'Secular' Civil Code is Modi's Bid to Placate His Allies Over a Polarising Issue

PM Modi at Red Fort in 15 August 2024.

(Photo: X/@narendramodi)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day speech once again called for a Uniform Civil Code, but replacing 'uniform' with 'secular', a word for which the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been displaying pathological hatred all these years.

It reflects the battle cry of an electorally wounded leader desperate to harp over his party’s core ideological agenda while ensuring that his indispensable allies are not put to undue political embarrassment. But Modi has rephrased the political discourse around the vexed question of the Uniform Civil Code in order to take the battle straight to the Opposition.

The Opposition has been reiterating the BJP-RSS's ideological obsession with the Uniform Civil Code as a sinister communal design to polarise society on an issue as sensitive as Personal Law that encompasses marriage, divorce, maintenance, adoption, inheritance, etc. Quite interestingly, Modi throws back the secular-communal binary on the Opposition calling the existing Personal Laws’ dispensation a ‘Communal’ Civil Code.

Notwithstanding the rather known and demonstrable aversion of the BJP to the secular tenets of the Constitution, Modi displayed the audacity to defend his version of the Civil Code as ‘secular’. At the same time, the BJP has been advocating a distorted thesis that the Preamble of the original draft of the Constitution does not include the word secular.

The ruling party is so brazenly oblivious to the Supreme Court pronouncement in the historic SR Bommai case in which it unequivocally emphasised that the 42nd Constitutional Amendment which introduced the word 'secular' in the Preamble has only made explicit what was already implicit in the Constitution.

Surprisingly enough, Narendra Modi who is wedded to the ideology of a theocratic state, seeks a ‘Secular’ Civil Code. This raises apprehensions over his political manoeuvring rather than making India realise the constitutional vision of a uniformly equal civil code free from discrimination and in consonance with constitutional values as envisaged in Article 44 of the Directive Principles of State Policy.

Why now? He has, after all, five years left to rule before the next election. In fact, a divisive campaign did not help the BJP curtail losses in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections even in the Hindi Belt states.

Two of the three core aspects of the Sangh Parivar’s ideological agenda - the construction of the Ram Temple and the abrogation of Article 370 - no longer have the same political ammunition to catapult the BJP back to power with a formidable majority. Thanks for the temple, but where are our jobs? When will the prices come down? What about our livelihoods?

These are the questions that echoed in the recent elections resulting in the defeat of the BJP even in the Faizabad Lok Sabha seat, and more recently in the pilgrim town of Badrinath in the by-polls.

This does not mean the Hindutva has lost its appeal. Such polarising issues yield rich electoral dividends only when they remain unresolved with an accompanied acrimonious political contestation. Thus, the BJP still hopes that the Uniform Civil Code will further its strategy of majoritarian political consolidation, depicting minorities as an adamant social fixation that is anathema to modern India.

However, the hypocrisy of the Sangh Parivar is evident from the fact that the BJP-led Uttarakhand government exempted tribals from the so-called Uniform Civil Code. Similarly, the late BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi, who led the Parliamentary Standing Committee, called for a similar exemption for tribals from any Uniform Civil Code.

Thus, the real intent of the so-called 'Secular Civil Code' is evident. It aims at triggering a hostile reaction from Muslim bodies and the secular Opposition parties, helping the BJP accuse its political rivals of indulging in 'minority appeasement'.

The united and robust Opposition, enthralled by its increased tally in the Lok Sabha, is effectively holding the government accountable on a host of issues like an assault on the Constitution, jobs, inflation, economic inequalities, agrarian distress, cronyism in the economy, etc. The INDIA bloc, which tasted electoral success by mobilising people on such issues, is bound to intensify its campaign around such real issues both inside and outside Parliament.

The BJP is already feeling the pinch of this renewed attack, especially in the absence of emotive issues, evident from its disastrous performance in the recently held by-elections across seven states. At a time when the ruling BJP faces an uphill task in the ensuing assembly elections in Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, etc, Narendra Modi is desperate to divert the public's attention away from the real issues.

The BJP is also hoping to break the ranks of the Opposition by bringing to the fore such sensitive issues. The Opposition parties including the Congress party witnessed conflicting voices with respect to the Ram Temple and the abrogation of Article 370.

The recent general elections also saw an uneasy relationship between the Modi regime and its ideological mentor, the RSS. The ideologically motivated cadres were upset with the BJP fielding a large number of turncoats and the unilateral functioning of the party leadership. Modi is also trying to recapture the lost ground within the Sangh Parivar by emphasising an agenda dear to them.

However, the prime minister is wary of a possible backlash from crucial allies like the Janata Dal (United) and the Telugu Desam Party which still enjoying a significant minority vote and cannot afford to lose it despite being in the NDA. That, perhaps, explains the necessity to reframe the Uniform Civil Code debate as secular versus communal. This is, perhaps, the first time the BJP leadership has taken refuge in secularism to further its divisive agenda.

The NDA allies have publicly demarcated themselves from the BJP whenever such issues have confronted them. For instance, TDP National General Secretary Nara Lokesh described quotas for Muslims as social justice despite the BJP calling it appeasement politics.

Modi knows pretty well that neither the JD(U) nor the TDP are ready to take any extreme step. However, the allies need some other pretext to defend their relationship with the BJP even when the latter is furthering an agenda unpalatable to them.

Therefore, Modi in a frantic bid to placate his allies, describes his agenda of the Uniform Civil Code as a 'secular' proposition.

(Prof K Nageshwar is a senior political analyst, faculty member of Osmania University, and a former MLC. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)