Thursday, February 13, 2025

Satya Column: Who is practising vote bank politics?

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Nowadays we find political outfits provoking people without understanding the need for the Uniform Civil Code under consideration by the Centre. It is not proper to have one law for one group and another one for another group. How can a house be run if one member of the family is bound by one law and another member by another law?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while addressing booth-level BJP workers in Bhopal, passed the foregoing comments, which have historic significance. Modi has clarified the party’s stance on the Uniform Civil Code. The BJP has been advocating Uniform Civil Code (UCC) for decades. It included UCC in its poll manifestoes for 1998 and 2019. Besides scrapping Article 370 relating to J and K and initiating the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, the BJP has been advocating implementing UCC across the nation for long.

Upon being voted to power in 2014, Modi focussed on these three aspects. Consequently, initiation of Ram temple construction has been a success in Ayodhya and Article 370 has been scrapped in Kashmir. Now, the item on the agenda that is yet to be accomplished is UCC.

Dr BR Ambedkar too had argued clearly that the citizens of the country should be bound by UCC. Other leaders like KM Munshi and Alladi Krishna Swamy Iyer also argued in favour of it. As per the Directive Principles of the State Policy, under Article 44, it is mentioned that UCC should be implemented across the nation.

The Congress never bothered to pay attention to it. Adopting the British rule of divide and rule of Hindus and Muslims, the Congress indulged in vote bank politics. In independent India, laws have been passed exclusively for the Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs, but the Christians and Muslims were exempted from the purview of the law.

The Supreme Court, in its verdict in the Shah Bano case in 1985, ruled that irrespective of people’s faith, they should enjoy some universal rights applying laws to them equally. According to the Supreme Court, All India Criminal Code rules are applicable to all citizens, irrespective of their faith, on the issue of taking care of wife, children, and parents.

However, the Congress government of the day passed law in Parliament challenging the Supreme Court verdict in the Shah Bano case and left the decision on Muslims’ lives to a private body called the All-India Personal Law Board and exploited the Muslims’ sentiments to its political benefit.

When people of a certain faith are prohibited by law to practise bigamy, how can people of other faiths be allowed to practise it? Why should not people of all faiths follow the rule that sons and daughters enjoy equal rights to inherit the property from parents?

Even in Sarala Mudgal case of 1995, the SC prohibited males to convert to Islam to take more than one wife. If UCC is in force, such undesirable developments could be checked, the apex court said. The freedom to practice religion should be in tune with the honouring the Fundamental Rights of the people, gender equality and the right to dignified life, ruled the SC in 2018 while deciding a case pertained to the Indian Young Lawyers’ Association. The apex court made it clear that the fundamental rights would prevail over religious traditions when the fundamental rights and religious traditions clash. Moreover, it said that people of no faith would have any right to conduct themselves according to their whims and fancies. The SC questioned the government as to why people should not have equal rights on issues like divorce, inheritance, adoption, and guardianship.

The Constitution advocated implementing UCC for all. The Union government offered to refer the issue to the 22nd Law Commission. The SC has been questioning the Union government for the past three years on the religious freedom of the people and personal laws. The Sabarimala case brought to the fore several aspects of the religious freedom of the people, At last, the 22nd Law Commission, issued notice to the people inviting their opinions on the enforcement of the UCC.

It is atrocious to note that the Congress party kept the Muslims backward to use them for its vote bank politics and adopted an appeasement policy offering quota for Muslims, releasing funds to finance the Haj pilgrimage of Muslims, giving precedence to Muslim personal laws, not prohibiting cow slaughter, ignored Hindus’ clamour against growing Muslim population, and ignored the Ram Janmabhumi movement.

Whereas the Narendra Modi government is firm to ensure that people enjoy their rights equally, irrespective of their religious background. As part of the exercise, the Centre freed Muslim women from triple talaq, using which Muslim men get rid of their wives.

Like the Congress, the Trinamool Congress, the Samajwadi Party, MIM, YCP, and BRS also have been practising Muslim appeasement policies. These parties are not voicing their views before the Law Commission. The Congress found fault with the Law Commission going into the issue.

Then, who is practising vote bank politics in this country? Who is driving a wedge between people of various faiths?

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