VHP Welcomes PM Modi's Pitch For UCC

The Vishva Hindu Parishad on Wednesday welcomed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pitch for a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) and said discrimination against women should be done away with its implementation in the country.
     
Prime Minister Modi on Tuesday made a strong push for a Uniform Civil Code(UCC), asking how the country can function with dual laws that govern personal matters, and accused the Opposition of using the UCC issue to "mislead and provoke" the Muslim community.
     
“We agree with what our prime minister said about UCC. We welcome it. Article 44 of the Constitution allows the government to make efforts to formulate a Uniform Civil Code for the country at the earliest,” VHP working president Alok Kumar said in a statement.
     
The Supreme Court has also held in various cases that it was not right to have separate civil codes, he said.
     
“When criminal law, contract law, commercial law, and banking law are uniform, then should there be any exception for families?” he asked.
    
The VHP leader slammed opposition parties and the Muslim groups who have objected to the UCC proposal and said, “I am surprised that MPs and MLAs who take the oath of bearing true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India, did not abide by the Constitution in the matter over the past 75 years.”
     
“The system of polygamy might have started 1,400 years ago when Islam was fighting battles with its rivals. Several Muslim youths were killed and women were widowed... It was a different situation back then. But time has changed today,” he said.
     
He said everyone should accept that every woman has the right to live with dignity and be treated equally to men.
     
“Hence the discrimination against women should be done away with in the UCC. Rules for talaq (divorce) should be made universal. Women should get maintenance before and after talaq as it happens in case of divorce in other religions,” the VHP leader said.
     
“Implementation of the UCC will bring us into the present from 1,400 years in the past,” he added.