Guha's India after Gandhi..The Law and the Prophets

It is revealing that Nehru found the greatest difficulty since independence in 'Creating a just state by just means' and added 'Perhaps, too, in creating a secular state in a religious country'. Secularism faced fresh set of challenges after partition. One pertained to the domain of personal laws. While there was a common criminal code, there was no attempt to replace personal laws by the colonials.

Author rightly quotes Article 44 of the constitution of India 'The state shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India'. He chronicles the events that eventually, 'After a bruising battle extending over nearly ten years, B. R. Ambedkar's Hindu Code Bill was passed into law; not, as he had hoped in one fell swoop, but in several installments:...'

We can agree with the author. "One can appreciate their (Basically Nehru and Ambedkar, with the support of Rajaji) hesitancy to take on people of faiths other than their own. For it had taken them better part of ten years to 'proceed with the Hindu community in any way they liked', that is in a way that would help bring their personal laws somewhat in line with modern notions of gender justice".

(One can question this act of pragmatism by our leaders and even though we have many things to accomplish, before we are in line with modern nations, it seems to have worked reasonably well for the majority community. I remember my father talking about a person who rushed to his second marriage to beat the law, which would enforce monogamy, by a day. The girl was known to us and her relatives along with my father, rushed to the marriage hall minutes late and were unable to prevent the second marriage. Anyway, his first marriage ended in a divorce and as it turned out the second marriage went bad for the man.

We can sit back and evaluate the extent the laws have helped us become modern in the western eyes, but it is always better if this desire for change came from within and in our own context. While I have not read, as the author puts 'the revealed words of Allah', I fear for humanity if such a large section of us are guided by laws which do not allow for change with changing times and circumstances. The author speaks of liberal muslims in the country at the time of partition. I am sure there are still many and hope can find ways to interpret their laws so that they can be more in tune with the times without loosing the basic values. For instance the punishment of stoning a person to death I saw in the movie 'Kiterunner' was nightmarish. It is not just the muslims I think of, there are numerous example of others who are dogmatic and equally cruel for many reasons, ostensibly as a counter.)