Polygamy Is the Root of All Social Problems That Government Wants to Solve Under the Garb of Uniform Civil Code
By New Age Islam Staff
Writer
19 July
2023
Instead of Imposing UCC, The Government Should
Ban Polygamy
Main Points:
1.
Polygamy creates problems of
inheritance.
2.
Parental rights are violated because
of polygamy.
3.
UCC will also affect Hindu United
Family.
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The
government had expressed its intent to bring the Uniform Civil Code bill in the
Monsoon Session which will start from 20th July and last till the 11th of
August. The Law Commission meanwhile invited suggestions from Indian citizens
and organisations on the UCC. The last date for sending suggestions is July 28.
Till now, fifty lakh suggestions have been received by the Law Commission and
an estimated 75 lakh suggestions will be received by the deadline. The Law
Commission will study all the 75 lakh or so suggestions and then present a
recommendation or draft to the government. All this does not seem possible by
the 10th of August the entire exercise will take at least 6 months, may be
longer, for the government. This means the government has backed off from
presenting the bill in the forthcoming monsoon session because of the
large-scale opposition from the North-East and from.the tribal communities in
other states including West Bengal apart from the Muslims.
Dipankar
Gupta's argument is that the government's aim behind pushing the UCC is
actually banning polygamy which is said to be rampant among the Muslims. For
this single goal, it has raked up the issue of the UCC. The real aim is to ban
polygamy, particularly among the Muslims. The facts, however, indicate that
only 1.9 per cent of Muslims practise polygamy while 1.3 percent of Hindus
practise it. The difference is not much given the difference in the population
of Hindus and Muslims.
So the
author argues that instead of implementing the UCC and stirring the hornet's
nest, the government should only ban polygamy because it is the polygamy which
gives way to other problems of inheritance, parentage etc. By bringing in the
UCC the government will invite more trouble than to solve problems. Since only
the Muslims had been protesting and expressing their fears and reservations on
the UCC, the government had got the wrong perception that all the other
stake-holders were happy and will not protest. But as the days came closer,
tribals started expressing their reservations. If the UCC is implemented, the
people of North East states will rise in opposition and another round of unrest
will follow. Seeing this opposition some leaders of the ruling party have
suggested some exceptions to some communities. This will kill the basic idea of
the UCC. It will make clear that the UCC was really meant to target the
Muslims.
The UCC if
implemented will abolish many Acts that were made to protect different
vulnerable sections of the society and to ensure that economically and
financially backward communities get equal opportunity to advance and prosper
with other developed communities. Laws to protect women, Dalits and other
weaker sections give them privileges under the Constitution. Under the UCC,
these communities will be stripped off these privileges leaving them vulnerable
to powerful and educationally and economically developed communities of the
country. Even after 75 years of independence, the successive governments have
not been able to ensure uniform development of all the communities. Dalits,
Muslims and tribals are still persecuted by upper caste communities and
communal forces. Women are still persecuted and harassed by the male
chauvinists therefore, in this social and economic condition, bringing the UCC
will leave the vulnerable sections subject to persecution, injustice and
deprivation without the protective cover that the Constitution has provided
them.
Therefore,
Dipankar Gupta advises the government that instead of trying to implement the
UCC, the government should abolish all polygamy. This will solve the basic
problems in the long run.
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First, Make All Polygamy Illegal
By Dipankar
Gupta
Jul 16,
2023
The
discussions on Uniform Civil Code (UCC) are going sideways because of the
reluctance in stating that the real aim is to ban polygamy, which allows a man
to have more than one wife. The rest of UCC is really background noise. That
the call for UCC only appears in the Constitution as one of the non-justiciable
Directive Principles, makes it appear like a promise akin to jam yesterday, jam
tomorrow but never today. Alice in Wonderland, once more.
This positioning
of UCC in the Constitution took away its urgency though it bobbed up, from time
to time, in lazy, hazy conversations before it was patted back to bed. Its
relevance gradually faded away, allowing polygamy to reset the alarm and go
back to sleep. It was in the 1980s that it was rudely woken up when the Shah
Bano case made polygamy among Muslims a national scandal; even so it did not
really stir the entire UCC package.
