THE UNIFORM CIVIL CODE (UCC) remains an article of faith for the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Hindutva project. In January 2025, Uttarakhand formally implemented the UCC, while Gujarat, Assam and Madhya Pradesh passed their own legislation. West Bengal, Rajasthan and Maharashtra have formed committees to prepare or review draft bills. This rushed yet systematic state-wise implementation originates from Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s public vow to introduce the UCC in the 21 BJP-NDA-ruled states by 2029. BJP leaders also openly revealed the Hindutva colouring of the UCC. While introducing the UCC in the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly, Chief Minister Mohan Yadav raised slogans like “Jai Shree Ram” and “Jo Hindu hit ki baat karega, wahi Pradesh me raaj karega (whoever speaks for Hindu interests will rule the State)”. Similarly, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma embraced the influence of his RSS background on his commitment, claiming that “had I not been a BJP CM and a swayamsevak of RSS, probably I would not have been able to bring the UCC to the Assembly”.
True to its age-old practice of appropriating Ambedkar, the BJP leadership has again invoked his Constituent Assembly views on the UCC. Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed that “Babasaheb Ambedkar greatly advocated for ending religion-based personal laws”. Similarly, Madhya Pradesh CM Mohan Yadav drew support for the UCC from Ambedkar, Syama Prasad Mookerjee and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in a single breath, declaring that “the enactment of this law” in MP “demonstrates our genuine commitment to the vision of ‘One Nation, One Constitution, One Flag, One Leader’, championed by Dr. Ambedkar, Sardar Patel and Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee”. This shows that Ambedkar’s thoughts are quoted partially and out of context, corrupting his original views. Thus, it is crucial to examine Ambedkar’s views closely and revisit other Constituent Assembly members' opposition to the UCC. Such a revision presents the full picture of the debate in which Ambedkar intervened.
Struggle Over the Word “Directive”
Article 44, which states that “The State shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India”, is one of the many Directive Principles of State Policy enshrined in the Indian Constitution. Therefore, we must first examine the Constituent Assembly members’ diverse views on the idea of “directive” itself. On November 19, 1948, the Constituent Assembly debated whether the word “Directive” in the “Directive Principles of State Policy” should be retained. Kazi Syed Karimuddin, a prominent criminal lawyer, moved the amendment that the word “Directive” be replaced with “Fundamental”. He contended that such principles were toothless as they were non-binding and non-justiciable. For him, “it is no use treating these principles as Directive; such a course will not prove to be the good of the people and the State”. This sentiment was shared by other members, including H.V. Kamath, an ex-ICS officer, and Naziruddin Ahmad, a Calcutta-based lawyer elected on a Muslim League ticket. Ahmad opposed the word “directive”, labelling Directive Principles “pious principles” which should not be “enunciated unless there is the backing of the law and they are also made justiciable”. Including such principles in the Constitution without making them justiciable turns them into “resolutions made on New Year’s Day which are broken on the 2nd of January”. For Ahmad, Karimuddin rightly demanded that the Directive Principles be made fundamental and justiciable.
Another set of Constituent Assembly members considered that the word “Directive” should be retained. M. Ananthasayanam Ayyangar, a Gandhian freedom fighter who later became the first Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha (1952-56), defended the non-justiciable design practically, arguing that courts lack the means to force a government to act, making public opinion and elections the real enforcement path. He emphasised retaining the word “Directive” and noted:
“In the nature of things, these are only directives and cannot be justiciable at all…these are principles which the Government must keep in mind, whatever government may be in power, and they must be carried out. We have incorporated them in the Constitution itself because we attach importance to them”.
Besides Ayyangar, Ambedkar rejected the amendments moved by Karimuddin, Kamath and Naziruddin. For Ambedkar, the word “directive” meant that the Constituent Assembly gave “certain directions to the future legislature and the future executive to show in what manner they are to exercise the legislative and the executive power which they will have”. The word carried the Constituent Assembly’s “intention” behind these principles, and removing it meant erasing that intention. Ultimately, the word “directive” was retained.
