Civil Codes of Bhārata

Bhārata have several personal laws for their citizens, which are driven by two factors: ethnicity and religion. The civil codes of ethnicities are influenced by their culture and letting them have their distinct civil codes allows them to experience liberty while also becoming great subject for sociology.

On the other hand, the civil code of various religions are of two types: essential codes to religion and others that are influenced by the culture where the religion originated. The latter are often indoctrinated and marketed as the former, thus influencing the practitioner to believe non essential codes to be essential. Therefore, the denial of such practices cause a violation of conscience. But that is not to say that this masquerading of cultural influence as religious doctrine must continue: they must be refuted and the distinction between essential practices and others be made clear to all. Having said that, if the civil codes are indeed essential practices of the religion, the prohibition of the practice of these codes will indeed cause a violation of conscience in the individual.

However, any code that violates the basic principles of justice and equality must be reformed despite its ethnic or religious pedigree. Such reforms are not a threat to the pluralism of Bhārata because her pluralism is made of multiple practices, of which personal laws are merely a part of, and of which only a handful are being amended. Even if it ends all pluralism and diversity, the principles of justice are worth it. Such reforms will not violate fundamental rights because the fundamental rights are subjected to reasonable restrictions, and justice and equality are reasonable.

Therefore, if the concerned ethnicities, religious communities or governing bodies do not reform their civil codes to ensure justice and equality in their personal laws, these codes must be confronted legislatively — either individually such as the triple talaq act or categorically such as a nation wide succession act.

Perhaps, the framers of our constitution foresaw the intrinsic injustices in certain civil codes, which is why they made government's endeavour for a uniform civil code a constitutional directive. Also, various High Courts in Bhārata and even the Supreme Court of India have heard numerous unjust civil codes in their court rooms that they directed the governments to bring a uniform civil code.

As of 2023, only the Hindu civil code have been unified in 1955. And the irony is that those who unified the Hindu civil code is reluctant to uniform the rest of the ethnic and religious civil codes. This has two sides to it: one, where Hindus can take the moral high ground for reforming their customs and codes and being far progressive than the rest; the other where they get treated as, in Anand Rangarajan's words, an eighth class citizen in Bhārata.

There is nothing wrong in having diversity in civil codes so long it does not violate the basic principles of justice and equality. For instance, if either of the spouses prefer to be in a polygamous or open relationship, so long as they consent to it out of their alignment to such a relationship, and did not consent due to any duress, such as cultural or religious obligation, let them be.

Note that a consent to a religious obligation from an indoctrinated individual cannot be considered a free choice because their consent isn't from the understanding of the nature of what they are giving consent to. Their consent roots from a sense of obligation forced upon them. Therefore, they aren't valid consent. However, a consent to religious obligation from an individual that understood that religion and has accepted it, is valid.