Nehru And The Hindu Code Bill

Secularism, in the Nehruvian context, does not mean the separation of religion from the state but ratherbenevolent neutrality towards all religions, which are treated equably. However, this universalist positionexists alongside effort to reduce the ascendancy of religion in society. The1950 Constitution stronglyinfluenced by Nehru, did not recognize religious communities but only individuals, to whom it guaranteed inArticle 25 'freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practice and propagate religion'. Thisideal concept of religion as a private matter implied a reduction in its sphere of influence through theimpact of state in its capacity as the agent of 'modernisation'. Nehru's principal achievement in thisvoluntarist perspective was undoubtedly the Hindu Code Bill.

The Hindu Code Bill was intended to provide a civil code in place of the body of Hindu personal law, which hadbeen amended to only a limited extent by the British authorities. The bill was presented to the ConstituentAssembly on 9 April 1948 but it caused a great deal of controversy and was subsequently broke down to threemore specialised bills which came before the Lok Sabha in its 1952-7 term. The Hindu Marriage Bill outlawedpolygamy and contained provisions dealing with inter caste marriages and divorce procedures; the HinduAdoption and Maintenance Bill had as its main thrust the adoption of girls, which till then had been littlepractised; the Hindu Succession Bill placed daughters on the same footing as widows and sons where theinheritance of family property was concerned.

These bills aroused strong opposition from the Hindu nationalists. In Parliament N.C. Chatterjee, the HinduMahasabha leader, and S.P. Mokerjee protested vehemently against what they took to be a threat to filestability and integrity of traditional forms of marriage and the family in Hindu society. However, one of themost vehement critics of the government's proposals was Swami Karpatriji, a sanyasi who belonged to theDandis, one of the orders founded by Shankara. He had won respect for his knowledge of Sanskrit texts, hisasceticism (he had spent long periods in solitude in the Himalayas) and for his skill as an orator. It was ameasure of his authority that he had been involved in the selection of the four major Shankarachryas .In 1940 he had founded the Dharma Sangh (Association of Dharma), a cultural association for the defence oftraditional Hinduism. In 1941 he founded a daily paper Sanmarg. After 1948 he turned towards politicsand established the Ram Rajya Parishad (Council of the Kingdom of Ram) to serve as a political party. Thisbody organised numerous demonstrations against the Hindu Code Bill; 15,000 people, including personalitiessuch as the Princess of Dewas Senior (a former princely state in Central India), attended a week- longconference in Delhi at the beginning of 1949.

The Hindu nationalists, for their part, were particularly exasperated that the civil law reform concerned onlyHindus, whereas the Constitution enjoined (in article 44 of the Directive Principles) the State to give Indiaa uniform Civil Code: hence Mookerjee's declaration that the "government did not dare to touch the Muslimcommunity." Nehru's secularism suffered here from a certain ambiguity or at least a lacuna, doubtless dueto his concern to reassure the Muslims who had chosen to remain in India. He was prepared to condone the rightof civil courts to apply Muslim personal law in cases affecting Muslims.

In his view, the majority community had duties towards the minorities. As S. Gopal points out: "Heurged incessantly the importance of generous treatment of the minorities so that they would feel that theywere Indians, and be completely at home.' Such an attitude could be denounced as an anti-Hindu bias while theRSS later described it as 'pseudo-secularism'. In the early 1950s, however, the campaigns undertaken in thisdirection succeeded in having the Hindu Code Bill amended and the parliamentary vote delayed but failed tomobilise  widespread support or even win that of the traditionalists in Congress. Rajendra Prasad, whowas elected President of the Republic in 1950, was distressed by a project whose 'new concepts and newideas…. are not only foreign to Hindu Law but may cause disruption in every family'. He argued that theproposal for reform should first be included in the party's election manifesto and placed before the votersbefore any discussion in Parliament.

Nehru had to make many concessions to the bill's critics, including Rajendra Prasad. Although the bills whichwere adopted by the new Parliament in the mid-1950s were thus less far-reaching in scope than Nehru hadoriginally intended, they were a solid testimony to his ability to impose his views on others and to defy theHindu traditionalists.

First line slightly edited. From page 102-104.