India leader demands uniform civil code

INDIA should replace marriage and inheritance laws based on religion with a uniform civil code, the chief minister of a northeastern state said last Sunday (1), taking aim at rules that allow Muslim men, for example, to have four wives.

Successive governments have steered clear of adopting such a code for fear of angering voters. But members of prime minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its hardline affiliates want to roll out the code in some states to gauge the strength of any backlash prior to a national push.

“A majority of the Muslim people that I have met want a uniform civil code,” said Himanta Biswa Sarma, the chief minister of the state of Assam and a senior member of the ruling BJP.

“No Muslim woman wants her husband to marry three to four wives ... just ask any Muslim women and they will endorse what I am saying,” he told Reuters.

More than 30 per cent of Assam’s population of about 34 million belongs to the Muslim community. The code, which aims to unify and implement personal laws, will apply equally to all citizens, regardless of religion, sex, gender, and sexual orientation. Legal matters of marriage, divorce and inheritance are now governed by different religious rules.

Sarma said he favoured the code as a way to end regressive religion-based rules and empower Muslim women who cannot easily challenge polygamy in the courts.

But critics see the code, which has figured in some BJP election manifestos, as part of the party’s efforts to deliver on its agenda and boost anti-Muslim sentiment.

“There is no need for the government to debate over Islamic religious practices,” said SM Siddiqui, a professor of Islamic studies in Mumbai.