Earlier this week, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in one of his most vocal pitches, batted for the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) and called out opposition parties for manipulating and misleading the minority communities against it.

Earlier this week, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in one of his most vocal pitches, batted for the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) and called out opposition parties for manipulating and misleading the minority communities against it. After PM Modi's speech, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), a non-governmental organisation that represents the interests of Muslims in matters of personal law, held an emergency meeting on the issue. According to reports, the Board is opposed to UCC and is contemplating a strategy to counter the proposed move. "Our stand is that UCC is against the spirit of the Constitution and we will oppose it strongly. India is a country where many religions and cultures are followed. So, the UCC is not only going to affect the Muslims but also the Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Jews, Parsis and other minuscule minorities," said one AIMPLB member. What is the UCC? UCC is a comprehensive set of common laws for all religions governing personal matters like marriage, divorce, adoption, inheritance, custody, alimony and others. It aims at ensuring equality among all religions. Although the complete form of UCC is under debate, a fair idea finds a mention in the Indian Constitution. Part IV of the Constitution deals with the Directive Principles of State Policy (DPSP) which is not justiciable or enforceable before the courts of the country but plays a 'fundamental' role in the governance. Article 44 mentions the "state shall endeavour to secure a Uniform Civil Code for the citizens throughout the territory of India". When Dr BR Ambedkar was drafting the Constitution, he believed that the UCC was needed but should remain voluntary for the moment. "No one need be apprehensive that if the State has the power, the State will immediately proceed to execute... that power, in a manner, may be found to be objectionable by the Muslims or by the Christians or by any other community. I think it would be a mad government if it did so," he said in his speech in the Constituent Assembly. Ambedkar expressed his visible frustration towards the personal laws by asking members of the Constituent Assembly, "Why religion should be given expansive jurisdiction which is full of inequities, discriminations and other things, which conflict with fundamental rights." Also read | Muslim law board to present its views by July first week after PM Modi bats for Uniform Civil Code Why BJP is after it? More than anything, for the BJP, UCC remains an ideological promise that it has made to the country's electorate time and again to sweep the votes. During the canvassing trail for the 2019 General Elections, BJP promised in its manifesto that the party was committed to bringing UCC. The loyal, core vote bank of BJP, the middle-class Hindus have been demanding that UCC be implemented. However, despite being in power for over nine years, the Modi government has remained reluctant to take the decisive step, perhaps to not anger a significant portion of the minorities. But with the 2024 elections nearby, the government has once again stepped up its rhetoric on the issue. Also read | What is Uniform Civil Code? Here's everything you need to know about the law, its origin & current status Notably, the BJP government in Uttarakhand had announced it will implement UCC soon after coming to power. As of the latest update by Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, UCC will be implemented soon after the final draft of the Code is submitted by the state government-appointed committee. What do the Indian courts have to say about it? The Supreme Court of India has time and again nudged various governments to bring in the UCC, as it is a vociferous supporter of the same. "There has been no attempt to frame a Uniform Civil Code applicable to all citizens of the country despite exhortations of this court in the case of Mohd Ahmed Khan vs Shah Bano and Sarla Mudgal and Others vs Union of India and Others," the apex court said in 2019. Similarly, in November 2021, the Allahabad High Court highlighted that the UCC is mandatory. The single-judge bench of Justice Suneet Kumar said that “a common civil code will help the cause of national integration by removing disparate loyalties to laws that have conflicting ideologies.” WATCH | Uniform Civil Code: Indian PM pitches for UCC, slams opposition’s vote-bank politics × Why are some against UCC implementation? One of the main arguments that make the implementation of UCC contentious is that it contradicts the constitutional freedom to practice the religion of choice which allows religious communities to follow their respective personal laws. Article 25 and Article 29 of the Constitution allow every religious group the right to manage its own affairs and the right to conserve its distinct culture, respectively. Muslim organisations, including AIMPLB, fear that once UCC is implemented, the common identity of Muslims will be snatched away. Moreover, some fear that UCC will impose a Hinduised code for all communities. Despite the provisions nowhere near being drafted, some believe that personal issues like marriage, in line with Hindu customs will be legally enforced on other communities. (With inputs from agencies) WATCH WION LIVE HERE:

Explained | What is so contentious about India's Uniform Civil Code that aims to annul personal laws?

Poet-turned-politician Kumar Vishwas of the Aam Admi Party finds himself in the midst of another controversy.&nbsp; Last week, social media was abuzz with his viral clip saying, &ldquo;There was no casteism earlier. One man came and started agitation for the reservation and altered our social fabric&rdquo;.

