Bengal govt set to table UCC bill in assembly next week

KOlkata: The Bharatiya Janata company (BJP) authorities is go down to innovate a government note to implement the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in the West Bengal assembly on June 29, state parliamentary affairs minister Shankar Ghosh told HT on Thursday.If the bill passes – the BJP holds a brute majority in the 294-member House – Bengal will become the fourth state to implement UCC after Uttarakhand, Gujarat and Assam.The BJP had promised to clamp UCC in the eastern state in its election manifesto earlier this year.“Five bills will be tabled on June 29. One of these is on UCC,” Ghosh said.UCC is a contentious and polarising issue referring to a common set of laws for personal matters such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, and succession for all citizens. Article 44 of the Constitution, one of the directive principles of state policy, advocates for a UCC. But respective religion-based civil codes have governed personal matters since Independence.Till now, the BJP-ruled states that have implemented UCC have steered clear of regulating tribal communities, instead focussing on standardising marital laws and registration, divorce and alimony proceedings, and recording live-in relationships.But Bengal will be the largest state where the BJP will attempt to implement UCC and the state with the biggest Muslim population of about 30%.In February 2024, Uttarakhand became the first state in the country to pass a UCC law. Another BJP-ruled state, Gujarat, followed suit last year. BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh has set up a committee to draft UCC. In Goa, the Goa Civil Code, derived from the Portuguese Civil Code of 1867, provides for compulsory registration of marriages before a civil authority. Assam passed the UCC bill in May, days after the BJP won the assembly elections.But some states have taken divergent pathways to UCC – Uttarakhand and Gujarat set up committees led by a former Supreme Court judge to make recommendations before drafting a bill, but Assam directly introduced a draft legislation.Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha member Saugata Roy, a veteran in the Mamata Banerjee camp, criticised the decision. “We are opposed to UCC right from the beginning. It is against secularism. BJP is enforcing it in the states where it is in power. Jawaharlal Nehru committed that the UCC would be introduced in India only if Muslims accepted it. Since Muslims have not accepted it, the BJP is moving a step towards forming a communal government,” Roy told HT.UCC has been among the most controversial issues in India, since before independence. The question triggered animated debate in the Constituent Assembly, before the framers of India’s founding document chose to place it among the non-justiciable directive principles of state policy. But UCC, along with removal of Article 370 in Kashmir and the building of a Ram Temple, remained at the forefront of the BJP’s ideological agenda for decades. Part of the troika of core ideological goals of the BJP, UCC was among the party’s poll promises in the 2024 general elections.Prime Minister Narendra Modi has repeatedly pitched for UCC, which is part of the directive principles of state policy of the Constitution but is considered politically controversial.Investments, a plethora of welfare projects for women and UCC marked the BJP’s manifesto that Union home minister Amit Shah released in Kolkata on April 10, days before the two-phase assembly polls in which his party wrested 207 of Bengal’s 294 seats.At the press conference on April 10, Shah had said that UCC will be enforced in Bengal.“All BJP-ruled states will follow the UCC. Bengal will not be an exception. If the nation’s law and Constitution treats every citizen as equal, then how can one citizen have four wives while another can have only one?” Shah said.The Trinamool Congress secured 80 seats when the results were declared on May 4. However, more than 60 of those legislators have since rebelled against Mamata Banerjee. It is unclear what stand they will take.