The Calicut Trade Centre, where the Communist Party of India (Marxist) held a national seminar on the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), was filled to capacity and then some on the evening of Saturday, July 15. The seminar, which was inaugurated by party general secretary Sitaram Yechury, saw the participation of party leaders, ministers, Christian and Muslim religious heads, and Dalit leaders. The crowd, which was over 12,000 strong according to the organisers, comprised largely of men who were party cadres.
Terming the seminar a unique and important initiative, Yechury said that the CPI(M) does not believe that uniformity is equality. “The CPI(M) steadfastly champions equal rights, not only between men and women, but also equality of all human beings irrespective of caste, creed, and gender. In order to achieve this, it is necessary that any reform in personal or customary laws in any community or section must be undertaken in consultation with specific communities, and with the democratic participation of all,” he said.
“UCC is a slogan that is meant to sharpen communal polarisation and not to actually achieve any uniformity … The Prime Minister said that there cannot be two laws in a family. What are these two laws? There are so many different laws that are validated by our Constitution. When they say that there cannot be two laws, it is very clear that this is an exercise to sharpen Muslim communal polarisation, with the 2024 general election in sight,” Yechury argued.
Yechury said that suspicions that UCC will be used for communal polarisation become stronger in the context of events that have played out over the past decade, when a BJP-led government ruled the country. He cited the examples of the abrogation of article 370 and the dissolution of India’s only Muslim-majority state (Jammu and Kashmir), laws against love jihad, laws restricting inter-faith marriages, cow protection rules, and the Citizenship Amendment Act, as targeted acts against the country’s Muslim population. Yechury also called the protests against UCC a “battle that will decide whether India that is Bharat will remain a secular democratic India.”
Speaking after Yechury, CPI(M) state secretary MV Govindan called the UCC an attempt by the BJP to take the country back to the casteist Chaturvarna system and form a constitution that is based on the Manusmriti. The diversity of the country will be destroyed, and the democratic, secular country of today will be changed to benefit the Savarna corporate forces, he added.
Almost all of the speakers who followed spoke as though reading from the same template. They accused the BJP-led Union government of destroying the country’s diversity, of attacking minorities, especially Muslims, and imposing the Hindutva ideology. Comments on the need for reform in personal laws were very few.
Despite many waxing lyrical about the beauty of India’s diversity and the need for representation, the speakers’ list seemed hardly democratic. The only woman speaker at the event was CPI(M)’s PK Sreemathy who was given the very last slot to speak, despite being a more powerful orator than many of the men before her. The other two women on stage – Kozhikode Mayor Beena Philip and state Women’s Commission chair P Sathidevi – sat on one end of the second row of dignitaries through the whole event, only to be denied a chance to speak. Not a single Muslim woman speaker addressed the crowd. The Dalit and tribal representatives too were allotted the last slots to speak, just before Sreemathy. For all its claim to be a fight to maintain the country’s democratic fabric, the seminar failed to give the impression of a democratically organised one.
C Mohammad Faisy, Kerala Muslim Jamaath vice president and Hajj committee chair, said that the solution to the misuse of religious laws by a few is not the abolition of such laws, but efforts to raise awareness against such misuse. “Religious leaders have tried to educate those who misuse religious laws, this should continue in the future too. Intolerance will never be good for the country,” he said. Muslim Educational Society president Fasal Gafoor said that reformation should come from within communities and not through governments.
Joseph Kalarickal, from the Thamarassery Syro Malabar diocese, said that if the claim that the UCC is intended to end discrimination against women is true, then the first step that the authorities should take is to reform the flaws within each personal law. “The shortcomings in personal laws need to be addressed … Discrimination against women needs to be stopped. First, women need to be given equal representation in Parliament and state Assemblies,” Joseph said. He also pointed out the irony in the fact that while seemingly batting for uniform laws for all, India denies reservation to Dalits who convert to Christianity.
The list of speakers included Mukkom Umar Faisy (secretary, Samastha Kerala Jem-iyyathul Ulama), Jenson Puthenveettil (Kozhikode Latin diocese), TI James (Church of South India), OR Kelu MLA (Adivasi Welfare Committee), Punnala Sreekumar (KPMS general secretary), and PK Sreemathy (CPI(M) leader), among others.
It soon became evident that the crowds at the seminar had not gathered organically. After each speech that followed Govindan’s, people began flocking out of the hall. When this reporter stepped out, a few men could be seen rounding up the attendees and directing them towards buses. A member of the CPI(M) Balussery area committee told TNM that they had been instructed to bring party workers to the event. “Each area committee was asked to bring a certain number of persons and buses were arranged. Almost every attendee here is linked to the party,” he conceded.
Members of the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), affiliated to the CPI(M), spoke to TNM about their apprehensions over the potential implementation of the UCC. “The BJP has brought this up ahead of the 2024 election to communally polarise the country. The concept of unity in diversity will be lost when the UCC is brought in. Even though Islam’s personal laws include slight inconveniences for women, a UCC will only usher in more problems,” said Shahida, an area executive member of AIDWA. Another executive member Jayasree said, “Different communities and religions coexist in our country. Each of those communities function as per their separate laws. Overturning their laws all of a sudden and implementing a uniform law in their place is not practical. As a society, we are not mature enough to implement the UCC.”
While Jayasree said that any reform or law that the BJP-RSS brings in is viewed with the suspicion that it is a mask for the ruling faction’s “communal and fascist agenda”, the opposition to the UCC is not just because it is being promoted by the BJP. Shameena, AIDWA’s town area committee member, echoed this opinion. “Our opposition to the UCC is not just because we belong to an opposing political party, but also on religious grounds, because we fear that UCC will lead to imposition of practices that different religions cannot accept,” she said.
Subeesh Kuthuparackal, CPI(M) Karimala branch secretary who was at the seminar, questioned why the BJP, which had vehemently opposed the entry of women into the Sabarimala temple in 2018, was so keen on ending discrimination against women in the personal laws of various religions. When asked about the need for reform in personal laws, he contended that the “gist of your question is the claim that Muslim women need to be uplifted.”