Since Kumar&rsquo;s reference to this &ldquo;man&rdquo; was ambiguous.&nbsp; It was construed to be a reference to&nbsp;Dr&nbsp;B. R. Ambedkar. Many of his followers took exception to this and criticised Vishwas. Without naming Kumar Vishwas,&nbsp;AAP&rsquo;s Ashutosh tweeted that any criticism of&nbsp;Dr&nbsp;Ambedkar is condemnable. Ashutosh&#39;s tweet further fueled suspicion that Kumar was indeed talking about Babasaheb.

This forced Kumar Vishwas to clarify his position on 3rd December that he did not in any way mean to demean Dalit&nbsp;uddharak&nbsp;Parampujya Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar, and the reference was to former Prime Minister V. P. Singh, particularly, his 1990 agitation for the Mandal Commission. He went on to add that vested interests within his party are creating this issue because he has asked the AAP to go back to its basics &mdash; hinting at internal party coterie who became active to eliminate him politically.

Casteism existed much before Mandal Commission

Kumar Vishwas&rsquo; clarification was bizarre. Let&rsquo;s &nbsp;assume for a moment that he didn&rsquo;t imply&nbsp;Dr&nbsp;Ambedkar. The bigger problem actually doesn&#39;t lie with his ambiguity. What he said originally in his Jaipur speech started with &nbsp;&mdash; &ldquo;Hamare Brahman&nbsp;bahul&nbsp;gaon me&nbsp;safai&nbsp;ka&nbsp;kaam&nbsp;karne&nbsp;wali Lakshmi amma mere&nbsp;dadi&nbsp;ke&nbsp;saath&nbsp;shadi&nbsp;hoke&nbsp;aayi&nbsp;thi. Woh&nbsp;meri&nbsp;ma ko&nbsp;aur&nbsp;meri&nbsp;chachi&nbsp;ko&nbsp;jara&nbsp;sa&nbsp;bhi&nbsp;ghoonghat&nbsp;niche&nbsp;reh&nbsp;jay&nbsp;sau&nbsp;galiyaa&nbsp;sunati&nbsp;thi&nbsp;aur koi problem&nbsp;nahi&nbsp;hoti&nbsp;thi&rdquo; (In my Brahmin-majority village, the women sweeper who came with my married Grandma used to scold her for not covering her head with saree, there was no issue that time, with lower caste criticising upper caste).

He continued that today any comment against another community will meet with violence. Firstly, to say that casteism did not exist earlier during his grandma&rsquo;s days is beyond absurd. For caste system has been dominating our social sphere for thousands of years, in the descending order of reverence and ascending the scale of contempt, as&nbsp;Dr&nbsp;Ambedkar had himself put it.

The Scheduled Castes and Tribes were outside the Varna system. But Kumar Vishwas seems to like that model. In his so-called Brahmin-majority village, where was the Scheduled Caste community located? Which caste traditionally did menial jobs and were denied human rights and dignity and which caste was revered just because of their birth in that caste?&nbsp;

Has&nbsp;Mr&nbsp;Vishwas heard of untouchability? If it did not exist, as per Vishwas, what was&nbsp;Dr&nbsp;Ambedkar&rsquo;s anti-untouchability fight for?

Mr&nbsp;Vishwas is clearly lying about the existence of caste system in the pre-Mandal era. And how does&nbsp;Mr&nbsp;Vishwas use his caste privilege? He proudly boasts of dropping his Brahmin surname Sharma since &ldquo;he doesn&rsquo;t believe in castism&rdquo; but he doesn&rsquo;t forget to routinely mention his &lsquo;Proud Brahmin Ancestry&rsquo; in his public appearances. For instance, while contesting in the Amethi Constituency against Rahul Gandhi in 2014, Kumar Vishwas said at a Public Rally &ldquo;I am a descendant of Chanakya and Chand Bardai, who defeated great empires. I left my job because I am a Brahmin and a Brahmin knows how to survive with begging.&rdquo;

Social commentator Vidya Bhushan Rawat says &ldquo;Kumar Vishwas uses all the Brahmanical narratives to build his case. The entire narrative and &lsquo;history&rsquo; that he speaks of is nothing but Sangh Parivar version of our history. Like them, he also narrates&nbsp;the mythologies in such &lsquo;courageous&rsquo; way that they look &lsquo;history&rsquo;.

