An influential Muslim group yesterday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of triggering an “internal war” with plans to introduce a common civil code for all religions.
The Constitution currently allows the country’s 1.2bn citizens to be governed by their own religious laws when it comes to marriage, divorce and property inheritance.
But Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party government wants to bring in a common civil code that it says will enhance national unity.
Yesterday, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board said they would block any attempt to abolish Islamic family laws, which many Muslim women say discriminate against them.
“You can’t impose a single ideology in India. Modi has triggered an internal war in India,” Maulana Wali Rahmani, head of AIMPLB, told reporters at a press conference in New Delhi.
“A uniform civil code is not good for India, which has many cultures and religions. It will divide India,” he said.
India’s Law Commission has sought public feedback on a common law that would ban controversial practices such as polygamy and triple talaq divorce, under which a Muslim man can divorce his wife instantly with just three words.
The commission said the objective was to “address discrimination against vulnerable groups and harmonise various cultural practices.”
“We will boycott the Law Commission’s questionnaire on the uniform civil code. No Muslim will respond to it because it is misleading and deceitful. The uniform civil code is divisive and will lead to social unrest,” Rahmani said.
Questioning the timing of the move, Rahmani said the government had deliberately thrown up this issue now to “hide its failures in the last two-and-half years”.
The development comes days after the central government told the Supreme Court that ‘triple talaq’, ‘nikaah halaal’ and polygamy were not integral to the practice of Islam or essential religious practices.
Subsequently, the Law Commission on October 7 put up on its website a questionnaire, comprising 16 questions, to seek public opinion on the civil code issue.
Other prominent Muslims who represented their respective organisations at the press conference here included Maulana Arshad Madani (Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind), Mohamed Jafar (Jamaat-e-Islami Hind), Maulana Asghar Imam Mehdi (Markazi Jamiat Ahle Hadith), Maulana Mahmood Madani (Jamiat Ulema Hind), M
Manzoor Alam (All India Milli Council), Naved Hamid (All India Majlis-e-Mushawarat) and Maulana Abul Qasim Naumani (Rector, Darul Uloom Deoband).
Barelvi cleric Maulana Tauqeer Raza Khan of Ittehad-e-Millat Council and Shia cleric Maulana Mohsin Taqvi were scheduled to attend the press conference but could not make it, AIMPLB member Kamal Farouqi said.
Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind president Maulana Arshad Madani said: “The Muslim Personal Law is based on the Qur’an and Hadith and we cannot alter it.”
“Modi-ji (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) wants to impose dictatorship in the name of democracy,” he added.
Also yesterday, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi said Stating a uniform civil code was not good for the country, but added his party would nevertheless reply to the Law Commission’s questionnaire
Muslim personal law has long been a controversial issue in India.
Some Muslim women have in recent years launched legal challenges to triple talaq, which they say discriminates against them and violates their human rights.
A case in the mid-1980s involving Shah Bano, who took her rejected demand for alimony to the Supreme Court, triggered debate across India over whether the court had authority over Muslim personal law.
The court upheld her right to alimony, but its verdict was reversed by a law passed by the then-Congress Party government after Muslim groups reacted angrily.
Any attempt since then to bring a common civil code has proved deeply divisive.