Kolkata: The West Bengal government is set to implement the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in the state.
A bill to implement the UCC is set to be introduced in the West Bengal Assembly on June 29, state parliamentary affairs minister Shankar Ghosh told Hindustan Times on Thursday.
The BJP has a two-third majority in the 294-member Assembly and if the bill passes, West Bengal will become the fourth state to implement UCC after Uttarakhand, Gujarat and Assam.The BJP had promised to implement 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.
The Uniform Civil Code refers to a common set of laws for personal matters such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, and succession for all citizens. While Article 44 of the Constitution, one of the directive principles of state policy, advocates for a UCC, respective religion-based civil codes have governed personal matters since Independence.
Tribal communities have not been touched till now in the BJP-ruled states that have implemented UCC. The governments have focussed on standardising marital laws and registration, divorce and alimony proceedings, and recording live-in relationships instead.
It will be interesting to see the results as West Bengal is the largest state to implement UCC and has a Muslim population of nearly 30%.
Uttarakhand became the first state in the country to pass a UCC law in February 2024. 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.
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.
Veteran Trinamool Congress MP Saugata Roy 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 said.
However, there is little that his party can do to prevent the government from passing the bill. Of the 80 MLAs, nearly 58 have rebelled.
The 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.
However, along with removal of Article 370 in Kashmir and the building of a Ram Temple, the UCC has 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.