Lakshmi, the sweeper who came as dowry along with Vishwas&rsquo; Grandma

The second and most objectionable element of Kumar Vishwas&rsquo;&nbsp;defence&nbsp;is the sweeper women who, as he recalls, used to &quot;scold his grandma&rdquo;. This&nbsp;safai&nbsp;ka&nbsp;kaam&nbsp;karne&nbsp;wali&nbsp;(cleaning lady) who came along with his Grandma as dowry was one of the most&nbsp;stigmatised&nbsp;social practice of that time. Along with dowry (cash, furniture, land, vehicle etc), there was a custom of bringing in a helper or sweeper of low caste as a dowry who used to work as a bonded labourer.

These would be mostly the people from Mehter (Scheduled Caste) community. How can a society where only people from particular caste alone do the cleaning for generations be called as a good society?&nbsp;

Former India Today (Hindi) Editor Dilip Mandal says &ldquo;How did Vishwas&rsquo; family get a Maharani in dowry? Did they consider her some kind of furniture? His irritation is that it is difficult to get SC women in dowry for cleaning anymore. How in the world is he calling the earlier era as a golden period?&rdquo;

For Mr Vishwas, the subjugation at the hands of Brahmins and Savarnas is acceptable but any assertion by lower caste is called caste-conflict? How insane!&nbsp;Mr&nbsp;Vishwas does not hesitate to use his caste privilege that he got from his generations but does not want second generation Dalit OBCs to get the facility of reservations.

V. P. Singh Did not fight for Reservation, He implemented it

Kumar Vishwas is probably unaware that V. P. Singh did not agitate for reservation. He actually implemented the Mandal Commission Report which was catching dust for years. It was&nbsp;Dr&nbsp;Ambedkar who made provision for reservation in the Constitution. Without the constitutional provisions done by him in the form of article 340, the OBC reservation would also have not been possible.

The timing of this controversy couldn&rsquo;t be more relevant. 27th November&nbsp;was the death anniversary of former Prime Minister V.P. Singh. This was around the same time that Kumar Vishwas video started getting viral. V. P. Singh was born in an upper caste royal family of Manda in Uttar Pradesh. But his incessant effort towards uplifting the Bahujan society was not just a talk. Along with implementing Mandal Commission, he ensured that portrait of Babasaheb was installed in the central hall of parliament. Imagine the bias, Architect of the Constitution did not even find a place in the central hall until 1990 where all other Savarna leaders thronged the wall.

Kumar Vishwas has&nbsp;harboured&nbsp;hatred towards former Prime Minister V. P. Singh for long. With Mandal commission and SC-ST provision, the Bahujan concept emerged and monopoly of only a few castes over everything was challenged. Today, classrooms in the highest educational institutions are most diverse, paving way for all-round development. But reservation is still cursed by the Savarnas, first by questioning the merit of the students getting admission and, lately, by questioning why only rich among the&nbsp;backwards&nbsp;was enjoying the benefits.

Many in Savarna leadership of AAP, including Arvind Kejriwal himself hold the view that reservation should be only to be taken once by a family. Is reservation poverty alleviation program? How naive is this logic? Does he even read the Constitution? Anna Hazare even went to the extent declaring reservation as the biggest threat to India and country may break apart. Really? Having a diverse workforce or classrooms breaks unity?

Those who use &ldquo;Economic Criteria&rdquo; to hide their hatred towards backward communities getting represented in some level, cannot fathom that those who used to come as dowry are now competing with them. And how much truth is there in the charge that those who have taken benefits are now rich? OBC reservation is actually only for non-creamy layers so there is no question of rich people &lsquo;grabbing&rsquo; it in the present context.

A pilot study done in 2011 had reiterated that Dalits were most underprivileged sections of the population and the easiest marker of poverty. This was 50 years after the policy of reservation came into effect, clearly indicating social status does impact the economic&nbsp;behaviour&nbsp;of the community.

Without this basic social understanding, V. P Singh, Constitution and&nbsp;Dr&nbsp;Ambedkar himself come across as villains to some. Reservation is nothing but affirmative actions and representation enshrined in our Constitution. There are many Savarnas like Kumar Vishwas in all walks of life who think reservation alone has divided the society and created resentment against those availing it.&nbsp;

When the kids themselves find first time in the college that somebody else has &lsquo;got the seat ahead of them despite getting lower marks&rsquo; it does not help. Common Savarna kids then start&nbsp;harbouring&nbsp;hatred of the system that &lsquo;create this inequality&rsquo; which in essence is actually a level playing field. Savarna dominated media&rsquo;s one-sided debate on reservation adds fuel to their fire. Now that a study has dismissed notion that reservation impacts efficiency, and if anything it only improves it, all we need is a compassionate and logical look towards the affirmative action policy and benefits of diversity.

