(...Contd)

Another category of critics of the Hindu Code genuinely felt that the Indian Parliament should not make an effort to secularize personal law by stages and piecemeal. They felt that if a revolutionary step had to be taken in that behalf, it would be better to take the step covering the Hindu, Muslim and all other communities together. They apprehended that if the personal law of the Hindus alone was secularized and a similar effort was not made to secularize the Muslim personal law, the task of secularizing the Muslim personal law may be indefinitely postponed and thereby the object of Article 44 may be defeated.
Yet another point of view was clearly and vigorously expressed, among others, by Acharya Kripalani. He said:
“If they (members of the legislature) single out the Hindu community for their reforming zeal, they cannot escape the charge of being communalists in the sense that they favour the Hindu community and are indifferent to the good of the Muslim community or the catholic community in the matter of divorce. Do we want one community to be in advance of other communities in India, simply because it happens to be in the majority? The charge levelled against Hindu communalists is that they want their community to be in a more advantageous position than other communities.”
The view which Nehru took on this issue was that if the government could not take all steps at once, it was better to take the first essential step by secularizing the personal law of the Hindus.
Democracy, which believes in changing the socioeconomic structure of the community under its governance by democratic means with the help of law, is generally pragmatic.
It takes care to see that the legislative measures which it adopts are not far ahead of the public opinion in the matter. Laws which democracy makes should never lag behind the public conscience; but they should not go far ahead of public conscience either; and Nehru thought that whereas in consequence of the dedicated efforts of many social reformers amongst the Hindus, the Hindu community had been intellectually prepared for the acceptance of the secular concept of personal law, the Muslim community, unfortunately, had not been so prepared ; and so he decided that it would be better to take the first step, then educate the Muslim masses, and follow up the first step by introducing a common Civil Code which would take in all the other communities including the Muslims.
This interpretation of Nehru’s outlook is supported by the question and answer in Parliament at the relevant time. Why had a uniform Civil Code not been introduced?
Shri Pataskar, the Law Minister, was asked in Parliament, and he replied that even these bills would apply to 85 per cent of the people, and would thus constitute a big step towards uniformity.

(Contd...)