Why Do Indian Muslims Reject the Uniform Civil Code Proposal?

After the demolition of historical mosques and the attempt to erase the identity and Islamic history of India, the ruling party, Bharatiya Janata, resorted to the most dangerous campaign against Muslims, aiming to enact a Uniform Civil Code Law that imposes values conflicting with Sharia. Their objective is to convert Muslim families to follow Hindu teachings.

Nearly four years after issuing an advisory paper proposing a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) and rejecting it by the Indian Law Commission, stating it was “neither necessary nor desirable at this stage,” the same commission, under pressure from the extremist Hindu ruling party, reopened the file on Uniform Civil Code or Union Carbide Corporation, as reported by Hindustan Times on June 15, 2023.

 

Widespread Rejection

On June 14, 2023, Indian Law Commission No. 22 sent a memorandum to public bodies and religious organizations, requesting their opinions on this uniform civil law within 30 days, according to the local newspaper Tribune India.

The deadline, which ended on July 14, 2023, was met with rejection from Muslims and support from Hindus, as they feared the imposition of the law on them. One of the Hindu’s goals is to claim that “India will become an Islamic state if the birth rate of Muslims and their separation continues with Islamic laws specific to them!”

In early July 2023, the Indian Home Minister, Amit Shah, held the first high-level meeting to discuss the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), fueling speculation that the government may introduce the law in the upcoming parliamentary session.

In this context, Haris Zargar, a doctoral researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies at Erasmus University Rotterdam, confirmed that the Uniform Civil Code is a purported weapon to target Indian Muslims, who are already suffering under the policies of the ruling Hindu party.

In an article published on July 12, 2023, on the Middle East Eye, Zargar pointed out that the law and the revisiting of the issue of controlling Muslim women’s bodies in India coincide with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s campaign for a third term in 2024, making this issue a focal point of political and societal debates in the country.

Zargar stated, “After revisions to Hindu personal laws in the 1950s, these laws began to be perceived as more gender-just, while Muslim personal laws were still seen as ‘primitive’ and ‘uncivilized.’ Hindutva groups began pushing for reform of Muslim laws in the 1980s during the Shah Bano case, wherein an Indian court disparaged Muslim personal laws in granting a Muslim woman higher post-divorce support.”

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, led by Modi, along with affiliated extremist Hindu groups, have resumed their efforts to revive legislation aimed at imposing further regulatory measures on Muslim women in the country.

Zargar believes that the Uniform Civil Code project contradicts the legal system governing personal affairs in India, which allows different religious communities, including Hindus, Muslims, Christians, and others, to follow their respective religious laws in certain family matters and property management, such as marriage, divorce, adoption, and inheritance.

Islamic campaigns opposing the Uniform Civil Code have started, and Indian scholars have called on Muslims through social media to reject the Indian Law because it is unsuitable for Muslims or a pluralistic country like India.

Muslims have affixed QR codes to many mosques in the United States, asking attendees to send emails to the Law Commission expressing their rejection of the Uniform Civil Code.

Several Indian Islamic associations and unions have issued statements rejecting the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) and affirming that the government is conspiring to divide the people of India once again in the name of this proposal.

They stated that “what distinguishes India is its abundance of diverse cultures, traditions, sects, and religions, making it a model of unity in diversity in the world.”

The Islamic organizations and unions emphasized that the imposition of the Uniform Civil Code is a malicious attempt by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party government to incite Hindus against Muslims and promote divisive policies.

They accused the ruling party of seeking political benefits behind this proposal.

Muslim religious scholars and the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, a prominent non-governmental Islamic organization established in 1973, believe that Muslim Personal Law is the only remaining common denominator for Muslims, capable of preserving the collective identity of the scattered Muslim community across India.

Muslims in India are subject to the Muslim Personal Law (Sharia), which was issued in 1937 and deals with matters of marriage, inheritance, and charitable organizations for Muslims.

The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act of 1939 covers the conditions under which a Muslim woman can obtain a divorce, her rights, and related matters.

However, these laws do not apply in the state of Goa, where the Goa Civil Code is applied to all individuals regardless of their religion.

Articles 25-28 of the Indian Constitution guarantee religious freedom to Indian citizens and allow religious communities to maintain their personal affairs.

The Indian Constitution permits followers of different religions to resort to their religious courts to adjudicate personal law and inheritance matters.

Nevertheless, Article 44 of the Indian Constitution states: “The State shall endeavor to secure for the citizens a Uniform Civil Code throughout the territory of India,” which is sought after by the Hindu party but rejected by all religious communities, fearing Hindu domination over their beliefs.

 

Hindu Extremist Domination

Extreme Hindu groups believe that there are fears of an increase in the Muslim population in India, claiming that this affects “Hindu domination” and its potential elimination, although such fears are baseless and unfounded.

They see the enactment of the Uniform Civil Code as “beneficial” in restricting the Islamic presence in India, to the extent that they mock the dissenting Muslims and demand that they be deprived of services.

Hindu electronic committees spread an image of a Muslim man with four veiled women on social media, insinuating Muslim polygamy, and issued unified tweets calling for the mandatory application of the law on Muslims, stating, “This law is necessary for the country, what are we waiting for.”