Constituent Assembly Debate and Uniform Civil Code
Against the backdrop of this tussle over the word “directive”, the Constituent Assembly debated the UCC on November 23, 1948. Several members, especially Muslim ones, had apprehensions about the UCC in Article 35 of the Draft Constitution (which became Article 44 later). They argued for making personal laws an exception to Article 35. Mohammad Ismail Khan, a prominent Muslim politician, cited European constitutions with clauses protecting personal laws. During the interwar period, many European states, Yugoslavia, for instance, were obliged under treaties to protect minority rights, including personal laws. Ismail Khan, who had previously played a key role in the Pakistan Movement, advocated the protection of personal laws for all communities. Drawing on the European constitutions, he underlined that “these refer to minorities while my amendment refers not to the minorities alone but to all people including the majority community”. He opposed the utopian vision of bringing uniformity through the UCC. He asked the members:
“Why do people want a uniform civil code, as in article 35? Their idea evidently is to secure harmony through uniformity. But I maintain that for that purpose it is not necessary to regiment the civil law of the people including the personal law. Such regimentation will bring discontent and harmony will be affected”.
Along with Khan, Naziruddin Ahmad, Mahboob Ali Baig and B. Pocker Sahib Bahadur underlined the issue of personal law. First, Ahmad contended that the UCC, without exempting personal law from its scope, violates the guarantees of religious freedom in Draft Article 19 (now Article 25). Referring to this “anomaly”, he claimed that “in Article 19, we enacted a positive provision which is justiciable and which any subject of a State irrespective of his caste and community can take to a Court of law and enforcement…but the subject [in the article related to the UCC] has not been given any right…[and] is likely to encourage the State to break the guarantees given in article 19”. This apprehension emerged because the Directive Principles, including the UCC, were not framed as justiciable. Similarly, Mahboob Ali Baig recommended the exclusion of “personal law of the citizen” from the UCC’s ambit. He claimed that “civil law” did not cover “personal law”. Baig argued that if the framers of the UCC article believed that the civil law covered the personal law of a citizen, then they were “overlooking” the crucial fact of “personal law being so much dear and near to certain religious communities”. According to him, the framers were misinformed that a secular state is a “uniform state”. B. Pocker shared Baig’s views. He underlined regard for the personal laws of all religious communities, not just Muslims. He considered that “to aspire to impose upon the whole country one code of civil law” negates freedom of religious practice and the freedom the country had obtained after a long struggle.
Revisiting the 1948 Constituent Assembly debates, particularly dissenting voices, shows that the BJP’s state-wise UCC rollout contradicts Ambedkar’s actual position. Ambedkar envisioned a voluntary and gradual implementation of the UCC based on the consent of affected communities.
Two women members, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur and Hansa Mehta, challenged this alleged sanctity of religious freedom during the Fundamental Rights Sub-Committee discussions. Both underlined that the guarantee of religious freedom, in its absolute sense, would render social reform through legislation impossible and contradict the provision abolishing untouchability. However, Khan, Ahmad, Baig and Pocker did not promote a strictly communal understanding of personal laws. They supplemented their views by emphasising consent and gradualism in implementing the UCC. Ahmad affirmed that the “goal should [be] towards a uniform civil code, but it should be gradual and with the consent of the people concerned”. He grounded his claim in the representational character of parliamentary democracy. For him, “parliament may well decide to ascertain the consent of the community through their representatives”. The representatives may secure this consent through their speeches and manifestos. Ahmad proposed that the UCC could be promoted as an “article of faith” in elections and a vote for that could mean “consent”. One might contend that the BJP is following Ahmad’s recommendations by making the UCC part of its manifesto, getting elected and implementing it state-wise. This hasty conclusion overlooks that the BJP does not field Muslim candidates in elections, and minorities such as Muslims and Christians scarcely rally behind the BJP. Consequently, the BJP lacks the “consent of the [minority] community through their representatives” that Ahmad recommended. This becomes clearer in Ambedkar’s response to the concerns expressed by Ahmad and others about the UCC.