Politicians like Vishwas cannot profess to rever Dr Ambedkar on one side but hate his idea of affirmative action on the other &mdash;especially when most of India&rsquo;s important areas, such as the judiciary, business houses, media, top bureaucracy, academia are still devoid of OBCs SC ST and minorities.

V. P Singh or reservation policy did not create casteism, it merely attempted to create an equal representation of our extremely biased society. Kumar Vishwas of the world should truly come out of not just their surname but their caste&nbsp;mould.

(Disclaimer: The author writes here in a personal capacity).

Politicians like Kumar Vishwas cannot profess to rever Dr Ambedkar on one side but hate his idea of affirmative action on the other, especially when most of India?s important areas are still devoid of OBCs SC ST and minorities.

Poet-turned-politician Kumar Vishwas of the Aam Admi Party finds himself in the midst of another controversy. Last week, social media was abuzz with his viral clip saying, “There was no casteism earlier. One man came and started agitation for the reservation and altered our social fabric”. Since Kumar’s reference to this “man” was ambiguous. It was construed to be a reference to Dr B. R. Ambedkar. Many of his followers took exception to this and criticised Vishwas. Without naming Kumar Vishwas, AAP’s Ashutosh tweeted that any criticism of Dr Ambedkar is condemnable. Ashutosh's tweet further fueled suspicion that Kumar was indeed talking about Babasaheb. This forced Kumar Vishwas to clarify his position on 3rd December that he did not in any way mean to demean Dalit uddharak Parampujya Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar, and the reference was to former Prime Minister V. P. Singh, particularly, his 1990 agitation for the Mandal Commission. He went on to add that vested interests within his party are creating this issue because he has asked the AAP to go back to its basics — hinting at internal party coterie who became active to eliminate him politically. Casteism existed much before Mandal Commission Kumar Vishwas’ clarification was bizarre. Let’s assume for a moment that he didn’t imply Dr Ambedkar. The bigger problem actually doesn't lie with his ambiguity. What he said originally in his Jaipur speech started with — “Hamare Brahman bahul gaon me safai ka kaam karne wali Lakshmi amma mere dadi ke saath shadi hoke aayi thi. Woh meri ma ko aur meri chachi ko jara sa bhi ghoonghat niche reh jay sau galiyaa sunati thi aur koi problem nahi hoti thi” (In my Brahmin-majority village, the women sweeper who came with my married Grandma used to scold her for not covering her head with saree, there was no issue that time, with lower caste criticising upper caste). He continued that today any comment against another community will meet with violence. Firstly, to say that casteism did not exist earlier during his grandma’s days is beyond absurd. For caste system has been dominating our social sphere for thousands of years, in the descending order of reverence and ascending the scale of contempt, as Dr Ambedkar had himself put it. The Scheduled Castes and Tribes were outside the Varna system. But Kumar Vishwas seems to like that model. In his so-called Brahmin-majority village, where was the Scheduled Caste community located? Which caste traditionally did menial jobs and were denied human rights and dignity and which caste was revered just because of their birth in that caste? Has Mr Vishwas heard of untouchability? If it did not exist, as per Vishwas, what was Dr Ambedkar’s anti-untouchability fight for? Mr Vishwas is clearly lying about the existence of caste system in the pre-Mandal era. And how does Mr Vishwas use his caste privilege? He proudly boasts of dropping his Brahmin surname Sharma since “he doesn’t believe in castism” but he doesn’t forget to routinely mention his ‘Proud Brahmin Ancestry’ in his public appearances. For instance, while contesting in the Amethi Constituency against Rahul Gandhi in 2014, Kumar Vishwas said at a Public Rally “I am a descendant of Chanakya and Chand Bardai, who defeated great empires. I left my job because I am a Brahmin and a Brahmin knows how to survive with begging.” Social commentator Vidya Bhushan Rawat says “Kumar Vishwas uses all the Brahmanical narratives to build his case. The entire narrative and ‘history’ that he speaks of is nothing but Sangh Parivar version of our history. Like them, he also narrates the mythologies in such ‘courageous’ way that they look ‘history’. Lakshmi, the sweeper who came as dowry along with Vishwas’ Grandma The second and most objectionable element of Kumar Vishwas’ defence is the sweeper women who, as he recalls, used to "scold his grandma”. This safai ka kaam karne wali (cleaning lady) who came along with his Grandma as dowry was one of the most stigmatised social practice of that time. Along with dowry (cash, furniture, land, vehicle etc), there was a custom of