Investigation: Dealing with many complexities of Uniform Civil Code

Disclaimer: The opinions, beliefs and views expressed by the various authors and forum participants on this website are personal and do not reflect the opinions, beliefs and views of ABP News Network Pvt Ltd. The Allahabad High Court’s comments, declaring triple talaq unconstitutional and violative of the rights of Muslim women, has confounded the confusion over divorce among Indian Muslims as divorce for Muslim men and women are governed by two different archaic laws of the colonial era. Fortunately, a draft blueprint for a uniform civil code /universal bill of rights for citizens has recently been prepared by Islamic scholar and modernist, Tufail Ahmad, and two concerned citizens, Satya Prakash and Siddharth Singh, who were motivated by the common desire to protect Muslim women and their children from the disruptive consequences of whimsically uttered words. While it is understandable that political parties should prize the Muslim vote-bank above justice for individual citizens, it is shameful that social activists and human rights activists have for dodged the issue of uniform civil code, while loudly proclaiming their secular credentials.While many communities and groups in India have lived by their personal laws since 1947, these have increasingly veered towards progressive laws passed by Parliament from time to time. Continuing in this vein, the document challenges the unequal inheritance code intrinsic to Muslim personal law where girls get only one-fifth of the share of brothers in the father’s estate, and asserts that all persons, irrespective of gender, religious persuasion or sexual orientation, shall inherit equal share in ancestral/parental property, have equal right to adoption and will not bring up the adopted child as per their religious beliefs, and shall have equal right to succession.