Watch: Uniform Civil Code and what it means for everybody

The Uniform Civil Code, BJP’s election promise and the source for major contention in the past few weeks, seeks to replace personal laws of religious communities with a blanket set of civil laws for everybody. For the first time in India’s constitutional history, the Centre opposed the practice of triple talaq, ’nikah halala’ and polygamy among Muslims and favoured a relook on grounds like gender equality and secularism international covenants and religious practices in the Supreme Court on 7 October. Triple talaq allows a Muslim man to divorce his wife unilaterally by just uttering the word ’talaq’ three times. This has drawn much censure from Muslims who suspect the government’s motives, wanting the reform to come from within the community. In a rare display of solidarity, Islamic scholars and clerics of all Muslim sects attacked the government for trying to introduce a Uniform Civil Code, stating that “any interference in Muslim Personal Law will not be tolerated. Any efforts to impose a Uniform Civil Code in the name of social reform and gender justice will prove counterproductive,” they said. Other minority communities have not taken up a strong stance on the issue as yet but a tendency to dissent can be observed on the part of the Church. To know more about the Uniform Civil Code, watch this video by Insight 18: With inputs from agencies