New Delhi: The Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) has welcomed the intervention of the Law Commission of India in the matter of the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) and demanded its expeditious enactment.
In a statement issued from its Central Working Committee meeting, which also featured in its magazine Hindu Vishwa, Alok Kumar, the international working president of the VHP, said it was a matter of satisfaction that the commission has invited views from all stakeholders on the subject.
“The UCC should be enacted after obtaining and considering suggestions of all shades of Bhartiya society soon,” he said.
Kumar claimed that it was a matter of regret that the MPs and MLAs who take the oath of “bearing true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India” have in these 73 years of the Constitution “failed to bring UCC for all citizens of Bharat.”
“It cannot be disputed that the personal laws of a religious community seriously violate the dignity, equality, and other rights of women. Their provisions about polygamy, divorce, and successions are some 1,400 years behind modern times. Such practices breach the rights of women granted by the Constitution. Similarly, the rights of children do also need to be protected under the UCC”, Kumar was quoted as saying.
He also expressed hope that the Law Commission would prepare a draft of the UCC at an early date that would “synthesise good practices from various sections of the society and will be in accord with the Constitutional values”.
Other topics that kept the Hindu Right press abuzz included the comments made by former US president Barack Obama regarding Muslims in India, the Congress government’s proposal to scrap the anti-conversion law in Karnataka, and the debate around the collegium system for the appointment of judges.
Here’s a look at what made the headlines in the Hindu Right press this week.
The collegium system
The collegium system makes the judiciary “unaccountable to the people and the Parliament”, according to an opinion piece in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s English mouthpiece, Organiser.
The author, Arin Kumar Shukla, argued that the collegium system gives “immense powers to the judiciary”, thereby shortening the scope of checks and balances and posing a risk of misuse. He listed four issues.
“First, the collegium system has led to the complete exclusion of the executive from judicial appointments. Second, it makes the judiciary unaccountable to the people or the representative of the people, the Parliament. This can lead to the wrong choice of the candidate while overlooking the rightful candidate,” he wrote.
According to him, the other two issues are that the collegium system offers much scope for “nepotism and favouritism”, and that it leads to a “non-transparent and opaque form of the judiciary”.
“In no case, the independence of the judiciary can be compromised, nor can the separation of power be harmed. But no institution is bigger than the Constitution itself”, he added.
“The judiciary remains the only organ of the government, which is neither transparent nor accountable. Nor is it open to public or civil scrutiny. Questioning the judiciary amounts to contempt of court. We have evolved a system where we’ve given judges a god-like status”, the article said.
Karnataka anti-conversion law
In reaction to the Siddaramaiah government’s decision to repeal the anti-conversion law passed by the previous Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, the RSS’s Hindi mouthpiece Panchjanya wrote that the Congress was working on its “formula” to divide Hindu votes and win the “minority votes”.
“As soon as the Congress returned to power in Karnataka, the first attack was on the anti-conversion act. That is, the debt of the missionaries with whose support they got the chair is being repaid,” wrote the author, Prashant Bajpai.
In the article, Bajpai alleged that the Congress, along with other “like-minded parties”, was “hatching a conspiracy to destroy Hindu culture for ‘secular’ votes”.
“That is why Congress’ lifelong ‘Khalifa‘ (leader) Rahul Gandhi organises the camera and media-centric events to project himself as a Hindu, but stands as a part of conspiracies on genuine issues of Hindu interest”, the article alleged.
“The temple tour campaign that Rahul Gandhi and his Congress are doing these days, which is being called Congress’s ‘soft Hindutva’ by some media persons, appears to be nothing more than a ploy to keep Hindus in a tizzy. Otherwise, the Congress government in Karnataka would not have taken a decision to repeal the anti-conversion law immediately after winning the election.” the author alleged.
The article concluded by asserting that removing the conversion law was not just a matter for Karnataka, but was a question of the future of Hindu society.
