Saakhi is a Sunday column from Mrinal Pande, in which she writes of what she sees and also participates in. That has been her burden to bear ever since she embarked on a life as a journalist, writer, editor, author and as chairperson of Prasar Bharti. Her journey of being a witness-participant continues.All of us in India grew up listening to, reading or watching some version of Simhasan Batteesee – thirty two tales about the wise king Vikramaditya. We remember how under instructions from a tantric guru, Vikramaditya was to cut loose a vetal, hanging upside down from a peepal tree, and carry the corpse without uttering a word to a cremation ground for a special ritual. But each time he tried, the wily vetal forced the good king to answer intricate questions by predicting terrible reprisals if he didn’t. And as soon as Vikramaditya answered him, the vetal flew back to the tree, chuckling.A perfect Uniform Civil Code (or the UCC, a set of common laws that shall govern marriage, inheritance, adoption and divorce for all Indians) has proved to be another wily vetal for our lawmakers.Illustration: Pariplab ChakrabortyEach time the state makes a forceful push to frame the UCC once and for all, wild debates erupt about its various legal, political, social and constitutional complexities and ultimately it is decided to let the vetal fly back chuckling and hang upside down. “Vikram, main tere buss mein aaney wala nahin!” (Thou can’t control me, Vikram!) was the punchline with which the popular TV series Vikram aur Betaal ended.Over 75 years ago, we the people of India gave ourselves a great constitution that envisioned a sovereign democratic republic. It gave each citizen certain fundamental rights. This was followed by a chapter on Directive Principles, which instructed the state to implement certain measures in due course. Among them was the framing of a UCC. But no sooner did the debate begin, a furore arose with the Muslims, Hindus, Christians and tribals all asserting their right to protect their own personal spaces governed by their ancient traditions and religions. And the vetal flew off to hang upside down for a few more years.The first time the vetal was cut loose was during the debate on the Hindu Code Bill in 1948. The representatives of the women’s movement, like Rajkumari Amrit Kaur (a Christian) and Hansa Ben Mehta (a Hindu), were for a UCC. But there was a sharp polarisation of views among Hindus of all classes over marital laws for Hindus guided by their religion.The proposal for banning bigamy among only Hindus even brought the conservative president of the nation, Dr Rajendra Prasad and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru into a near confrontation, with the latter even offering to resign. Other senior Hindu leaders like Sardar Patel, Dr P. Sitaramayya and P.S. Tandon also opposed the Hindu Code Bill.Other opponents (all male) felt that this Bill could leave India with “an army of unmarried women” and also that the prohibition of bigamy could promote a mass conversion of Hindus to Islam, which permitted talaq.Ultimately, it was decided to let the issue die during the parliament’s September session in 1951, and despite Dr Ambedkar arguing that the Hindu Code Bill in its entirety guaranteed women true gender justice, the law makers let the vetal go back. In 1955, the partially cleared Hindu Code Bill was pushed through. Guardianship, maintenance and adoption laws staggered in by 1956.Also Read: What a Gender-Just Uniform Civil Code Could Look LikeBut the resistance to a Uniform Civil Code remained firm. The argument was that a largely Hindu parliament could not speak for all communities, and that it was instead right for them to come out and ask for change. The Shah Bano case and its long aftermath revealed the rigidity over the matter of amending personal laws. The vetal flew off chuckling once again and hung upside down! Catch me Vikram, if you can!In 2000, when the 15th law commission submitted several reports to the government, the late Justice Leila Seth suggested that they also take up the matter of a Uniform Civil Code, and remove several anomalies and ambiguities that remained. To that, Justice Jeevan Reddy – the commission’s chairman – replied that “this is not the right time”. It was only in 2005 that the Hindu Succession Act was amended and subsequently Hindu daughters were given equal coparceny rights to ancestral property.A few weeks ago, while addressing his party’s booth-level workers, the powerful BJP leader and prime minister of the nation has once again sought to cut the UCC vetal loose. But this once-bitterly divisive debate has already been triggered off by poll campaigns that opened old wounds. There are still assembly elections scheduled in several crucial states this year, followed by the grand finale of general elections in 2024.The no holds barred campaigning on all sides, aided and abetted by social media, are likely to vitiate the public space and make any nuanced, fair and impartial debate on the UCC impossible.Speaking in Bhopal on June 27, Modi said, “Today people are being instigated in the name of UCC. How can the country be run on two (laws)?” Photo: Twitter/@BJP4India.The BJP is in a hurry to bring in a UCC that was a poll promise in its ‘core’ manifesto, along with the Ram Mandir and Article 370. But the vetal’s constant flights back to the tree of tradition reveal that while creating a UCC for a country like India – home to representatives of all the world’s major religions and diverse tribal personal laws – there will be no easy answers and remedies.Though it is being sold to the gullible as a firm way of stopping bigamy among the Muslims, few realise that a UCC will also impact several touchy areas among the Hindu majority.Once true equality before the law is confirmed, the Hindu majority that is still reluctant to consider marital rape as a punishable offence, is constantly whining about the need to soften protective laws for women and children (like 498A and POCSO), is dead set against gay marriage and accepts the notorious ‘encounters’ as vigilante justice, is going to feel cheated.There will be other embarrassing clashes: can the law permit marriage between people of different faiths but retain conversions as a punishable offence? Can temples lose the right to let the priests decide who can enter the sanctum sanctorum?The 2018 (21st) law commission, after consulting over 75,000 responses and examining the issue at length, noted that their consultations revealed some astonishing facts, like women’s groups that supported equality before the law holding that their religious identity was equally important to them. To them, personal laws pertaining to language, culture etc. represented the freedom to practice their religion, and so they resented changes there.The commission therefore concluded that a UCC is neither necessary nor desirable at this stage. The best way forward would be to retain the diversity of personal laws, and then deal only with laws that are discriminatory, like triple talaq. The 21st law commission is thus well aware of the complexities involved.Also Read: The UCC Bogey Is Raked Up for Muslim Bashing and to Serve Electoral Needs: Flavia AgnesThe government has yet to put its own draft for a UCC on the table; it will be interesting to see how that draft treats the section under the Directive Principles of State Policy which deals with personal laws. Will the dissolution of the joint Hindu family system create an urgent need for revisiting taxation laws?Obviously, great patience, persuasion and depoliticisation of the issue are needed at this point. Are these in sufficient supply while the country is rocked by so many issues of national human rights and strife, and divisive rioting along the eastern border states? A narrow 30-day window granted for public consultations by the law commission currently does not appear large enough.The last story in the Vetal Pacheesee is the most interesting. The vetal, finally taking pity on the exhausted king, confides to him that he asked for answers to 32 complex questions because he was told those alone could let his spirit out of his rotting corpse. But now that he is free thanks to Vikram’s sagacity, he’d like to share another secret with him.The tantric guru, who had promised Vikram great powers in lieu of the vetal, was actually going to kill the king after he delivered. He’d then use Vikram’s royal blood for enhancing his own powers. “Forget about this venture and let’s both get lost,” the vetal said. “Run, Vikram, run!”And the king did just that. I think we as a nation need to do the same with the UCC. It may not give us better laws, but sacrifice us to political ambitions. Cultural diversity, as the 21st law commission said, cannot be compromised to the extent that an urge for uniformity becomes the reason for a threat to the territorial integrity of the democratic nation. The American theologist Reinhold Niebuhr corroborates this: “man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”So let us say goodbye to the vetal. We set it free, and in exchange, it will set our democracy free.Mrinal Pande is a writer and veteran journalist.
