Secularism and Liberal Democracy

Provisions about Joint Hindu Family ... And succession laws continue to be part of our law books...

Dost Mittar,

It has been a long time...but I know two laws that were either amended or totally discarded.
Hindu punchait act and Hindu family act. I think they were both from the British era but were found inaplicabale in Pakistan.

I don`t think that Hindu in Sindh have a punchait system and I have never heard of the hindu family laws from hindus. So I am assuming that they were discarded in Pakistan.

HP#95:

If Pakistan repealed the religion-based British laws with a common civil code for all citizens, it is perhaps more ``secular`` than secular India in this respect.

jang:

Even the Ramayan hadith has Dashrath with four wives - very Islamic eh? :-)

The Sikhs, in particular, against the law because (1) it lumped them with the Hindus and (2) it went against the jat tradition of ``chadar pana`` to a brother`s widow.

#92 by dost-mittar

i agree that there was dissent during constitutional debates. what i mean is there was no ``hinduism khatarein mein hain`` outcry against the civil law. in hiduism (or sikh or jain), monogamy is considered a good thing, comes from the hadith of Ramayana, and therefore its easy to enact that law. giving inheritance to girls OTOH was a more difficult thing and it got enacted later. For muslims, multiple wives comes from hadith, and threfore a civil law for single wife, especially in the backdrop of jinnah successful demand of a homeland for muslim persecution by hindus would be ``islam khatrein mein hain``.

so, rajendra prasad and othodoxy notwithstandig, the hindu civil law had wide-spread MORAL acceptance; i.e. hindus (and sikhs and jains) did not consider the law against their mores. It was not as if the hindus were capitulating against the grain of their nature for the sake of a modern nation building (rolling eye icon).

powerful men according to hindu hadith offcourse are afforded many wives (e.g. arjun, krishna, good to spread good genes far and wide). so important men in the village had mistresses, and or multiple wives, and continue to have them now.

#91 by dost-mittar

I have some stale info on that…It may be irrelevant now but I will post it anyway.

Pakistani civil laws as for as I know them, have no limits on marriage and it is the same for any religion; Hindu or Muslims, Sikh or Christian. But Pakistan women won a great right in 1962-63 and a law was enacted by Ayub Khan. It is called Family Law or Aily Qanoon(not oily).

This law says that Muslims male can marry one time and basically makes it illegal to marry more than once. But like many other buts in laws like that…A man can marry again if he can show permission from his first wife. This causes enormous problems but there are lots of instances when women refused the permission and even more instances where the permission was coerced.

This law is not applicable to any other religion and they are basically governed by the civil laws. There is a strong tradition in Sindhi Hindus to not marry again. But I know some Hindus had more than one mistress so they flaunt whatever their tradition says in this regards.

It is common in Sindhi and Punjab for well to do landowners’ males to have more than one wife.

re:#80 by Pardesi
I was repudiating the sentiments expressed by HP when he brought the subject of sikhs.
However i agree with the spirit of your post.
sridhar

re:#75 by Mantolives
Why am i a hindu fanatic (the name is a misnomer really; there are hardliners but no fanatics;certainly not of the variety Islam produces) when all i have done is to post a brilliant article by a sensible writer.
May be you should take a leaf out of Ayaz Amir (my father loves to read his articles even if some of them do not make sense) and try to be more objective.
Anyway, Ayaz amir asks a pertinent question: what partition was all about if it has not changed the lives of majority of muslims in Paksitan and left the teeming millions in India more vulnerable post-partition than pre?
Sridhar

jang#87:

This was not the case. There was strong and vociferous opposition to the Hindu Code Bill. Even the President of India, Rajendra Prasad, was against it and refused to sign the bill at first. It would have most probably been defeated if a vote was taken on it in the general public. But the reformists were motivated and no one had the courage to oppose Nehru. This is one thing for which Hindus can thank Nehru.

The framers of the constitution were quite aware of the need to reform Muslim law, but they thought that a change so soon after independence might be traumatic for the community; however, in the directive principles, they did ask the state to move towards a uniform civil code. These directive principles are not binding.

HP#88:

Just curious! Is the civil law for Hindus in Pakistan the same as during the British - for example, can a hindu/sikh in Pakistan have as many wives as he wants? Is a hindu/sikh wife not allowed to divorce her husband?

The Indian state`s involvement of in the ``definition`` of a Hindu has a curious history. Most often it has been done to establish its `secular` credentials.

The records of the proceedings of India`s Constituent Assembly make for fascinating and comic reading. India`s secularist founding fathers were pictures of boldness and courage when confronting orthodox Hindu religious leaders, but found themselves too pusillanimous to look orthodox minority religious leaders in the eye. Consequently, they set about creating two constitutions, one for Hindus and others whom they could browbeat, the other for rest, who apparently in eyes of our founding fathers, had to be bought off in exchange for their patriotism and loyalty.

From there arose the constant need to keep defining a Hindu. In most cases, because given the beauties of India`s constitution, nobody engaged in a legal case in India, would like to be a Hindu.

I believe even the RamKrishna Mission folks once submitted to the courts that they were not ``Hindus`` and should not be treated as such. :)

someone can correct me, but if a hindu gets a court marriage, the hindu law is no more applicable for warisdari etc, irrespective of religion of the person (hindu or sikh or jain, who are termed as hindus for civil law purpose).

jang,
Dost mittar,

Yes! I agree with that.
In Pakistan often we had to study the Hindu joint family laws and it was defined in some details. So basically the definition of Hindu in the constitution is not religious but legal and that is secular.

#82 my impression is that the defining of hindu is for purpose of differing civil code. in civil law, (i am told) their is concept that it must be bought by the populance it supports. the hindu civil law was what was more or less practiced by those defined as hindus, and after some debates were ok with the civil code (e.g. one wife, undivided trust). muslims (various sects) had various needs and they were addressed. its different than the admedi thingy.

To address the one arguments the author makes -

``If I was truly religious, I would prefer to live within a secular state``

No state ought to shape its constitution based on what I would like for myself. If I am a thief, I would like the state constitution to include a ban on all locks and mandatory unemployment of all police officers.

To address the one arguments the author makes -

``If I was truly religious, I would prefer to live within a secular state``

No state ought to shape its constitution based on what I would like for myself. If I am a thief, I would like the state constitution to include a ban on all locks and mandatory unemployment of all police officers.

HP#82:

``My thinking is that defining Hindu in the constitution came by way of following the British colonial laws. (I can be wrong here. I will look this up or someone else can step in here.)``

You are close!
The constitution does not give an all-purpose definition of Hindu. What it does is define to whom the Hindu Law is applicable. That law is applicable to all religions that took birth in India. In other places in the constitution, sikhs and others are clearly defined as religous minorities, for example, for control of their religious and educational institutions. This is why Sikhs have complete control over their gurudwaras whereas major Hindu temples are managed by the government. This is also why some Hindu groups like Ramakrishna mission have gone to court to be classified as Non-Hindus.



Beaty#81:
``Yes, Nehru and Bhim could have been more ``secular`` but given the explosive environment around independence, I dont think being strongly secular would have helped.``

Emplosive environment had nothing to do with it. If it were so, the Hindus and Sikhs would have been the most difficult in making radical changes in their civil laws. Muslims at that time had zero political clout in India and were feeling very frightened in the new political set up. In fact, Muslim laws were untouched partly to give a sense of security to the frightened community.