The Centre’s purported move to draft a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) for the country continued to roil politics in Kerala on Thursday.
Leader of the Opposition V.D.Satheesan dared Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] State secretary M.V. Govindan to deny that E.M.S. Namboodiripad had urged the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) to agitate for a UCC in 1985.
He said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had set a bait for dividing society on majority and minority community lines with an eye on the looming 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) did not take the lure. Instead, it chose the path of moderation by withdrawing from potentially explosive street agitations against the Centre’s purported move to draft a UCC arbitrarily and without consultations with stakeholders, including minorities, tribes and Opposition parties, he said.
Mr. Satheesan said the CPI(M) rose to the BJP’s bait. It has played into the hands of the Sangh Parivar by exhorting Indian Union Muslim League and other influential Muslim organisations to partake in a mass anti-UCC agitation. At a stroke, the CPI(M) has helped the BJP avert the eyes of voters from other national issues, including high-level corporate corruption, Manipur violence, subversion of constitutional agencies to target Opposition leaders and concerted moves to stifle democratic dissent, he said.
Mr. Satheesan said the C.PI(M) and the BJP were on the same page in diminishing the Congress in Kerala. He termed the CPI(M)‘s accusation that the Congress was ambivalent about the UCC patently false.
In a Facebook post, CPI(M) central secretariat member T.M. Thomas Isaac equated the Congress stance on the UCC to that of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Jamaat-e-Islami. The Opposition organisations had deliberately distorted EMS’ words. In 1985, EMS wrote that a UCC should be enacted only when there was consensus about the law in the Muslim community.
Dr. Isaac reminded the Jamaat-e-Islami that Article 44 of the Constitution says, “The State shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India.”
Dr. Isaac said the BJP had mooted imposing a UCC with an eye to divide votes on religious lines and to fire up its Hindu majoritarian nationalistic base. The UCC move came against increasing violence against minorities, especially the Christians in Manipur.
Dr. Isaac said the Congress, hobbled by its soft Hindutva political line, needed help to take a strong position against the BJP’s gambit.