Extremist Hindu groups, in their demonstrations, are also demanding a population control law to “save Hinduism” in India while simultaneously advocating for making the teaching of “sacred Hindu scriptures” mandatory.

These individuals, affiliated with the extremist Hindu organization Bajrang Dal, are organizing ongoing protests against what they call the “demographic growth” of Muslims in India.

They claim that the Uniform Civil Code will prevent Muslims from population growth and control their birth rates.

Hindus propagate several myths to justify their attempt to force Muslims to abandon their Sharia-compliant Personal Law and adopt a uniform Indian law that disregards Islamic teachings on family matters.

One of their claims is that “polygamy causes an increase in Muslim population” at the expense of Hindus, and “Muslims have more children” due to their higher fertility rate.

They argue that Islam is against family planning, as the local website Outlook India reported on May 12, 2023.

Supporters of the Hindu stance, often unaware of the reality, believe that the Uniform Civil Code will criminalize certain practices they disapprove of, such as polygamy, which the Hindu right falsely spread as a common practice among Muslims, aiming to increase their numbers.

Even though the National Family Health Survey in 2006 revealed that this practice among the Muslim population does not exceed 2.5 percent in the country.

The issue of UCC was also one of the points in the election manifesto of the extremist Prime Minister Modi in the 2019 elections and in his party’s program for the recent elections in the southern state of Karnataka. They are reaffirming it for the 2024 elections.

The Modi government is attempting to manipulate the “gender discourse,” promoting gender equality, as a weapon against Indian Muslims to impose the UCC on them.

The government has rallied some activists who support gender equality and women’s rights to endorse the idea of the UCC and impose it on Muslims, claiming that it will help end discrimination against women.

In his article on the Middle East Eye, writer Haris Zargar pointed out that implementing the UCC in Indian society will effectively lead to the annulment of the Personal Laws governing Muslim family affairs, thereby subjecting the customary laws and rituals followed by various tribal communities in India to the new civil law.

Opponents of the law argue that its enactment undermines India’s social and religious fabric and will be used as a tool to enforce the idea of a uniform Hindu nation.

They emphasize that these efforts to impose the new law draw from the Hindu nationalist ideology of Hindutva, which advocates that incorporating Indian Muslims into a “comprehensive” Hindu social system is an effective way to confront the “disruptive” presence of Muslims in the country.

Zargar sees that “over the past century, the ‘Muslim woman question’ has been central to the supremacist project of India’s militant Hindu groups.”

Targeting the bodies of Muslim women has become one of the components of Hindu revengeful violence against the Islamic civilization that dominated India for long periods, and it has become a major concern in the discourse of Hindu nationalism.

“The ruling echoed the Hindutva narrative, which has maintained that the Muslim family is a loose entity where women’s honor is not respected and where men practice polygamy and attempt to lure Hindu women into their fold. Such discourses have manifested in the anti-Muslim conspiracy theory known as ‘love jihad,’ whereby Muslim men allegedly pursue Hindu women to convert them to Islam,” Zargar said.

“Despite zero proof that love jihad exists, Hindu nationalists continue to claim that it is used as a tool for religious conversion. In February, the chief of a prominent Hindu group threatened to abduct Muslim women to counter this practice: ‘If we lose one Hindu girl to “love jihad,” we must trap and lure 10 Muslim women in retaliation…We must protect our religion from external forces.’”

 

Curbing the Muslim Population

On July 11, 2023, Hindu extremists protested in the city of Aligarh in the state of Uttar Pradesh, demanding the curbing of the growth of Muslims and calling for a population control law to incite hatred against Muslims.

In April 2023, the Indian Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, said at an international forum that India has the second-largest number of Muslims in the world, and claimed that population growth in the country is limited to Muslims alone!

Indian experts criticized the remarks of the minister, who is aligned with the ruling extremist party, affirming that her speech only revived the myths surrounding the so-called “Muslim population explosion” in India, as reported by the Outlook India website on May 12, 2023.

The website pointed out that by no means will the number of Muslims exceed the number of Hindus in the next thousand years, but Hindu extremists are promoting fears that India will become a Muslim state.

In May 2023, a report by AFP revealed that a group of influencers and social media celebrities succeeded in attracting a wide Hindu audience by spreading false demographic data, claiming that India is undergoing a reshaping to become a Muslim state.

The population of India is 1.4 billion people, including 210 million Muslims. However, the birth rate has declined for everyone in recent decades, and according to the latest national survey of family health in the country, the total fertility rate is two children per woman and marginally higher at 2.3 for Muslim women.

Forecasts issued in the same year by Pew Research Center stated that the number of Muslims in India will reach 311 million by the year 2050.

Despite their increasing numbers, Muslims will remain a minority in the country, whose population is projected to reach 1.7 billion people by the mid-century, according to the projections of the research center.

For years, India has witnessed widespread persecution and violence against Muslims, carried out by Hindu extremist militias following the racist ideology of Hindutva.

Human rights organizations have stated that this ideology, embraced by the ruling party, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), aims to discriminate against Hindus from other minorities in India.