On November 23, 1948, Ambedkar recommended a phased and voluntary application of the UCC. He pointed out that although the article proposes that the State shall “endeavour” to secure a uniform civil code, it does not mean that the State “shall enforce it [the UCC] upon all citizens merely because they are citizens”. For Ambedkar, it is “perfectly possible” that the future parliament may initially provide that “the code shall apply only to those who make a declaration that they are prepared to be bound by it”, making its application “purely voluntary”. According to Ambedkar, the UCC could initially apply only to those who consent to it, making its mandatory enforcement by Parliament impossible. Such a voluntary mechanism helps allay minority fears of communal majoritarianism.
Acknowledging this fear while assigning religion a minimal role in civil and secular matters, Ambedkar clarified on December 2, 1948, that the State claimed only the power to legislate for social reform. He added that “there is no obligation upon the State to do away with personal laws. It is only giving power. Therefore, no one need be apprehensive of the fact that if the State has the power, the State will immediately proceed to execute or enforce that power” in a way that may be “objectionable” to the “Muslims or…Christians” or “any other community in India”. For Ambedkar, such sovereignty is limited because “sovereignty is the exercise of that power that must reconcile to the sentiments of the different communities”. Imagining Muslims as a community capable of reconciling that “sovereignty”, Ambedkar concluded that no government “can exercise its power in such a manner as to provoke the Muslim community to rise in rebellion”. A government that did so would be a “mad government”. Such potential conflict must be attributed to the “exercise of the power and not to the power itself”. This demonstrates that Ambedkar assigned every community equal strength to reconcile power and sovereignty, regardless of numbers.
Instead of reconciling sovereignty with community sentiments, the BJP has overlooked Ambedkar’s views in three ways. First, its undeclared policy of no Muslim lawmakers in Parliament and most state assemblies curtailed the space for reconciliation. Second, in the MP assembly debate, Congress MLA Arif Masood’s request to refer the UCC bill to a Select Committee was mocked with CM Yadav’s jibe at Congress over minority “appeasement”. Such practices present the law as majoritarian domination rather than deliberative redressal of minority fears. Third, for Ambedkar, the UCC derives legitimacy from the active consent of those affected, not the legislative majority alone. In BJP governments, a legislative majority remains, unfortunately, a communal majority. The BJP’s rushed passage of laws without deliberative and consultative processes, its minimal consideration for minority views and its Hindu-nationalist rhetoric around the UCC are precisely the kind of exercise of power that Ambedkar warned against. Retired Bombay High Court Justice R. C. Chavan’s resignation from the Maharashtra UCC Committee over the feedback mechanism and the alleged presence of a non-member at the meeting only highlights the coercive exercise of power to implement the UCC without regard for public opinion. This even disregarded the 21st Law Commission’s 2018 Report, which stated that a UCC is “neither necessary nor desirable”.
Drawing on those debates, along with later judicial remarks on gradual reform, the piece argues that the BJP’s exclusionary UCC panels, rushed passage of laws and Hindutva narrative run counter to the farmers' legislative intent.
A Majoritarianism Foretold
Some farsighted Constituent Assembly members anticipated that the UCC could easily become a majoritarian objective. On November 23, 1948, B. Pocker asked, “By uniform, what do you mean and which particular law, of which community, are you going [to] take as the standard?” For him, the purpose of such uniformity was none other than to “murder the consciences of the people and make them feel that they are being trampled upon as regards their religious rights and practices”. A UCC, in the hands of a communal majority, may prove a “tyrannous measure” and democracy becomes a “misnomer” if the “majority rides rough-shod over the rights of minorities”. The BJP’s motive behind the UCC, read with its drives like love-jihad, mosque demolitions, CAA-NRC, SIR and communal polarisation, is to turn minorities, specifically Muslims, into second-class citizens.
