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In the wake of the 22nd Law Commission’s recent move seeking the views of public and religious organisations on the proposal for a Uniform Civil Code (UCC), several minority communities have opposed the UCC, which has also been echoed by various tribal sections.
A UCC is envisaged to provide one law for the entire country for all religious communities in their personal matters such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, adoption, child custody, alimony and polygamy, etc.
The Scheduled Tribes (STs), which make up over 8.6 per cent population of India (as per 2011 Census), have their own customs and traditions, even as their customary laws have also been codified in some states.
Even the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram (VKA), an RSS affiliate, has its reservations over the UCC, with one of its office-bearers telling The Indian Express, “UCC is going to have a huge impact on tribal life. We had written earlier as well and now also we are preparing our suggestions for the Law Commission.”
Among key points of discord between the UCC and tribals’ customary laws would be the minimum age of marriage, polygamy/polyandry, and succession, among other personal matters, which define the ST identities that vary in terms of tribe, region and state.
In its report in 1965, the Lokur Committee had recommended five criteria for identification of an ST community: primitive traits, distinct culture, geographical isolation, shyness of contact with the community at large, and backwardness. This is reflected in multiple instances, some of which are as follows.
🔴 While the legal age of marriage is 21 years for a boy and 18 years for a girl in the country, there are many tribes, such as Bhagorias in the Jhabua region of Madhya Pradesh, among whom marriages take place at much younger age. So, any enforcement of a 21/18-age bar would result in a large number of cases being slapped against them.
🔴 In many areas, the customary laws of tribals have been codified, while in several other regions they remain uncodified despite being practised widely. For instance, among Garo tribes in Meghalaya, the youngest daughter becomes the heir of the family and her husband comes to her house to live. Among Jaintia tribes, the married couple live with the bride’s parents. Among the Andman tribes too, daughters are heirs of their parents.
🔴 There are several tribes, including Gonds, Bhils, Oraons, Mundas and Santhals, who practise bigamy. Polyandry has always been a custom among the Garo, Gaddi, Galong, Jaunsar Bawar tribes, which is said to be phased out gradually.
🔴 Among Mundas, Santhals, Oraons, Gonds, Kols, Korkas, Bhils and some other tribes of the North-east and South and West India, daughters have no right on property but they are given compensation for living, like widows, if they need it.
Another VKA functionary, who is in top echelons of the BJP dispensation in Madhya Pradesh, says: ”The minimum 21-year age for marriage is almost impossible to be enforced among a large part of tribal population, except those in hill areas. Same is going to be the case with succession and polygamy and polyandry, which are part of the custom among many tribes. Before implementing UCC, the government must consider its possible impact on customs of tribals and their specific cultural identities.”
Since Independence, the RSS, BJP, and the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), the BJP’s erstwhile avatar, have kept raising the demand for the UCC, citing Article 44 of Constitution of India. When the Congress’s first government led by Jawaharlal Nehru brought the Hindu Code Bill, the BJS had passed a resolution on April 15, 1955 in its central working committee meeting in Gokak to “deeply deplore” the Bill which, it charged, was “in defiance of the public opinion without taking any mandate from electorate”. It had asked the Nehru government “not to act in this totalitarian manner” ahead of the general elections (1957), saying that while the Constitution “clearly enjoins the State to enact a Uniform Civil Code for all the citizens” the Hindu Code Bill was “making discrimination in respect of only one community”, which, it added, was “repugnant to the Constitution of India”.
Similarly, on the Hindu Succession Bill, the BJS’s Central Working Committee, at its meeting on October 23, 1955 in Delhi, took “strong objection” to the Bill, mainly its provision which stated that “illegitimate children shall be deemed to be related to their father if known and placed them on an equal footing with legitimate children”. It said that the Bill placed “female heirs in a better position than the male heirs and in some cases gives them more shares”.
The UCC issue has periodically been raised and discussed in Parliament and other public forums. Even Congress MP from Sorath, N P Nathwani, demanded on May 20, 1954 while taking part in a discussion in Parliament on the Special Marriage Bill, “It is important in view of the fact that it seeks to evolve a Uniform Civil Code for the entire country. It (UCC) is expected gradually to replace the present separate systems of law which govern different communities in the country.”
During the same discussion, C R Chowdhary, an Independent MP, said, “The only way to put an end to all these systems of marriages of citizens of a country is by evolving a common civil code applicable to all citizens irrespective of the religion, creed, caste or community. Therefore, as a first attempt to place on the statute book the common provisions applicable in the matter of marriage of all citizens by having a permissive measure of this nature is welcome.”
Governments also made several efforts in this direction over the decades. When asked about the UCC on August 16, 1966, then Union law minister G S Pathak, who later became the Vice-President of India, told the Lok Sabha: “Marriage and succession are the two important subjects which will form the subject-matter of the Civil Code. We cannot do it piecemeal, one by one. Let us obtain the opinions of the states and let us see what steps we can take.”
During the tenure of the Rajiv Gandhi-led Congress government, the then minister of state for law and justice H R Bhardwaj, on July 29, 1986, said, “The proposal to bring forward a voluntary Uniform Civil Code is under the active consideration of the government and as such it is not possible to give details of its main features at this point of time.”
While struggling to make its mark in Indian politics in mid-1980s, the BJP under L K Advani’s leadership came up with three issues as part of the party’s core ideological agenda — the UCC, abrogation of Article 370, and the Ram Temple at Ayodhya.
However, the BJP-led NDA government headed by then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee kept aside these three “controversial issues” for the sake of running their coalition regime, when it was formed in 1996, 1998 and 1999.
It was another matter that several BJP MPs often kept raising the issues. For instance, Bachi Singh Rawat, a BJP MP from Almora, introduced a private member’s bill on December 20, 1996, titled “Uniform Marriage and Divorce Bill”. On August 6, 1993, Sumitra Mahajan, who later became the Lok Sabha Speaker, tabled a resolution to urge the government “that in order to achieve the objectives enshrined in Article 44 of the Constitution and to promote feelings of unity and brotherhood amongst all citizens of the country a Commission be constituted for framing a Uniform Civil Code.” It was also debated in Parliament later.
The RSS, which has been raising the UCC issue for decades, passed a resolution in its Akhil Bharatiya Karyakari Mandal (ABKM) meeting in 1995, urging MPs of all parties “to set the process of legislative machinery in motion for enacting the long-awaited legislation on the Uniform Civil Code for all the citizens of the country”.
