The well-known poet, lyricist, and scriptwriter, Javed Akhtar, has categorically said that he believes a Uniform Civil Code is desirable and necessary. He added that for him, personally, the most important thing is to ensure complete and comprehensive gender equality, without any discrimination whatsoever for either the girl child or the adult woman.India cannot delay giving itself a Uniform Civil Code on the grounds that the time is not right, said Akhtar.He said it will never be right because there will always be people opposed to it. While efforts must be made to convince everyone, we cannot give a veto to extremists of any community, he added.In a 40-minute interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, Akhtar said that the most important first step for the Union government is to place a draft of a Uniform Civil Code in the public domain. Without such a draft as a reference point, all conversation and debate is meaningless. This draft, he said, must be created by experts and not by politicians.He said the time to seek suggestions from citizens, communities, or institutions should come after such a draft is made available, not before. At the moment, this is happening the wrong way round.Akhtar further said that while it’s understandable that tribals like the Santhals, the Sentinelese, the Jarawas, or those in Bastar, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh are excluded, because we need to be sensitive to the fact that they effectively live in “different time zones”, the states of the North East, which are also considered [a home to the] Scheduled Tribes, must not be excluded.He also made it clear that a Uniform Civil Code would mean the end of the concept of a Hindu Undivided Family, as well as the end of restrictions on marriages within a gotra or judgments on inter-caste marriages by khap panchayats. All of this would have to go.When asked, at the beginning of the interview, about the intention behind the prime minister’s advocacy of a Uniform Civil Code, he said this is not something that concerns or matters to him. As he put it, it doesn’t matter if someone with the wrong intentions does the right thing. What matters is the right thing is being done.Similarly, he said it didn’t matter whether the issue of a Uniform Civil Code is being raised as a dog whistle to target the Muslim community or as an election issue that might improve the Bharatiya Janata Party’s prospects in 2024.Speaking about himself personally, he said that he has personally lived his life as if a Uniform Civil Code applies to him. He said as a Muslim, he is only required to pay alimony to his first wife for four months but he has consciously and deliberately chosen to pay it for as long as she wanted it. He also said in terms of inheritance and his treatment of them, he has treated his son and daughter exactly equally and ensured that they will each get a 50% share of what he leaves behind.At the end of the interview, he makes it clear that for him, the most important issue is gender equality and absolutely no discrimination against women. He says it doesn’t matter whether this is delivered through a Uniform Civil Code or in some other way, but this remains the most important thing.