Uniform civil code vital for true secularism in India

Such has been the intensity of dialogues surrounding the idea of a "uniform civil code" that one may be well advised to refrain from commenting in its favour, lest they be labelled "communal".

- Aankhi Ghosh

The truth, however, is that very few really understand, or rather, care to understand what a uniform civil code encompasses. There are two examples already available within the country — Goa and Uttarakhand — despite which several absurd conspiracies have been purposefully floated. It is high time the record be set straight.

The foremost legal basis on which the ushering of a uniform civil code is opposed is that the principle of secularism is a part of the basic structure of the Indian constitution, and the same cannot be toyed with. The key to bringing in a uniform civil code is to examine the meaning of the word secularism and whether such meaning would be in consonance with bringing in a common civil code or be in dissonance with it.

George Holyoake, a British author, first used the word in his book English Secularism: A Confession of Belief, to refer to a particular non-religious civic and ethical philosophy that would be distinctive from the negative ethical connotation of atheism. Tracing the history and the evolution of the word secularism will reveal that from Martin Luther to John Calvin to John Locke, secularism has always meant a separation between a private realm of conscience which was "religious" and a public political world, which was, in contrast, meant to be irreligious and thereby "secular".