- NET Web Desk
The Assam Chief Minister – Himanta Biswa Sarma asserted that the nation must replace religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with an unified civil code, thereby addressing policies that allow Muslim males to have four wives.
Successive governments have refrained from implementing such a code, for fear of upsetting India’s Hindu majority as well as its Muslim and Christian minorities.
Members of PM Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party and its hardline affiliates, on the other hand, want to test the law in a few states before launching a national effort.
According to Sarma, “A majority of the Muslim people desire for an uniform civil code.”
“No Muslim woman wants her husband to marry three to four wives,” he told the news agency Reuters.
Its worthy to note that the Muslim community accounts for more than 30% of Assam’s 34 million population.
The code, which strives to harmonise and enforce personal laws, will apply to all residents equally, regardless of religion, sex, gender, or sexual orientation.
Different religious rules currently control legal concerns such as marriage, divorce, and inheritance.
The Assam CM supports the code as a means to abolish oppressive religion-based regulations and empower Muslim women who are unable to fight polygamy in court.
However, the critics, on the other hand, consider the code, which has appeared in various BJP electoral manifestos, as part of the party’s efforts to push its agenda and fuel anti-Muslim feeling.
