The final draft of the Uniform Civil Code, days after the State cabinet’s approval, will be taken up by the Uttarakhand Assembly on Tuesday. UCC, more appropriately known as Common Civil Code, is a set of laws dealing with components of marriage, divorce, maintenance, inheritance and adoption, applicable to all Indian citizens.
This progressive law, not connected to the Hindu-Muslim debate and not based on religion, is beyond ambit of majority and minority as well as will ensure the rights of children and women, who have been deprived of these in the past 75 years.
Additionally, it is not about taking away the people’s rights but giving rights to the people that will prove to be a noteworthy step towards ensuring social justice. The CCC will not affect the customs and traditions of any religion or sect. Respective matrimonial customs of all religions like ‘Nikah’ among Muslims, ‘Anand Karaj’ among Sikhs, ‘Phera in front of fire’ among Hindus and ‘Holy Matrimony’ among Christians will be the same.
The government, in the draft bill, has kept a provision for live-in couples to register their relationship; everyone will get adoption rights; will instate equal inheritance rights for both the son and daughter.
Post Independence, Uttarakhand will become the first State in the country to adopt the CCC, if the bill is passed and the law gets implemented. Numerous other BJP-ruled States – including Assam and Madhya Pradesh – will bring the same law. Since the colonial era of Portugese, Goa already had it.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in June last year, had made a big push for the CCC asserting Bharat couldn’t run on two laws, much like it didn’t work to have “different set of rules for different members of a family”.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, earlier this year, had constituted a committee to prepare the draft that worked with a cross-section of citizens and spoke to over 2 lakh people and significant stakeholders.
