(Edited Image Courtesy: PIB)

 

The Supreme Court’s latest reminder to the Union Government to disclose its stance on enacting uniform civil code (UCC) has once again been seized by short-sighted activists to stir public misgivings. They are projecting UCC concept as covert Sangh Parivar’s agenda to impose Hindu Civil Code (HCC) on citizens of other faiths. 

Facts are being trampled upon by activists who want the country to remain divided in numerous castes, sub-castes and religions. They rationalize archaic customs as an integral part of respective religions. They overlook the fact that this conflicts with the Indian Constitution’s provision for ‘Right to Equality’ for every citizen including women.

Their objective is clear: stonewall any discussion on UCC.  It is no wonder that late Rajiv Gandhi, as Prime Minister, had to backtrack on putting in public domain the very idea of voluntary UCC in 1987 after Shah Bano case.

Anti UCC-brigade even views with suspicion the verdicts and orders issued by the Supreme Court since 1995 for launch of UCC, which is so crucial for forging national unity and for giving justice to women. 

The situation today is more pathetic than what it was after the Independence when Constituent Assembly (CA) discussed whether UCC should be mentioned at all in the Indian Constitution. CA ultimately opted for the soft course: It put UCC in the Directive Principles of the Constitution (DPC), which is basically a deep freezer packed with good ideas to be pursued by the State at a pace that would even make ant laugh heartily.

CA did not visualize that vote banks-driven successive Governments would lack the courage even to issue a discussion paper on UIC and thus compromise national unity forever!

 (Image Courtesy:gujaratindia.com)

 

 

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has frittered away a golden chance to give a failure certificate on cooperative federalism to his bête noire - Prime Minister Narendra Modi.  This is evident from Kejriwal megaflop show called Chief Ministers’ conclave on Centre-State Relations organized recently. 

Both Kejriwal and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the only other participant, turned the conclave into a launch pad for taking potshots at Mr. Modi. By confining their speeches to diatribe against Modi and the Centre, they failed to turn the conclave into a big picture on Modi’s colossal credibility deficit.

The two CMs did disservice to immense opportunities in cooperative federalism identified by Commission on Centre-State Relations (CCSR) and Finance Commission. The recommendations made by these commissions in April 2010 and February 2015 did not figure in their speeches. 

They thus allowed Mr. Modi’s chest to remain bloated with pride after receipt of triple laudatory certificates: 1) India’s “best leader with best policies” certificate from global media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, 2) the Promises delivered certificate which he solicited from NRIs in Silicon Valley and 3) the “decisive leader” certificate from Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.  

If Kejriwal had applied his mind, he could have nullified three certificates by flaunting several instances of unfulfilled promises, indecisiveness and persistence of policy paralysis & projects holdups. 

He could have sent a powerful message to Aam Aadmi by focusing on just one issue: Mr. Modi’s duplicity on cooperative federalism. Mr. Modi raised certain issues on cooperative federalism as Gujarat CM but shunned them like plague after becoming PM. 

(Indian Civil Society should create such online museum on lynching by mobs in the country)

 

 

Is there a good or bad lynching by mob? Do media especially #ShrillNow TV channels and self-certified, #CivilSociety have different set of ethics on lynching debates? Should there be different levels of concern over two types of death – one resulting from lynching and the other from court verdicts? 

These issues would stir the mind of any rationalist who values all human lives irrespective of the lynched person’s profile. These would equally disturb any citizen who wishfully prays for enforcement of the rule of the law in the country.  

The two triggers for these concerns are: hysterical response of certain sections of the intelligentsia over lynching of father-son duo in a village at Dadri in Uttar Pradesh (UP) and hanging of 1993 Mumbai blasts convict Yakub Memon. 

In the latter case, civil society indulged in unprecedented theatrics to delay implementation of reconsidered Supreme Court verdict even as it kept mum on heinous instances of lynching during the same period. 

In both these cases, the common factor is that lynched/hanged persons belonged to a particular religion. This reflects the inherent bias of the media, civil society and vote bank-obsessed politicians for a particular segment of society. Both cases served as a perfect opportunity for dubious intellectuals to bash BJP in particular, and Sangh Parivar in general. 

And this bias becomes crystal clear if we compare shrill and repeated condemnation of deaths in these two instances with numerous cases of lynching. The latter type of tragedies often gets tucked away as fringe news on inside pages of most dailies. These are also under-reported by TV channels perhaps due to their lower prospects for boosting TRP ratings.