It wasn’t terribly smart for the Modi government to dabble with contentious issues such as Article 370 and the Uniform Civil Code right from the word go. Ministers such as Radha Mohan Singh who recently raised this issue, would do well to step away from this minefield.

Still, take away the timing and the unseemly haste and there is no denying the need for a common law for all Indians. Muslim women in particular should welcome the move towards a common law that will release them from the hold of the Muslim Personal Law. For too long the clergy have retained their stranglehold on women, laying down dos and don’ts, citing, often wrongly, the Shariah and Islamic laws. The mischief comes more in the interpretation — of course by men — rather than the letter of the law.

It’s been 30 years since l’affaire Shah Bano — the case of a 62-year-old divorcee from Madhya Pradesh who was denied the maintenance granted to her by the Supreme Court because a fundamentalist and orthodox Islamic cabal pressured the polity to enact the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986. Far from “protecting” rights, this Act allows callous men to discard their wives and deny them alimony.

But this is a minefield which will have to be ploughed carefully and sensitively. The Government will do well to appoint a framework that includes liberal and moderate, rather than radical, leaders from the Muslim community, as well as from other minorities such as Christians andSikhs. who also have their own laws, to debate the issue.

It is good that the irrepressible Press Council chairperson Markandey Katju has plunged into this debate, advocating that Muslims should support a uniform civil code. Apart from women who have been repressed in different ways, the entire Muslim community has suffered social, educational and economic backwardness thanks to the absence of change or modernisation in their Pesonal Law.

Adept and sensitive handling can engineer the change in a manner that saap bhi marey aur laatthi bhi na tootey (the snake dies and the stick doesn't break).

Associate Editor