session. She engaged in the session as if she hadn’t recently been part of the biggest religious scandal in a while.
There seemed to be incompetence all around. Multiple MPs spent more time on asking how the motions and points worked, rather than being a part of fruitful discussion. Special mention can be given to Manohar Lal Khattar, who didn’t utter a single word apart from the “Present” in the roll call. Even the rapporteur was messing up while noting down names for the speaker’s list, which was the only job he had.
The committee consisted of two wings: the pro-UCC wing and the anti-UCC wing. The pro-UCC wing consisted primarily of mostly-Hindu BJP MPs, who wanted to take the “best” of the religious laws, abolish the “evil” laws (which includes beef and hijabs) and put them into a uniform code. But unsurprisingly, there was little thought about how such a system could be implemented.
The anti-UCC wing consisted of opposition MPs, mainly Congress MPs who couldn’t seem to agree on a common stance: Rahul Gandhi was against a UCC of any form, while other MPs such as Shashi Tharoor seemed to be in favour of a UCC – just not at this particular point of time.
A concerning development arose early in today’s proceedings, where it was revealed that the pro-UCC wing, led by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, were planning to push their agenda through by the strength of numbers. The pro-UCC bloc was given specific instructions to vote against every single motion, paper and resolution introduced by the anti-UCC bloc, and thereby push their agenda through.
In the General Speakers’ List, the BJP MPs talked about wanting to replace the fragmented laws of different religions with a secular law, and put human rights first. They zeroed in on the Muslim laws they deemed evil, all the while singing praises about how they removed the Triple Talaq Bill. The anti-UCC bloc brought up the issue of minority oppression, and pointed out how it is unfeasible to cater to the needs of all religions. Some MPs, most notably Rahul Gandhi, opposed the UCC purely because in its current state, it was highly polarizing and BJP-centric.
Nitin Gadkari brought up the topic of removing “evil” and “unfair” religious practices from society, and instead of being concerned about the subjectivity of such terms (which Rahul Gandhi of all people rightly pointed out), Akhilesh Yadav was incensed by the usage of “evil” to talk about religious practices, going so far as to raise a “Right to Reply” on the matter. He was quickly gagged, which serves him right for his utter ridiculousness.
Kiren Rijiju was so desperate that he even decided to bring up 1954 Census (1954 - yes, you saw that right) stats into his argument about polygamy rates. These “stats” were brushed away as they were as irrelevant as himself.
After the Speakers’ List, it took ages for the committee to agree on a motion, as the delegates kept bringing up frighteningly long and unfeasible motions. After what seemed like an eternity, they finally agreed on “Alternatives to UCC”.
In this session, while Rahul Gandhi only found it necessary to change in some of the personal laws of different religions, the pro-UCC bloc brought up the redundancy in needing to change these laws in several religions, which made the UCC better in their eyes. They once again brought up the topic of UCC rescuing minorities from persecutive laws of their religions. A notable point was brought up by Shashi Tharoor regarding the need to “convince the leaders of these religions to bring about those changes in their followers.”
But for every reasonable opinion, there was a nonsensical one. Farooq Abdullah suggested that the final call for any change in law “must be taken by the religious authorities” and in case of any conflict, “the religion’s law must be referred to”. In a situation where those very laws are oppressive to the victims, this could lead to devastating consequences.
The track record of one “right to reply” for every formal session continued as on this occasion, Kiren Rijiju viciously attacked Tejaswi Surya, slamming his hypocrisy and his derogatory remarks on women, and brought up certain misogynistic tweets he had made in the past. He commented that Surya has no right to be talking about matters of gender equality and these laws. Tejaswi Surya could come up with no other argument, other than that these arguments were “politically motivated”. He was shunned even by his own bloc and party members, and was swiftly gagged by the committee.
Little noteworthy progress was made in this session, apart from the laying of the groundwork for future session. The author hopes that future sessions are more productive for the sake of the country’s progress.