India News | Fearful That on Pretext of Reviewing Personal Law, Effort May Be to Bring in UCC, Says AIDWA
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. Left-leaning women's organisation AIDWA has written to Sushil Modi, the chairperson of a parliamentary committee which will examine personal laws, raising concerns that this could be a pretext to usher in uniform laws which will be "majoritarian" in nature.
New Delhi, Nov 4 (PTI) Left-leaning women's organisation AIDWA has written to Sushil Modi, the chairperson of a parliamentary committee which will examine personal laws, raising concerns that this could be a pretext to usher in uniform laws which will be "majoritarian" in nature.
Rajya Sabha MP Sushil Modi, who is the chairperson of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice, on October 11 in a press release said the panel has identified 'Review of Personal Laws' for a detailed examination and will hold a wider consultation on the subject.
It invited memoranda containing views and suggestions from stakeholders concerned.
AIDWA, in its letter, said the three-week time given for receiving feedback on personal laws is not enough for such a serious subject.
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"This (press release) gives an impression that the entire exercise of asking for memoranda is not a serious attempt to get the opinions of various organizations and people working on the issue, but is just a formality. If it were serious in eliciting views and in getting memoranda, the Committee would have allotted far more time for this purpose.
"We are fearful that on the pretext of reviewing of personal law, the effort may be to bring in uniform laws which will be majoritarian laws, and not laws which give substantive equal rights to women," it stated.
The letter added that "uniformity of law by itself will not result in substantive equal rights for women, and in fact will probably result in duplicating Hindu laws and its gender biases on all communities".
The organisation has requested the committee to make its position on the Uniform Civil Code clear so that there is an assurance that the present exercise is not a step towards bringing that.
"We, therefore, urge the committee not to embark on this mammoth task in such a short period and withdraw the three-week deadline. We also urge the committee to have hearings in centres throughout the country as has been done in the past on women-related laws," the letter stated.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)