“Not in my interest” – Who’s opposing the #UniformCivilCode ?

The filing of an affidavit in the Honorable Supreme Court against practices like triple talaq and polygamy on 7th October 2016 has increased the decibels in the living rooms and newsrooms of the nation concerning the legitimacy of “enforcing” a uniform civil code. Noticeably, serendipitously or by design, the Muslims are seen (thanks to their regular appearance in the newsrooms) as a roadblock to this progressive step by the Government, thus inviting uncharitable and insensitive comments from the majoritarian community. After all, in the interest of the Nation, the Hindu men “sacrificed” their right to possess multiple wives in 1955. Hence it is unthinkable as to why the largest minority is not willing to (rather “forced to”) sacrifice its share of “flesh”? And for the Muslims it appears their green is about to be invaded by the saffron!

While anti-Muslim resentment is increasingly taking the shape of a storm, it is important to pause and appreciate that it is the ulema, buoyed by political parties anchored on their respective self-interests, that is ensuring this great debate and supposed non-cooperation. And to understand the interest of the ulema we have to peek into the pages of history.  It was in Muslim-minority provinces of Uttar Pradesh (erstwhile United Provinces) and Bengal, where educated Muslims abounded, that the present-day Muslim politics began in India. The fire was specifically lit with the introduction of the new Anglo-vernacular language policy in the 19th century that discredited the usage of Persian as an official language. Consequently, the life of the Muslim Ashraf (the pre-colonial ruling elites of North India) turned difficult, for they had to study English to qualify for government jobs. In addition to this, they faced stiff competition from Hindus (especially Kayasthas, Khatris, Kashmiri Brahmins in North India, while Baidyas, Kayasthas, and Brahmins in Bengal) who had embraced English education much earlier and hence qualified more successfully for the jobs that the Muslim Ashraf previously held. In summary, Muslims were affected economically and by extension socially.

Many historians have divided the Ashrafs to three distinct groups based on the ways they were affected. The first group consisted of landlords, who chose to be political allies of the Raj and in turn, were recipients of favors (barring a few like the Raja of Mahmoodabad who were active in the Muslim League). The second group consisted of the ulema, who were arguably the biggest losers to the new language policy. Not only they lost out the students who used to enroll in their madaris to learn Persian and Arabic to English medium schools but also forfeited the legal roles they used to play by application of sharia law, by issuing of fatwa in contentious issues, and by mediating disputes. This loss of livelihood made the ulema don the military uniform against the British (and the Sikhs who were part of the army) in 1857. However they were viciously defeated, following which they concentrated in the newly established seminaries of Dar-ul-Uloom at Deoband and the older Firangi Mahal at Lucknow. The third group of Ashraf was the educated one who aspired for a salaried government employment (in the absence of large private sectors organizations during the times). Noted sociologists like Hamza Alavi had coined the term ‘salariat’ to identify this group. The salariats were responsible for founding the Muslim League and resisted all possible impositions of Islamic ideology in the organization. Sir Raza Ali echoed the voice of all Muslim professionals and salariat class, when he said, “we most need is education that would be most useful in helping us to deal with the affairs of this world … which can help the coming generations to earn their livelihood”, and warned that it is against the interest of Indian Muslims to entertain thoughts and encourage efforts to create an Islamic State based on original Islam. Needless to say, the ulema were against the Muslim League. This battle between the various Ashrafs never ended. For e.g. during the Khilafat Movement (1919 – 1922), which was largely driven by the ulema who mobilized the low-class townspeople and the peasantry against the Raj, one notices that the opposition came from the upper strata of the Muslim society (e.g. leading Lucknow maulvis, leading Muhammedans of Nagpur, local Khans in NWFP, the educated classes, the Cawnpore Chamber of Commerce etc.). Similarly, the Nizam of Hyderabad prohibited all Khilafat meetings in his state in May 1920.

The ulema is thus fanning these flames against the Uniform Civil Code in recent times, provoked by their insecurity of losing the coveted position of teacher as well as a torchbearer of Islamic jurisprudence. And true to the division we had witnessed in history, the challenge to the ulema came from Ms. Shahnaz Sheikh, an educated Muslim woman from Bombay, divorced without maintenance, who questioned the validity of the Muslim Personal Law under Article 14, one year before the Shah Bano case. That the Shah Bano case formed the nucleus of this communal flare-up, is often attributed to the choice of words employed by Justice Chandrachud in his judgment. However what needs to be highlighted, that while in 1985, maulvis and motivated politicians across cities and mosques in the country played on the fear of “a death warrant of Muslim Identity in Hindu India,” large number of Muslims saw no conflict between the Supreme Court verdict and the Islamic principles. Similarly, when from various public meetings in Kerala, UP, Bihar, Kashmir and Andhra Pradesh, the clergymen and the politicians raised slogans like “Sharia is our religious right, we will die to protect it” etc., Muslim women chastised the mullahs for driving injustice through religion. While the All India Muslim Personal Law Board called for a bandh to mark the Shariat Day on 4th Oct 1985, Muslim intelligentsia, from educated and professional classes, through a signed memorandum, upheld the right of a divorced Muslim woman to claim maintenance from her former husband. In fact, Justice M H Beg, the then Chairman of the Minorities Commission advocated that granting of maintenance to Muslim woman under Section 125 of the CrPC was not in negation or interference with the Muslim Personal Law. Any person stating the contrary, “neither knows the Quran, nor the Muslim Personal Law nor equality nor justice, nor the obligation of the Indian citizen under the constitution.”

At this juncture, a brief mention of the exemplary role enacted by the Congress party to flare up these communal tensions is worth a mention. Initially the Rajiv Gandhi Govt. welcomed the judgment, however, thanks to their losses in by-elections of December 1985 (Assam, Bijnor, Kishanganj, Bolapur, Kedrappa and Baroda), a belief that the opposition parties were gaining all the Muslim votes got crystallized. And then begun the most damaging form of communal politics, blind to human dignity. To appease the ulemas, in May 1986, the Govt. introduced in Parliament the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Bill, 1985, that negated the secular judgment of the Honorable Supreme Court and denied the right for claiming maintenance to the Muslim women. More importantly, it absolved the husband’s family from any responsibility post-divorce. Rather, the woman’s natal family is responsible for paying maintenance. It’s anyone’s guess how quickly the woman will stand disowned thanks to this law. According to legal experts, the bigger damage done by this law is the removal of maintenance from the sphere of criminal and civil law to personal law. Thus citizenship (and hence the associated rights) of the woman is of little consequence if she’s a Muslim. Despite ten lakhs signatures collected by All India Democratic Women’s Association against this law, the Govt. refused to repeal it. So much for Democracy, so much for leadership, and so much for Rahul Gandhi’s version of women empowerment!

In the end, I will like to summarize that this conflict is largely intra-Muslim, an old volcano revealing life again.  It’s an existential fight of an ancient body that finds itself pitted against an emerging yet firmer voice of justice and reason. It’s a fight between an unquestioned authority and an aware mind. It is a fight for personal and professional existence hidden, communicated, and fought under the garb of religious threat, by some motivated political parties. Thus any reference to potential Hinduization of Muslims is highly misplaced and reveals historical ignorance. The BJP and the Sanghis had little to do with this. Instead, this is a struggle for women empowerment, of the seed once planted by some brave Muslim women, and watered by some forward thinking intellectuals of the same religion, finally ready to burst out to light and liberation. How the Hindus can help is not to join voices against the ulema (one cannot win that), but to join voices with the thinking Muslim in order to be heard louder and clearer. And for that one needs to converse, communicate and befriend.         

[Note: References for all the facts stated will be provided upon request]