Uniform Civil Code: Kerala's SNDP Yogam backs Centre's move
Amid a growing debate in Kerala over the Centre’s move to implement a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in the country, SNDP Yogam, an outfit of the numerically strong Hindu Ezhava community in the state, has thrown its weight behind PM Narendra Modi’s proposal. The SNDP Yogam, founded by legendary social reformer and saint Sreenarayana Guru, however, suggested discussions with representatives of minority communities before enacting the new law.
In an editorial in the latest issue of Yoganadam, the mouthpiece of SNDP Yogam, its general secretary Vellappally Natesan said if the UCC is implemented, discrimination against Muslim women in matters such as marriage, divorce, and property rights will end. The stand on UCC taken by the Yogam, whose leadership is considered to be very close to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, is seen as a setback for the state’s ruling party, as it came when the CPI(M) was trying to create a strong platform of various socio-religious organisations in the state to oppose the BJP-led government’s UCC plan.
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Noting that Kerala has been the soil for many social reforms that have set an example for the country and a place where the Communist party came to power for the first time in the world through the ballot box, the Yoganadam editorial said these developments took place in the state because of its people’s progressive stance towards a “beautiful egalitarian world”. “If the Uniform Civil Code comes into force, the judicial system will become more efficient. Hundreds of thousands of cases originating across the country based on personal laws will be eliminated. Litigation will be simple. Discriminatory legal systems will be eliminated. There is no need to wait for years for justice by getting trapped in the tangles of complicated personal laws,” the editorial said.
The editorial, titled “Laws should be beyond religion” also said the UCC was not simply a political issue. “The world is changing very fast. The new generation is entering the world of incredible technologies. They are educated and receptive to the changes in the world. Bringing before them religious precepts that they cannot understand will only serve to alienate them from religion and culture,” the editorial observed.
It, however, said the Central government should hold consultations with those concerned, especially the Muslim and Christian communities, in case of objections. There should be an effort to remove their fears by accepting agreeable proposals and arriving at a consensus on them, the editorial added.
Natesan’s son Thushar Vellappally is the leader of the BDJS, a partner of the BJP-led NDA in Kerala. However, the SNDP Yogam leadership had supported the Left government when it tried to implement the Supreme Court verdict allowing entry of women in all age groups into the Sabarimala Lord Ayyappa temple a few years ago.
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Natesan wrote the editorial in Yoganadam two days after the CPI(M) organised a national seminar in Kozhikode on UCC inviting many socio-religious organisations, some of them known for the conservative outlooks. Inaugurating the seminar, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said that the civil code was a political tool being used by the BJP to sharpen communal polarisation. Yechury also said laws that are discriminatory have to be corrected in consultation with the entire community and not by imposing UCC from the top.
A strong political debate has been kicked off in the state over the UCC after Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently made a strong pitch for implementing the civil code by asking how the country can function with dual laws that govern personal matters.
(With agency inputs)
