Ten months before India votes for its next government, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has reignited a long-simmering campaign to create a single law governing civil relationships between citizens in a diverse country where the idea of uniformity is deeply contentious.
Although criminal laws are the same for all, different communities – the majority Hindus (966 million), the country’s Muslim (213 million) and Christian (26 million) minorities, and tribal communities (104 million) – follow their own civil laws, influenced by religious texts and cultural mores.