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Modi’s US visit and Obama’s comment
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US and former US president Obama’s remarks on the treatment of minorities in India both occasioned comment in the Hindu Right press.
While the Swadeshi Jagran Manch’s national co-convener, Ashwani Mahajan, wrote in his blog about the “new warmth being seen in Indo-US relations”, former Rajya Sabha MP Balbir Punj in an article in Dainik Jagran commented on Obama’s statement, which he characterised as “unsolicited advice”.
During Modi’s visit to the US earlier this month, Obama, in an interview with CNN, said that “if you do not protect the rights of ethnic minorities in India”, there’s a strong possibility that India would “start pulling apart”. He had also described the issue as “worth mentioning” during US President Joe Biden’s bilateral talks with Modi.
Referring to the ex-president as “Barack Hussein Obama”, Punj wrote, “You are facing a backlash in America itself for this. It is even being said that you have received a huge amount for this statement. It may also be that you are misinformed, or your mind is filled with a sense of inferiority towards India.”
Punj went on to add, “This statement of yours did not affect Prime Minister Modi’s visit to the US. His visit was full of achievements. However, your malicious, hateful, and immature words have definitely disappointed.”
“Your talk of adding ‘perceived concerns’ to ‘diplomatic dialogue’ in Indian democracy is not only promoting external interference, but this idea is also inspired by a colonial mindset. Remember that the democratic roots in the US are only two and a half centuries old, so if India is still democratic, pluralistic, and secular, then it is the result of its thousands-of-years-old Hindu Sanatan culture. In short, the only guarantee of these values in India is the Hindu character of the country.” he added.
Meanwhile, discussing Modi’s visit, Mahajan wrote that it “assumes greater significance due to the fact that today the US is facing huge challenges — economic, diplomatic and strategic.”
With its dominance on the global stage eroded on all these fronts, it’s important for the US to find capable and trustworthy partners, he argued. And the world now sees India as an important player.
Mahajan also focussed on how India and the US have not always had a harmonious relationship.
“Significantly, in the past, the relations between India and the US have generally been unequal. Even strategically, the US has mostly been a supporter of Pakistan,” he wrote.
He went on to say that, overall, if there was no bitterness in the relations between India and the US since the time of the Cold War, there was no harmony either.
“But with the collapse of Soviet Russia, the economic emergence of China, and the steady progress in the Indian economy, new chapters were added in the relations between India and America,” he added.
Also Read: Rahul Gandhi’s ‘rants abroad, hard-left gamble’ are miscalculations, says Hindu Right press
Wooing Pasmanda Muslims
Right-leaning author Minhaz Merchant in an article in Dainik Bhaskar drew examples from the Karnataka elections held in May where “Muslim votes helped Congress win” and said that the BJP could increase its outreach to Pasmanda Muslims as it is facing strong anti-incumbency in the country.
Explaining why the party fields almost no Muslim candidates in either parliamentary or assembly elections, Merchant quoted one BJP leader in the article as saying, “The BJP believes it doesn’t need the minority vote. Muslims anyway don’t vote for us.”
“That, however, could be changing. In recent local elections in Uttar Pradesh, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath fielded several Muslim candidates. Many were elected”, Merchant pointed out.
“During past elections, minorities have voted tactically against the BJP. In Karnataka, for example, in a strategic move to defeat the BJP, Muslims abandoned the JD(S) for the Congress. As a result, although the BJP’s vote share remained constant at 36 percent, the Congress’s vote share rose from 38.14 percent in 2018 to 42.88 percent in 2023. It made all the difference,” he wrote.
According to him, the BJP could use its outreach to Pasmanda Muslims to counteract anti-incumbency in 2024.
“The party has alienated its extreme Right wing by being too ‘secular’. It has upset the middle class with over-regulation, cumbersome tax compliances, and inflation. Splitting the Muslim vote by wooing Pasmandas could make up for some of the expected losses in the BJP’s traditional Hindu vote bank”, added Merchant.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)
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