2009/6/25 Nikhil Mehra <nikhil.mehra...@gmail.com> > I don't see how the need for a UCC affects a Hindu male. It would be a god > sent for Muslim women, but a Hindu male pining for the UCC seems like the > only desire is for a dilution of religious identities.
I didn't know it always had to be about me or the community I belong to. Obviously this discussion is about the "greater good". Case in point - most of Europe is moving towards banning the purdah and hijab. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijab_by_country > Which is a very > worthy cause, but the BJP's flaw here is to paint all muslims as being > anti-UCC and therefore by extension having no sense of India as a nation. > It's always the subtext with the BJP that bothers and it invariably rears > it's ugly head in some form or the other. The line is always blurry between majority and all. Quote from the link I posted earlier.[1] <Most writings on the subject point to the small number of Muslim intelligentsia such as Tahir Mahmood who are in favor of either doing away with the Personal Law or reforming it. However, the vast majority of Muslims led by the Jumiat al-Ulama<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jumiat_al-Ulama&action=edit&redlink=1>and other orthodox Muslim groups have fought tooth and nail against any change to the Personal Law. Mushir Ul-Haq<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mushir_Ul-Haq&action=edit&redlink=1>in his treatise *Islam in Secular India<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Islam_in_Secular_India&action=edit&redlink=1> * identifies three groups, the fundamentalist, Moderate, and Radical. In the Radical camp are those who would do away with the Personal Law in total, and replace it with a Uniform Code. Farias describes them as "a very small minority of Muslims...mostly western trained." In the Modernist camp, we find men, such as A.A. Fyzee, who believe that Sharia law is malleable and can be changed, given the consent of the community or ijma. The Fundamentalists or 'Orthodox', as previously mentioned, rely on the arguments of Mushir Ul-Huq who argues in *Islam in Secular India* that the Laws of countries such as Tunisia and Turkey or Iraq<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq>were "thrust down their throats by authoritarian rulers" and that "there is hardly any Muslim country which has so far denied the authority of the sources of Shariah." > [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_civil_code The most disturbing fact is that most Muslim countries have moved beyond age-old Shariah laws, including Pakistan but in India we still rely on a law formulated in the 1930s. I quote again - <Those wishing to reform the Muslim Personal Law have often cited Muslim countries as examples that such reform is possible. Terence Farias<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Terence_Farias&action=edit&redlink=1>, in his chapter *The Development of Islamic Law* points out that the 1961 Muslim Family Law Ordinance of Pakistan "makes it obligatory for a man who desires to take a second wife to obtain a written permission from a government appointed Arbitration Council." The interesting point regarding Pakistan is that until 1947 both India and Pakistan had governed Muslims under the Shariat Act of 1937. However, by 1961 Pakistan, a Muslim country, had actually reformed its Muslim Law more than India had and this remains true today. Mushir Al-Huq<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mushir_Al-Huq&action=edit&redlink=1>and Tahir Mahmood <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tahir_Mahmood>, both Muslim writers on Islamic Law in India, have pointed out the reforms meted out in Tunisia and Turkey where Polygamy was abolished. Iran<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran>, South Yemen <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Yemen>, and Singapore<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore>all reformed their Muslim laws in the 1970s, although Iran appears to have backslid in this respect. In the end the argument is quite clear. If Muslim countries can reform Muslim Personal Law, and if western democracies have fully secular systems, then why are Indian Muslims living under laws passed in the 1930s?> Kiran
