Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh today came down heavily on NDA government for being in haste to bring the Uniform Civil Code that replaces the personal laws based on the scriptures and customs of each religion with a common set of laws for governing every citizen.
He said that by bringing the Uniform Civil Code, the government wants to impose Hindu Personal Law and ‘RSS’s view’ on what women should be entitled to.
"Women should have equal rights as men. Let's start with that principle. All women should have equal rights. There should be no discrimination against women in matters of marriage, divorce, inheritance. Once you have (these) basic principles, we can move forward," he said.
"The demand for Uniform Civil Code is a cloak for imposing Hindu Personal Law, which is actually deeply anti-women and has been made progressively more and more pro-women. But to think that Hindu Personal Law is pro-women totally runs contrary to facts. So, the word Uniform Civil Code unfortunately has become a short-hand for imposing the RSS's view on what women should be entitled to,” he added.
The Department of Legal Affairs had in June asked the Law Commission, a recommendatory body, to submit a report on the issue of a common civil code.
"So, may be it shouldn't be called Uniform Civil Code; may be call it a gender equality code, don't call it UCC, you call it gender equality law or gender equality system or whatever but the word uniform civil code unfortunately has come to stand for the imposition of a uniformity based on Hindu law, which I certainly would not agree to," the Rajya Sabha MP said.
The Uniform Civil Code has been a controversial issue and it was the part of BJP’s 2014 Lok Sabha poll manifesto. The code, if implemented, would mean a set of common civil laws for all citizens in place of multitude of personal laws for different religious groups.
With PTI Inputs
