Modi’s ruling BJP to roll out controversial legal reforms in Indian state

NEW DELHI - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) next week plans to introduce in one state new laws that will apply across religions, and which other state officials could also adopt.

Hindus, Muslims, Christians and large tribal populations in India now can follow their own personal laws and customs – or an optional secular code – for marriage, divorce, adoption and inheritance.

Framing a national common law is one of the three core, decades-old promises of the BJP. The other two goals – building a controversial grand Hindu temple and removing the autonomy of the Muslim-majority region of Jammu and Kashmir – have been fulfilled.

The northern state of Uttarakhand, nestled in the Himalayan foothills, is expected to unveil a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) Bill next week, officials said.

The move comes ahead of Mr Modi’s bid to win a rare third term in general elections to be held by May, and may further help consolidate the Hindu vote, analysts said.

The UCC is a divisive issue, as many minority Muslims who criticise the BJP for its hardline Hindu-first image see it as interference with centuries-old Islamic practices, including polygamy and instant divorce.

Calling the UCC a “trial balloon” ahead of the elections, federal lawmaker Asaduddin Owaisi, a prominent Muslim voice, said Hindu nationalists professed to like non-uniformity, except when it came to Muslims.

Although no draft of the UCC has been presented, BJP leaders have said it primarily has to do with modernising Muslim personal laws.

A committee set up in Uttarakhand in 2022 to draft the code will submit its work to the state government on Feb 2. It is likely to be presented to the state’s legislative body next week, two officials said.

National BJP spokesman Nalin Kohli said: “Several state governments across India are looking at whether a uniform civil code could be implemented. The systematic process to get uniform civil code in several states has begun.”

Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, writing on social media platform X, said his ministers would study the draft and “start the process to make it into a Bill and then an Act”.

Mr Modi’s government ended special privileges enjoyed by Kashmir in August 2019, and earlier in January unveiled a grand temple to the Hindu deity Ram that took the place of a Mughal-era mosque razed to the ground by radical Hindu groups in 1992.

Personal laws can be legislated by both federal and state governments, and other BJP-ruled states have said they could use the Uttarakhand UCC draft as a template.

Earlier in January, BJP chief minister of Assam state Himanta Biswa Sarma said: “I am waiting to see the UCC Bill of Uttarakhand and once that is done, we will bring the same legislation, with some modifications.”

Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya said “wherever the BJP is (in power) the possibility of bringing UCC has been and will always be there”. He added that it will be introduced at the right time. REUTERS