Essay On Uniform Civil Code

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The absence of a Uniform Civil Code enabled the political conflagration that came to be known as the Shah Bano controversy. Although the CrPC was established over a century earlier, personal law remained virtually unchallenged until the 1940s when Jawaharlal Nehru and B. R. Ambedakar, Chairman of the Constitution Drafting Committee, began pushing for the Hindu Bull Code. The dominant narrative about the Uniform Civil Code in the Constituent Assembly describes it as a compromise between equality and pluralism The Indian Constitution also expects the State to “endeavour to secure for citizens a Uniform Civil Code throughout the territory of India” . The tremendous social and political unrest following partition meant the Uniform Civil Code was abandoned until Muslims felt less threatened by the perceived power of the Hindu majority, and communal tensions abated. Nehru and Ambedakar were sympathetic to feelings of vulnerability among Muslims in light of surging communal mobilization among groups seeking to anchor themselves in the bedrock of nationally mandated religious tolerance. Having helped found democratic India upon principles of tolerance and coexistence as well as national unity, both men understood that tampering with traditions of the Muslims would make them even less secure.…show more content…
As feminist legal activist Flavia Agnes has ponted out, a Uniform Civil Code would require the abolition of Hindu Undivided Family, a legal institution that gives tax benefits only to Hindus, and all citizens of India would have to be governed by the largely gender-just Indian Succession Act, 1925, currently applicable only to Christians and

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