Congress MP Karti Chidambaram on Thursday targeted the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over passing of the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) Bill in Uttarakhand Assembly on Wednesday. He said the government was trying to indulge into people’s personal lives. He alleged that the hill state was being used as a testing laboratory for ‘Hindutva’.
A day earlier, the Uniform Citizenship Code Bill was passed in the Uttarakhand Assembly. This can now serve as an example for other BJP ruled states to implement the UCC law. The bill also makes registration of live-in relationships mandatory.
According to provisions of the passed bill, a child born out of a live-in relationship will be considered legitimate and the abandoned woman will be entitled to receive maintenance from her partner. The bill effectively bans polygamy and Halala, practiced among a section of Muslims. However, marriages could be solemnized through a variety of rituals like Saptapadi, Nikah, Anand Karaj etc.
Karti Chidambaram said in a post on X, ‘Uttarakhand is a testing laboratory for Hindutva Iran.’ Talking to reporters outside Parliament, he said that the concept of Uniform Civil Code is good. But, there should be extensive discussions before implementing it. This should happen to remove the discrepancies prevalent in all religions and practices.
For example, we do not have anything called Hindu Undivided Family (HUF). I am actually a beneficiary of Hindu Undivided Family. But, will he stay in UCC or be removed? In some parts of the country, marriages take place between cousins. In some parts uncle and niece marry. These things are banned in Uttarakhand. Are we bringing a uniform code, which will remove some traditions of all religions? They are using it to indulge into people’s personal lives.
He said, they are saying that live-in relationships should be registered. So, if two people decide to live-in, they have to go and register. Suppose after six months they have a fight and they separate. So they will have to go again and tell them that there was a fight between us, due to which we have separated.
Karti, MP from Sivagangai in Tamil Nadu, said this is absurd and even a theocratic country like Iran behaves in the same way. “They are intruding into the realm of personal behavior in private places and that is very dangerous,” he said.
