The Bharatiya Janata Party government’s predictable move to reignite the controversy over the Uniform Civil Code has invited predictable responses.
Opposition leaders have flayed this move. Questioning the need for the Law Commission to take this up again, several opposition leaders have effectively positioned themselves against the UCC. Muslim organisations have gone a step further and condemned it as a sinister move that is against minorities and the Constitution.
The stage appears set for an ideological battle, both tragic and ironic, with the BJP pushing for the constitutional promise of a UCC and the secular politics arrayed against it.
This is exactly how the BJP must have scripted this debate. It is a mark of our times that secular politics retreats from whatever ground the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the BJP illegitimately encroach upon—Hinduism, traditions, nationalism, and now the UCC.
If this retreat must be halted, secular politics must reclaim the principled and progressive position on the UCC. It must assert that the UCC has nothing to do with customs and practices of any one religion; it is about asserting the uniform primacy of constitutional principles of equality between and within religious communities and uniformly ensuring gender justice. It must realise that opposing the idea of a UCC is poor politics. Besides, it is a bad political strategy in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha election.