A common civil code spelling equality for every Indian

The 22nd Law Commission has called for responses to a proposal for a Uniform Civil Code in India. The antiquity of India’s customs and the diversity of its peoples are both brought up to make a case for tip-toeing around the existing personal laws despite their unequal rights for men and women. The demand that sections of the population, whether tribal or Muslim, are entitled to separate personal laws even when they are gender unjust fails to acknowledge that they are equal beneficiaries of India’s democracy. Complacently confining the discussion of India’s personal laws within a Hindu-Muslim binary, leaves unrecognised the potential to empower a wide section of the population through their drastic overhaul. The combination of uniformly gender unjust personal laws and a disempowered LGBT population points to the advantage of having a universal civil code which encompasses all Indians.