New Delhi: The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) decided late Tuesday that it would oppose “tooth and nail” any move to implement the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in the country.
The AIMPLB held an emergency online meeting late on Tuesday night, hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a strong push for the UCC, saying in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh that “there could not be a different set of rules for different members of a family”.
Addressing the party’s booth-level workers in Bhopal Tuesday, Modi said some people were instigating others in the name of the Uniform Civil Code, adding the Constitution also talked about equal rights for its citizens.
The Prime Minister’s views were concurrent with affidavits filed by the Law Ministry last year that said it was “an affront to the nation’s unity” that citizens belonging to different religions and denominations follow different property and matrimonial laws.
The government had maintained in the Supreme Court that Article 44 (Uniform Civil Code) divests religion from social relations and personal law.
In its meeting Tuesday night, the AIMPLB wrote up their opposition in a draft that they will submit to the Law Commission. The UCC seeks to formulate and implement a set of common personal laws for all the citizens of India regardless of their religion, caste, and creed.
The meeting was attended by AIMPLB president Saifullah Rehmani, Chairman of Islamic Centre of India and member of AIMPLB Maulana Khalid Rasheed Farangi Mahali, and AIMPLB lawyers among others.
Reacting to Modi’s speech, Maulana Khalid Rashid Farangi Mahali told Hindustan Times that the AIMPLB was “chalking out a strategy to counter the proposed move of the government by presenting our view in front of the law commission more powerfully”.
He added, “For the past several years, politicians have been raising the issue of the Uniform Civil Code just before the elections. This time too, the issue has come up before the 2024 elections.”
Khalid further said that the UCC would not only affect Muslims but also Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Jews, Parsis and other minorities in the country. “India is a country where language changes every 100 km. So, how can we have the same set of rules for all communities? Every community has a different way of praying, performing rituals and conducting ceremonies like marriage. The freedom to practice one’s own faith and way of life is granted to everyone by the Constitution.”
On Tuesday, Modi said vote-bank politics had failed the Pasmanda Muslims — an identity that integrates Dalit and the backward caste which make up 80% of the community.
“The lives of Pasmanda Muslims have been made difficult by those who do vote-bank politics in the country. They are not treated equally. They have been exploited by members of their own community,” Modi said.
He also attacked those supporting the “Triple Talaq” and said: “These people are doing grave injustice to Muslim daughters. If this was an important aspect of Islam, why is it not there in Pakistan, Indonesia, Qatar, Jordan, Syria and Bangladesh?” he asked. He further said that Egypt had “removed” the practice “80 to 90 years ago”.
Also read: ‘Even Pakistan scrapped triple talaq’ — in poll-bound MP, Modi woos Pasmandas, makes a case for UCC