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.
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.
ReplyDeleteBJP is full of seculars ..... ye bemari sirf congress, SP, BSP, JDU, AAP tak seemit nahi hai .... thoda wakth lagega
ReplyDeleteThannks for the post
ReplyDelete