Excellent piece Archit! Very informative - points to yet another step the the wider 'saffronisation' project that the RSS-Sangh Parivar have been plugging away at in many fronts (such as rewriting history textbooks) for decades now. At a systemic level, the end game here seems to have some form of the UCC enacted as widely as possible. With time, many facets of Hindu personal law (such as Hindu Marriage Act and so on) will get incorporated into the UCC while similar 'parallel' laws for minorities are repealed (most notably of course, those applying to Muslims), all in the name of course of advancing 'secularism'.
Whether the courts will standup to the central and state governments and rule that such an insidious version of the UCC violates the spirit of the constitution remains to be seen (although I wouldn't hold my breath).
The Modi years more generally have got me thinking over whether the term 'secularism' was ever an appropriate one in the Indian context - given how limited the applicability of this Western idea is in the Indian context. After all, historically, the more accurate term arguably is pluralism.
Hi Rahul, Thank you for your kind words! This is slightly different than usual at Drop Site News but very glad I had an opportunity to write on it. By the end of the article, I was left with more questions than answers.
Indeed UCC will have impact on man aspects of day to day life. But laws are as good as the democratic frame work of the nation. In many ways, the democracies are witnessing a 'tearing of veneer' moment (as Dr Norman Finkelstein says it). The veneer is off in India and I fear the worst. While writing this story I made chart on Indian Constitution's Directive Principles thought I'd share it — https://www.datawrapper.de/_/3A8fp/
Keep sharing our work, readers like you keep us going!
Excellent piece Archit! Very informative - points to yet another step the the wider 'saffronisation' project that the RSS-Sangh Parivar have been plugging away at in many fronts (such as rewriting history textbooks) for decades now. At a systemic level, the end game here seems to have some form of the UCC enacted as widely as possible. With time, many facets of Hindu personal law (such as Hindu Marriage Act and so on) will get incorporated into the UCC while similar 'parallel' laws for minorities are repealed (most notably of course, those applying to Muslims), all in the name of course of advancing 'secularism'.
Whether the courts will standup to the central and state governments and rule that such an insidious version of the UCC violates the spirit of the constitution remains to be seen (although I wouldn't hold my breath).
The Modi years more generally have got me thinking over whether the term 'secularism' was ever an appropriate one in the Indian context - given how limited the applicability of this Western idea is in the Indian context. After all, historically, the more accurate term arguably is pluralism.
Hi Rahul, Thank you for your kind words! This is slightly different than usual at Drop Site News but very glad I had an opportunity to write on it. By the end of the article, I was left with more questions than answers.
Indeed UCC will have impact on man aspects of day to day life. But laws are as good as the democratic frame work of the nation. In many ways, the democracies are witnessing a 'tearing of veneer' moment (as Dr Norman Finkelstein says it). The veneer is off in India and I fear the worst. While writing this story I made chart on Indian Constitution's Directive Principles thought I'd share it — https://www.datawrapper.de/_/3A8fp/
Keep sharing our work, readers like you keep us going!