Muslims being instigated over Uniform Civil Code, says Modi, slams opposition

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said the Supreme Court has repeatedly called for bringing a Common Civil Code (UCC), whose implementation remains ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s third major ideological goal, as he hit out at the opposition parties over corruption and scams and said the people have made up their minds to bring the BJP back to power for a third time in a row in 2024.

Modi said Muslims were being instigated in the name of UCC. "If there is one law for one member in a house and another for the other, will the house be able to run? So how will the country be able to run with such a dual system?" asked Modi in his address to BJP workers in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh's Bhopal after flagging off five semi-high-speed Vande Bharat trains connecting India's key cities.

Other than UCC, the BJP has achieved two of its key foundational ideological goals – the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya and the nullification of the Constitution's Article 370 that gave Jammu and Kashmir a semi-autonomous status.

Modi said the opposition parties were in a panic as a massive victory of the BJP is certain again in 2024. "Nowadays one word comes again and again...guarantee. All these opposition parties... these people are the guarantee of corruption, scams worth lakhs of crores of rupees. A few days back they had a photo op... If we put together the total of all the people who are in that photo, then all of them together is a guarantee of Rs20 lakh crore scam. Congress alone...a scam worth lakhs of crores," he said.

The comments came days after 32 leaders from 15 parties with 210 seats in Parliament and governing 11 states met in Patna on Friday last and all but one of them vowed to jointly take on the BJP and forge a common agenda ahead of the 2024 elections. The parties are scheduled to meet again in Shimla in July.

Modi referred to Supreme Court's calls for UCC and accused the people "hungry for vote bank" for exploiting, ignoring, and denying pasmanda (economically and socially backward) Muslims of their rights.

HT in January reported that the BJP's outreach to minorities, particularly Muslims, has been designed to help counter their consolidation as an anti-BJP force. Modi instructed BJP leaders at the party's national executive committee meeting in Hyderabad last year to reach out to the economically and socially backward Muslims to change the narrative about the party's anti-minority stance.

Modi referred to now-criminalised practice of instant divorce among a section of Muslims and said "vote bank-hungry" people who talk in favour of triple talaq are doing a great injustice to Muslim daughters. "Triple talaq does not just do injustice to daughters... whole families get ruined. If triple talaq is an essential part of Islam, then why was it banned in countries such as Qatar, Jordan, and Indonesia?"

He said Muslims have to understand that political parties were taking political advantage by provoking them with reference to UCC.

The Law Commission of India Commission last month began to examine UCC afresh as it solicited views and suggestions from the public and recognised religious organisations around four years after saying the code was "neither necessary nor desirable at this stage".

In August 2018, it recommended that existing family laws across religions required to be amended and codified to tackle discrimination and inequality in personal laws.

A UCC would mean a common set of laws governing personal matters such as marriage, divorce, adoption, inheritance, and succession for all citizens, irrespective of religion. Currently, different laws regulate these aspects for adherents of different religions. A UCC is meant to do away with these inconsistent personal laws.

According to the Constitution's Article 44 and one of the Directive Principles of State Policy, the state shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a UCC throughout India. But directive principles are not enforceable by courts.

The Supreme Court has highlighted the need for UCC. In March, It wrapped up a clutch of petitions demanding UCC observing that such issues are meant for Parliament to decide and that courts should not be seen as directing the legislature to enact a law.

Responding to a bunch of petitions through an affidavit in October 2022, the Union government told the court that personal laws based on religion are an "affront to the nation's unity". It added UCC will bring about an integration of India by bringing different communities on a common platform through an unvarying legal regime.

The government said it is only for the elected representatives and the legislature to decide whether the country should have UCC. It added no court can issue directives to the parliament to frame a specific statute.

In his address to the BJP workers, Modi also said poll-bound Madhya Pradesh has played a big role in making the party the world's largest. "We do not sit in air-conditioned offices and issue diktats. We brave harsh weather to be with people," said Modi while calling the development of villages a must for India to become a developed country.

He referred to welfare schemes, which are believed to have played a key role in helping BJP return to power at the Centre in 2019, and said their objective is to ensure their saturation-level coverage.

Modi earlier flagged off the five Vande Bharat trains, the highest such inaugurations in a day, at Rani Kamalapati railway station in Bhopal including three virtually after interacting with students on board one of the trains. In a tweet on Monday, he said these trains will improve connectivity in Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Goa, Bihar, and Jharkhand.

Two of the trains – Rani Kamalapati (Bhopal)-Jabalpur, Khajuraho-Bhopal-Indore Vande Bharat Express – are for Madhya Pradesh, where the assembly polls are due by the year-end.

The BJP seeks to retain power in Madhya Pradesh. Congress returned to power in the state in 2018 but lost it two years later when 22 legislators quit and resigned from the assembly before joining the BJP.

The Rani Kamalapati-Jabalpur Vande Bharat Express will connect Mahakaushal to Madhya Pradesh's central region and improve connectivity to tourist places such as Bheraghat, Pachmarhi, and Satpura. The Khajuraho-Bhopal-Indore Vande Bharat Express will connect Malwa and Bundelkhand regions to the state's Central region. It will improve connectivity to tourist sites such as Mahakaleshwar, Mandu, Maheshwar, Khajuraho, and Panna.

The other trains inaugurated were Madgaon-Mumbai, Dharwad-Bengaluru, Goa's first, and Hatia-Patna Vande Bharat Express.The Hatia-Patna Vande Bharat Express is the first such train for Jharkhand and Bihar.