‘Politics is so vitiated that the demand for a uniform civil code sounds hollow’
A stance I had taken 20 years ago resonates today. The implementation of the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled states marks a significant moment in India’s Constitution. Yet, rather than adhering to the promise of gender justice envisioned by the framers of the Constitution, the implementation increasingly reflects a hegemonic project of majoritarianism.
Today, the debate over the UCC is no longer confined to legal reformism, but rather questions the very meaning of equality, diversity and citizenship in a plural democracy. At first glance, the idea of a UCC appears difficult to contest; a single set of civil laws governing marriage, divorce, inheritance and adoption for all citizens seems to embody the constitutional promise of equality.
Uniformity is often portrayed as a legal recourse to eliminate discrimination, ensuring equality irrespective of one’s religion. However, this understanding is based on the assumption that justice is achieved through the lens of sameness. India’s constitutional imagination, by contrast, has always recognised that equality does not necessarily require homogeneity. A democracy thrives not by erasing differences but by accommodating them while ensuring that no community is denied justice. This dominated the UCC debates.
Article 44 of the Constitution, among the Directive Principles of State Policy, expressed the aspiration for a common civil code. Yet the framers stopped short of making it an enforceable right, acknowledging India’s immense religious and cultural diversity. The objective was not simply to standardise personal laws but to gradually reform discriminatory practices, particularly those affecting women, through democratic consensus. They reiterated that any scheme of the UCC which takes away the right of different communities to adhere to the tenets of their faith or its practices will be contrary to the constitutional guarantee of Freedom of Religion and Conscience.
Years ago, all of us in the women’s movement, regardless of religion, backed a uniform civil code. Emerging from the broader nationalist and anti-imperialist movements, these groups viewed legal uniformity as a possible route to gender justice. The overriding assumption was that separate personal laws often reinforced patriarchal practices and denied women equal rights. For many feminists, the demand for a UCC was therefore rooted in the aspiration to dismantle gender inequality rather than to impose cultural conformity.
During the Shah Bano case, we saw an opportunity for securing rights for Muslim women, rights which were enjoined for them in the Quran. My aunt Saliha Abid Husain stood for Shah Bano based on her Quranic scholarship. I followed her footsteps. The women’s movement questioned the fact that a Muslim woman was not entitled to the same rights as a Hindu, Christian or Sikh woman. Was it because of her religion? Why was she denied the paltry maintenance available to others? Under what provision of the Constitution was this discrimination permissible? Saliha and I spoke of ayats of the Quran which gave women equal status as men. Pure ayats and not interpretations.
Shah Bano became a symbol of gender parity and empowerment. But the then government succumbed to the orthodox lobby and enacted the Muslim Women (Right to Protection on Divorce) Act 1986. That was the end of our effort for a secular solution. The government favoured the patriarchal clerics of the Muslim community rather than the thousands of women who fought to uphold the judgement. However, one should point out the difference in the way the UCC was used by the women’s movement versus the manner in which it was propagated in the political discourse.
Traditions and rituals are formed over years imbued with hegemonic interpretations. Their solidification has a deep-rooted effect on the notion of gender justice and social justice. When feminists argue against UCC, it’s not an attack on the agency of the minorities of the community one belongs to but the focus is to create a dialogue not just within women’s groups but with different sections of the Indian society. There was debate on the triple talaq ban, stemming from the grass-root movement led by Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan who fought not only with ingrained patriarchal mindset embedded within their own community but also the left-liberals who reiterated that the ban was playing into the rhetoric of the Hindu right. The struggle can be seen as a wider understanding of the circuitous route that defines the debate for UCC which emphasises that the concepts of gender justice and social justice do not work in isolation. A parochial understanding of UCC limits itself to the personal laws of religious minorities; however, the supposed Hindu ‘majoritarian’ is not saved from it either. For example, feminist legal scholars have critiqued the codification of the Hindu personal laws as imposition of a uniformity on a heterogeneous community rather than as a ‘reform’ as it was propagated. They have argued that the codification took the North-Indian savarna woman as its subject and aimed to reverse her situation, but in doing so it inadvertently reduced the status of other women who did classify themselves as Hindu.
There is a convoluted connection between the State and the concept of gender justice wherein religion has transformed into a political identity and hermeneutical circulation of this term has gained a political privilege. It acquires different meaning for the groups that have been contesting it and the ones who harp on implementing it in the name of ‘reform.’
The agony of Kishwar Naheed, beloved feminist poet, resonates today.
Kaghaz par bani hui muskurahat
hoton par chipkane se
Zindagi mein ghuroob-e-aftaab ka manzar nahin badlega
(Pressing smile on notepapers/on one’s lips/Would not change life’s sunset scene)
Political Connotation
The political connotation of the UCC has changed over time. What began as a struggle for a divorced Muslim woman’s right to maintenance quickly evolved into a reductive and myopic discourse on nationalism. The subsequent mobilisation by right-wing organisations transformed the UCC from a feminist demand for legal reform into a symbol of cultural nationalism. Increasingly, the code was projected not as an instrument of gender justice but as a corrective to minority personal laws, particularly those of Muslims. In doing so, the discourse shifted from protecting women’s rights to asserting a majoritarian vision of national identity.
This transformation has important implications for feminist politics. A legal framework introduced in a deeply polarised political climate risks becoming counterproductive to the very goals it claims to advance. Instead of empowering women across communities, the implementation of the UCC in its present political context may deepen anxieties among minorities by appearing as an attempt to subsume diverse legal traditions into a singular majoritarian framework. The question is not whether personal laws require reform—they do—but whether uniformity imposed from above is the appropriate means of achieving justice.
The tension is between centralised uniformity and pluralistic autonomy. A commitment to pluralism does not mean defending patriarchal customs embedded within religious caste or community practices. Feminist critiques of the UCC have never been an endorsement of discriminatory personal laws or consider them as sacrosanct as communities can be hierarchical. Feminists have refused that binary. They argue that gender justice should emerge through democratic reform that respects constitutional values while recognising diversity.
The current trajectory of the UCC suggests that the debate has moved far beyond women’s rights. It now raises fundamental questions about the nature of the Indian polity itself. If equality is interpreted solely through the lens of legal uniformity and constitutional pluralism, it risks giving way to cultural majoritarianism. The challenge for India is not to choose between diversity and justice, but to build a legal framework capable of protecting both.
Again, Naheed rises in my mindscape:
Ye ham gunhagar aurten hain, Ki ab taaqub men raat bhi aae, To yeh ankhen nahin bujhengi, Ki ab jo divar gir chuki hai Use uthane ki zid na karna
(It is we sinful women/Now, even if the night gives chase/these eyes shall not be put out/For the wall which has been razed/Don’t insist now on raising it again.)
(Views expressed are personal)
Syeda Hameed women’s rights activist and a former member of the Planning Commission of India
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(This story appeared in Outlook magazine’s August 31 issue, 'Whose Idea of India?', in which India’s noted public intellectuals, policymakers, cultural practitioners, political leaders, scholars and economists write in detail about the idea of India they believe can best secure the nation’s future as we celebrate 80 years of independence.)
