International Courant
NEW DELHI — 9 months earlier than the final election, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Occasion (BJP) have brushed apart a probably divisive plan to enact a typical set of private legal guidelines for all, no matter faith.
At the moment, Indian Hindus, Muslims, Christians and main tribes observe their very own private legal guidelines and customs, along with an non-obligatory secular code, for marriage, divorce, adoption and inheritance.
The Legislation Fee, a government-appointed advisory physique, requested public opinion on Friday about making a Uniform Civil Code (UCC). It had obtained greater than 5 million responses on-line by the eve of the deadline.
The BJP says the widespread code is critical to make sure gender justice, equality via uniform software of private legal guidelines, and to advertise nationwide unity and integration.
“If there’s a regulation for one member of the family and one other for an additional member of the family, can that household perform easily? How can a rustic perform with such twin programs?” Modi mentioned at a BJP rally late final month, simply days after coming back from state visits to the USA and Egypt.
The remarks had been his strongest proponent of the widespread code and induced a political storm.
Critics name the push for a typical civil code a cynical try and divide communities and consolidate Hindu votes for the BJP forward of the 2024 common election. Supporters, together with some Muslim ladies’s rights teams, say reform is desperately wanted to finish to discriminatory Muslim practices.
“The concept is to ship a message to the bulk neighborhood so you possibly can preserve the bulk neighborhood polarized in favor of the BJP,” mentioned Mr Sanjay Kumar, political analyst and psefologist – an individual who research how folks vote in elections – at Middle for the Examine of Improvement Societies in New Delhi.
“It is a type of software to divide and mobilize,” he mentioned.
India’s Muslims, the nation’s largest minority of about 200 million of its 1.4 billion inhabitants, are largely vehemently against the plan.
Whereas no draft of the UCC has been offered, BJP leaders have mentioned it’s primarily associated to the reform of Muslims’ private legal guidelines as different private legal guidelines have progressed over the many years.
Many Muslims say they see it as interference with historical Islamic practices and one other weapon for a majority political celebration they accuse of being anti-Muslim.
Modi from India causes political storm with pitch for widespread civil code
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