Instead of exhausting its energy on communal issues, the BJP could heed the recommendation of another Constituent Assembly member, Syed Hussain Imam. Connecting the UCC to uniform progress, Imam suggested, “it is all right and a very desirable thing to have a uniform law, but at a very distant date”. This “distant date” could be brought forward, if the BJP wishes, by ensuring that “the whole of India has got educated, when mass illiteracy has been removed, when people have advanced, when their economic conditions are better, when each man is able to stand on his own legs and fight his own battles. Then, you can have uniform laws”. Since the BJP cares less about these issues and cannot prioritise uniform material progress over medieval communalism, it could benefit from Ahmad’s vision of gradual implementation of the UCC to win minority confidence and maintain social cohesion. Pointing to British rule, Ahmad argued that drastic legislation interfering with personal laws, including the Transfer of Property Act, was introduced “gradually as occasion arose”. Learning from historical precedent, he submitted that “the interferences with these [religious] matters should be gradual and must progress with the advance of time”. While this cautious attitude might result in social stagnation, it is significant today as the BJP hurriedly introduces the UCC state-wise without regard for minority representation and voices. For instance, the Rajasthan UCC panel is an all-Hindu body despite Muslims constituting 9.07% of the state’s population.
Judiciary and Gradual Implementation
Along with Constituent Assembly members, the judiciary has also prescribed gradual implementation of a UCC. In State of Bombay v. Narasu Appa Mali (1951), while upholding the Hindu Bigamous Marriage Act, 1946, the Bombay High Court implicitly supported incremental reform, remarking that a state can legislate for one community at a time. The Court held that “Article 14 does not lay down that any legislation that the State may embark upon must necessarily be of an all-embracing character”. In Personal Bansilal Pitti v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1996), the Supreme Court examined the validity of the Andhra Pradesh Charitable Hindu Religious and Endowments Act, 1987. Even against the backdrop of the Supreme Court’s 1985 Shah Bano judgment, the Court had to decide whether the legislature should make a law uniformly applicable to all religious institutions. In Personal Bansilal Pitti, the Court stated:
“The directive principles of the Constitution themselves visualise diversity and attempt to foster uniformity among people of different faiths. A uniform law, though, is highly desirable, enactment thereof in one go perhaps may be counter-productive to unity and integrity of the nation. In a democracy governed by rule of law, gradual progressive change and order should be brought about. Making law or an amendment to a law is a slow process and the legislature attempts to remedy where the need is felt most acute. It would, therefore, be inexpedient and incorrect to think that all laws have to be made uniformly applicable to all people in one go. The mischief or defect which is most acute can be remedied by process of law at stages”.
This persuasive judicial intervention, which underscores the importance of gradualism in maintaining social cohesion, remains an instrument of instruction for statecraft vis-à-vis the UCC. Therefore, it directs those operating the State apparatus to avoid treating gradualism toward the UCC as synonymous with appeasement or absolute social stagnation.
To conclude, the Constituent Assembly’s UCC debates highlight a far more consent-driven, egalitarian and cautious vision than the BJP’s selective invocations. Ambedkar recommended a voluntary, phased code ensuring that state power reconciles communities, rather than a mandate imposed by communal majorities. Furthermore, the fact that some views were not enshrined in the final text of the Constitution does not render their wisdom irrelevant. Such an attitude risks submitting to the victory of the majority without critical examination and discarding dissent merely because it lacked numbers. Constituent Assembly members like Imam, Ahmad and Pocker, along with later judicial interventions, underscored gradualism’s crucial role in avoiding majoritarian domination. The BJP’s state-wise rollout, with exclusionary panel formation, lack of debate and Hindutva rhetoric, undermines this legacy, which foregrounded minority consent.
In 1985, against the backdrop of the BJP’s demand for a UCC following the Supreme Court judgment granting maintenance to Shah Bano, the late Professor Imtiaz Ahmad of JNU’s Centre for Political Studies prudently stated that instead of enacting a uniform code, a concerted effort should sensitise people of diverse faiths to take recourse to civil laws to remedy injustices they faced under personal laws.
The Constituent Assembly’s legislative intent, combined with Ambedkar's vision, should be the guiding principle for addressing the UCC.