In recent
years polygamy has come back with tons of newsfeed on UCC, some of it imagined,
which paints a rather large target on the back of the Muslim community. It
would seem, judging from media chats, that Muslims are wantonly polygamous
while the truth is that less than 1.9% practise it. Polygamy is not entirely
absent amongst Hindus either for 1.3% are said to be in a polygamous
relationship. In parenthesis, polygamy exists largely among the poor.
Unfortunately,
this practice lurks among Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) as
well. In this connection, we need to remember that the Hindu Marriage Act made
an exception for STs and kept them out of its purview. Also, our Constitution
made room for the traditional Muslim Personal Law to continue in the belief
that some communities were not ready for full-fledged democracy. If it wasn’t
time for them then, it is clearly overtime now.
In simple
terms, polygamy is a feature that needs to be stamped out vigorously regardless
of which community is in question. Hence, rather than beat the drum about UCC,
why not just make polygamy illegal across the board and place it unerringly in
the crosshairs of social reform. Other issues like inheritance laws can wait
till polygamy loses its death grip for without a clear victory over it, other
reforms get pushed back to another day.
Once polygamy
goes, gender injustice on matters such as inheritance, gets easier to address.
This is exactly what happened with the Hindu Succession Act. It came a year
after the Hindu Marriage Act, which disallowed polygamy. Without outlawing
polygamy, inheritance matters can never be straight lined. Even so, it took
almost another 50 years for the 2005 Amendment to be enacted, which finally
granted Hindu women equal right to inheritance.
A
four-square attack against polygamy may seem like an overkill as only a tiny
fraction practises it. That is not a good reason to play defence because it is
always a few who fall prey to murderers, thieves and cheats. The law fails if
exceptions are made forcing such victims to endure endless, frustrating,
legalese as if they were drying out their clothes in pouring rain. Those
scarred by polygamy may be small in number, but they still deserve justice.
In this,
wisdom clearly lies in pacing oneself and not insisting in placing every single
duck in a row at once. Polygamy should be drawn out of the UCC package and
dealt with first. As long as that exists, all other reforms, such as on
maintenance, alimony etc will escape attention. The adoption of the Hindu
Marriage Act before the Hindu Succession Act is not just a historic quirk but,
in hindsight, a near perfect timetable of how reforms should be sequenced.
A
full-fledged uniform civil code would be messy and a waste of time and would
even delay an easy no-contest win against polygamy. To be fixated on the entire
UCC package is not good advice but needless homework, like pounding sand.
Polygamy is an outright affront to democracy and women’s dignity, which if
clothed in UCC becomes difficult to reject. Some innocent multiculturalists
might also view it as an affable and colourful eccentricity.
This allows
polygamy to be clubbed with extraneous issues like matrilineal descent, or the
rule of ultimogeniture as amongst some STs where the youngest sibling is the
main inheritor. But matriliny is in no way undemocratic and ultimogeniture is also
dying out naturally. Older siblings have together mounted an assault against it
and there is public sympathy too for one does not know where the buck stops as
long as the parents are reproductively able.
In
addition, where land is held by a lineage, such as among many STs, a uniform
inheritance law would be tricky. Adopting a full-fledged UCC would also mean a
shakeup of the Hindu Undivided Family as a tax category. Are millions of Hindus
ready for this? This is why it is best to zero in on polygamy and, for the time
being, let the rest of UCC hide in the tall grass. Without polygamy as a cover,
they will soon be flushed out in the open.
That is
when they can be picked out, one at a time, clearly and precisely and not all
at once where everything gets garbled. As the adage goes: ‘Never talk when your
mouth is full.’
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Dipankar Gupta is a sociologist
Source First, Make All Polygamy Illegal
URL https://newageislam.com/islam-politics/polygamy-social-evils-garb-uniform-civil-code/d/130248
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