Curated By: News Desk
News18.com
Last Updated: March 20, 2024, 20:11 IST
New Delhi, India
Amit Shah said the Uttarakhand government under Pushkar Singh Dhami has adopted the UCC, which will undergo judicial and social scrutiny. (Photo: News18)
The Uniform Civil Code (UCC) is the BJP government’s promise to India that all Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Buddhists and Parsis should be ruled under one law, stressed Union home minister Amit Shah at the CNN-News18’s Rising Bharat Summit 2024 in New Delhi on Wednesday.
There will be no interference in religion and religious practices of these sects, but a common law will govern them, as had been decided by the makers of the Constitution, Shah pointed out. “This (UCC) has been the issue for the BJP (Jan Sangh) since 1950s. We truly believe there should be one law for all in a secular country like India,” Shah said.
The Union home minister explained that the BJP accepted the UCC as the “guiding principle”, which BR Ambedkar, Sardar Patel, Jawahar Lal Nehru and Rajendra Prasad too believed in. They decided that the UCC should be implemented in the country during the right time, and the BJP government in Uttarakhand did it.
Shah said the Uttarakhand government under Pushkar Singh Dhami has brought out the UCC, which will undergo political, judicial and social scrutiny.
“We believe that in a diversified country like India, there should be one rule of law,” he said.
When News18 told Shah that the DMK, which is part of the INDIA alliance, has said it will repeal the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and UCC when it will come to power, Shah quipped that “won’t happen”.
On Opposition parties’ counter that the Muslims of India have the right to live as per the Sharia law, Shah said such practices have already been abandoned even by the Islamic countries. He said the Muslims of India have not been living under the Sharia law since 1937. “This is Congress’ appeasement policy,” he added.
“Pelting stones on rapists to death, chopping the hands off thieves, hanging anti-nationals, does the Opposition want this to happen?” Shah questioned.
Uttarakhand has become the first state after Independence to adopt the UCC. Goa has been implementing it since the time of Portuguese rule. The UCC will be applicable to all religious communities in India on matters of marriage, inheritance, divorce, adoption, maintenance and others. Practices such as Halala, Iddat and Triple Talaq under Muslim personal law will be punishable offences under UCC. However, the Code exempts tribal communities from its purview.
Shah also said that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has no right to raise the OBC reservation issue. “Kakasaheb Kalelkar commission was the first to raise the issue of reservation for backward classes, which was kept aside by the Congress for at least 30 years. Then came the Mandal commission, again kept aside by the Congress and when it was implemented, Rahul Gandhi’s father spoke against the reservation for 1.5 hours in the Parliament,” he said. “For the first time, Narendra Modi gave constitutional rights to OBCs. They make us count OBC secretaries, joint secretaries. They don’t know that those at the top posts in the government are between 55-60 years. When would they have been selected? Modi ji’s cabinet had 27 OBC ministers. The prime minister himself is OBC. He (Rahul Gandhi) doesn’t study, he just reads whatever is given to him in writing.”
Ram Mandir was the BJP’s promise, the minister said at the summit. “Something that Ram bhakts had been waiting for for 500 years, Modi ji did it in five years. For 10,000 years, not just India, but the world will not be able to forget this visual. This is a huge example of democracy because despite being a Hindu majority nation, we had to wait for the court to give us permission to build the Ram temple. We waited for that court order and made the temple, there are not many such examples in the world,” he said.
