Who said about Uniform Civil Code in Constituent Assembly?
The making of the indian Constitution was a long and complex process, in which balancing different political, social, and religious viewpoints was a big challenge. However, the specialty of indian society has been that there is unity in diversity. This was the reason that many issues were debated in the Constituent Assembly. One of these important and controversial issues was 'Uniform Civil Code (UCC)'.
At the time of making the Constitution, the question arose whether there should be a law in India which is equal for all citizens, or it should be left to different religious communities according to their personal laws. This question was not limited only to the rights of minorities or majority, but it was also related to whether implementing a uniform civil code among different religious communities would be against the principles of diversity and secularism of the country.
Beginning of the Constituent assembly and the proposal of UCC
The political debate on UCC in india began in the 1940s itself, but its constitutional journey began in 1947, when it was brought up for discussion in the process of constitution making. At that time, the question was raised in the Fundamental Rights Sub-Committee whether UCC should be placed in the category of fundamental rights – judicial (investigable) or non-judicial (under indisputable justice), and finally it was placed in non-judicial fundamental rights and a report was prepared and sent to the Advisory Committee.
However, three members of the sub-committee - M.R. Masani, Hansa Mehta and Amrit Kaur - disagreed with this decision. He believed that a Uniform Civil Code should be implemented in india in the next 5 to 10 years as religion-based personal laws were dividing the country.
The provision of UCC, which was formulated as Article 35, was presented in the Constituent assembly on 21 february 1948. It was later included in the Directive Principles of the Constitution. Article 35 stated that "India shall endeavour to secure for the citizens of India a Uniform Civil Code throughout the country." It was debated on 23 november 1948, in which different views came to the fore.
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