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    Uniform Civil Code – Why BJP Is So Worried About It?

    Humans evolve, so do the societies across the globe. We no more live in caves and tree branches; neither now we rub two stones to ignite fire. All that we see around us now are resultant of a gill to give ourselves a better and civilized life. That said change is a very painful process. That is perhaps why few people hate to administer themselves to this pain staking process of change and evolution. They love to remain in their cocooned world and regularly do an ostrich act to look the other way to what the rest of the world is following. Even if few raise their voices of concern, the majority, who don’t want to change, suppress the desire of those few who wish to follow the path of sensibility and civility. That is Muslim Personal Law for you. While the problems and disparity in them is quite evident for all to see, there still are patrons who swear by it and refuse any short of sensible changes advised to bring the much needed balance. But then, is a forceful shoving of the law is the answer to change such sheltered mentality? We will see.

    Though changes are painful, it is always seen coming from within. As someone correctly said, no one can change anyone unless the person in question changes himself or herself from within. External force might appear making a difference but it always remains at face value. In reality the person never changes but just pretends.

    People who have read Muslim Personal Law will agree with me that it is outright rubbish as far as women in Islam are concerned. Every page of that law book suggests innovative ideas to deprive their women from every bit of their fundamental rights. From their rights as a married woman to asking for the custody of their kids in the unfortunate eventuality of a divorce, it seems MPL doesn’t consider women human enough to even listen to their pleas. The women in Islam, as per their personal law goes, don’t have any right to inheritance of their paternal property. There are too many such absurdities to list them all in one single blog. But for me, the notorious of the lot is when I see the plight of a Muslim woman as a spouse. For instance, the woman remains married at the mercy and whims of her husband. It is a freehand given for the man to decide when he wants to terminate the marriage and the woman is supposed accept that without asking for any reason. It is only the word ‘Talaq’ needed to be uttered thrice and that’s it – he is divorced without any obligations or responsibilities. And what more, if the woman stays for a minute in that home after such historic announcement, it is considered ‘Haram’ as per the MPL. Sounds horrendous? Read on. To make the things worse, it hardly matters in what context the man utters ‘Talaq’ thrice. It could be in a zest, or could be planned or even could be under duress. Words uttered are good enough to deprive the woman of her fundamental rights at once. Honestly, I haven’t come across anything more deplorable than this in my entire life. I agree we also had dreaded practices like Sati and child marriage in our Hindu laws at one point of time. But we eventually realized the evil in such dreaded practices and fought hard to throw away such rotten ideologies of a handful of orthodox idiots in our society. As I said earlier, the wish for change came within us. No one forced us to do that. Had force been utilized back then, I am sure such practices would have been exercised in hidden quarters till now.

    Generally the demand for change comes from the oppressed lot. Can we say the biggest sufferers of MPL, the women of Islam, want the change? May be yes but it never had become overwhelmingly prominent. I admit; remaining in oppressed state for generations make you one weak person to even fight for your own legitimate rights. But, at least I can expect sane voices among the section that live in cities and know what the real and civilized outside world is? For example, when a school in Bangalore banned their girl students from wearing Burqa inside the school premises, it is the girls who sat on a Dharna to roll back any such decision. Now, is there anything wrong with school management’s decision? For me Burqa is an insult to women and their very identity. I don’t care what the wretched ideologies advocate but seeing a woman in Burqa makes me feel as if we are forcing her to treat herself as a curse to the society, so much so that she shouldn’t even show her face to the rest of the world. More than that, Burqa is turning out to be a security threat as well. I know at least 100 instances where the criminals clad under a Burqa committed the crime and went away unnoticed. Can you imagine how big a threat it is in our airports and crowded railway stations? For the life of me, I can’t imagine a police officer would ask a Burqua clad human to take off the veil for verification, even if he suspects something fishy about the person who is wearing it. May be possible in our airports by lady police officers but certainly not possible in our railway stations or bus terminals.  But Alas!! For once I thought the girls themselves would cheer such a good decision of the school management to let them have a life of respect and pride but what I saw in fact was shocking to me. Here the girls seem to love the way they are getting treated. They love to remain and appear as a curse to the rest of the world and even go on for a strike if someone tries to convince them that they are not curse but asset to the nation like an average girl of any other religion. So the gist of my paragraph long diatribe is – if the ones who are being oppressed are so adverse to change, then why on earth we should waste our time on them? Let them rot if they feel good about it, no?       

    Now coming back to BJP’s drama about bringing a Uniform Civil Code in India. Idea is good but grossly ill-conceived. I for one voted and remained a supporter of the party for last two decades, only because of their very ideology of governance, development and no appeasement. I want to see real works to be done to fix all the broken windows post a 10 long year’s misrule of the UPA. But what I see instead? The party decides to work on something that they have mentioned in the last page in their manifesto to start with, leaving far more important problems listed in earlier pages. I agree, the UCC should have been implemented a long time back but does that mean it is our current primary problem? Blame it on our so called founding fathers, whom I hate more to designate by that term after every passing day, they conveniently left this issue in a slow pressure cooker like many other. Founding fathers? Really? Though they introduced article-39 in our constitution, the hypocrite cowards left it as a suggestion and made it a state subject to implement in some time. No time frame was allocated to achieve that. Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for such clueless founding fathers. Even after the infamous mischief of Bharat Ratna Rajiv Gandhi going by the name Sahabanoo personal claim case, the apex court was critical of the scheme of things and came on heavily against such prejudice and disparity. It also directed the central government to come up with a roadmap to implement UCC sooner than later. But nothing happened. As clueless as Rajiv Gandhi can be like our founding fathers, he wrote letters to all the states for suggestions and pretty much stopped there. Even the Muslims squandered a golden opportunity to bring about some much needed civility change in their personal law. I am sorry, squandered is a wrong word, it should be ignored rather. Now again I come back to my earlier deduction – if they themselves don’t want to change for good, then why take the pain on yourself for that? Let them rot in hell and laugh their way to loathsomeness and oblivion. Why bother? Why BJP and dear Narendra Bhai Modi? Why?

    Why should BJP bother, more so when they have thugs like Kamal Farooqi around? In fact hypocrites and clowns like Kamal Farooqi, who also is a member in Muslim Personal Law Board are plenty in that community. They are ok with every other common code in India but find it a breach of someone’s personal religious preference and article-25 of our constitution, the moment the discussion comes up for a UCC. Jokers like Farooqi oblige to let go the Sharia criminal procedure code against a more civilized Indian criminal Justice system since Sharia punishment is too heavy to shoulder. But come to the personal law which treats the women nothing beyond sex toys, they are very dear to their hearts. With people like Farooqi around, I am sure the change is farfetched.

    But does that mean there is no hope for Muslim women? Yes, there is but subjected to inner conviction. The day an average Burqa clad woman will come out of her veil and slap the daylight out of the rascal who has made her life miserable, that would be the day when we can hope for some change. Forced implementation would make matters even worse, and I am sure of it. Hope Modi Bhai is listening and would concentrate on better things than wasting his time on some depressing lot that never want to change.

    2 comments:

    1. Though a Uniform Civil Code is a necessity, I agree to your point that BJP shouldn't burn midnight oil pondering over it. If they themselves, including the suffering women want to remain, if I may term, Zahil then none else should bother too much for their well being. As you said - let them rot in hell instead.

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    2. BJP is full of seculars ..... ye bemari sirf congress, SP, BSP, JDU, AAP tak seemit nahi hai .... thoda wakth lagega

      ReplyDelete