NEW DELHI: By getting its govt to promulgate UCC in Uttarakhand, BJP has signalled its allegiance to one of its foundational pledges and assured its cadre and supporters of its bonafides.
Given difficulties involved in implementing UCC across the country, BJP decided to approach the task incrementally. Issues concerning marriage and divorce fall in the Concurrent List, the terrain where both the Centre and states are competent to make laws, and this afforded a way out. So did the demography of the Hindu-preponderant Uttarakhand that ruled out the risk of any large-scale disruption.
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While the legislation was supposed to be the baby of the state govt, it was Centre that, for all practical purposes, negotiated the process – right from choices of members of the committee headed by retired SC judge Ranjana Desai.
Home minister Amit Shah was closely involved in the process and would regularly hold deliberations with CM Pushkar Dhami. The collaboration enhanced the possibility of Uttarakhand UCC being a pilot for similar laws being planned by BJP-governed UP, Gujarat & Assam. Assam CM Himanta Sarma appears to be especially keen to get going.
With UCC in Uttarakhand in place and others expected to follow suit, BJP can claim to have delivered on another component of its ‘core’ agenda. The party has already made good on its promises on construction of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, scrapping J&K’s special status and criminalising triple talaq. That Uttarakhand UCC came into force the same day when BJP, along with its allies, deployed its majority to push through crucial amendments to Waqf Act was sheer coincidence. The JPC on Waqf would have wrapped up its business in winter session itself if govt had its way.
But the coincidence only served to amplify the message of BJP delivering on its promises and enhances the prospect of similar actions both in Delhi and in BJP-administered state capitals.
In its third term, Modi govt had revived the issue by referring UCC to the Law Commission once again. The parliamentary standing committee on law and justice simultaneously took up the subject for study and building consensus with different stakeholders. Short of recommending UCC, Law Commission, in its 2018 ‘consultation paper’, had suggested wide-ranging reforms in various family laws to bring gender justice and equality. It recommended uniform age for marriage, its compulsory registration, age of majority (18 years) to be recognised as legal age for men and women for marriage, uniform application of laws for bigamy and divorce with provision for maintenance, recognising polygamy as a criminal offence, recognising adultery as a gender neutral offence and ground for divorce, besides uniform laws for adoption, succession and inheritance.