bringing in a helper or sweeper of low caste as a dowry who used to work as a bonded labourer. These would be mostly the people from Mehter (Scheduled Caste) community. How can a society where only people from particular caste alone do the cleaning for generations be called as a good society? Former India Today (Hindi) Editor Dilip Mandal says “How did Vishwas’ family get a Maharani in dowry? Did they consider her some kind of furniture? His irritation is that it is difficult to get SC women in dowry for cleaning anymore. How in the world is he calling the earlier era as a golden period?” For Mr Vishwas, the subjugation at the hands of Brahmins and Savarnas is acceptable but any assertion by lower caste is called caste-conflict? How insane! Mr Vishwas does not hesitate to use his caste privilege that he got from his generations but does not want second generation Dalit OBCs to get the facility of reservations. V. P. Singh Did not fight for Reservation, He implemented it Kumar Vishwas is probably unaware that V. P. Singh did not agitate for reservation. He actually implemented the Mandal Commission Report which was catching dust for years. It was Dr Ambedkar who made provision for reservation in the Constitution. Without the constitutional provisions done by him in the form of article 340, the OBC reservation would also have not been possible. The timing of this controversy couldn’t be more relevant. 27th November was the death anniversary of former Prime Minister V.P. Singh. This was around the same time that Kumar Vishwas video started getting viral. V. P. Singh was born in an upper caste royal family of Manda in Uttar Pradesh. But his incessant effort towards uplifting the Bahujan society was not just a talk. Along with implementing Mandal Commission, he ensured that portrait of Babasaheb was installed in the central hall of parliament. Imagine the bias, Architect of the Constitution did not even find a place in the central hall until 1990 where all other Savarna leaders thronged the wall. Kumar Vishwas has harboured hatred towards former Prime Minister V. P. Singh for long. With Mandal commission and SC-ST provision, the Bahujan concept emerged and monopoly of only a few castes over everything was challenged. Today, classrooms in the highest educational institutions are most diverse, paving way for all-round development. But reservation is still cursed by the Savarnas, first by questioning the merit of the students getting admission and, lately, by questioning why only rich among the backwards was enjoying the benefits. Many in Savarna leadership of AAP, including Arvind Kejriwal himself hold the view that reservation should be only to be taken once by a family. Is reservation poverty alleviation program? How naive is this logic? Does he even read the Constitution? Anna Hazare even went to the extent declaring reservation as the biggest threat to India and country may break apart. Really? Having a diverse workforce or classrooms breaks unity? Those who use “Economic Criteria” to hide their hatred towards backward communities getting represented in some level, cannot fathom that those who used to come as dowry are now competing with them. And how much truth is there in the charge that those who have taken benefits are now rich? OBC reservation is actually only for non-creamy layers so there is no question of rich people ‘grabbing’ it in the present context. A pilot study done in 2011 had reiterated that Dalits were most underprivileged sections of the population and the easiest marker of poverty. This was 50 years after the policy of reservation came into effect, clearly indicating social status does impact the economic behaviour of the community. Without this basic social understanding, V. P Singh, Constitution and Dr Ambedkar himself come across as villains to some. Reservation is nothing but affirmative actions and representation enshrined in our Constitution. There are many Savarnas like Kumar Vishwas in all walks of life who think reservation alone has divided the society and created resentment against those availing it. When the kids themselves find first time in the college that somebody else has ‘got the seat ahead of them despite getting lower marks’ it does not help. Common Savarna kids then start harbouring hatred of the system that ‘create this inequality’ which in essence is actually a level playing field. Savarna dominated media’s one-sided debate on reservation adds fuel to their fire. Now that a study has dismissed notion that reservation impacts efficiency, and if anything it only improves it, all we need is a compassionate and logical look towards the affirmative action policy and benefits of diversity. Politicians like Vishwas cannot profess to rever Dr Ambedkar on one side but hate his idea of affirmative action on the other —especially when most of India’s important areas, such as the judiciary, business houses, media, top bureaucracy, academia are still devoid of OBCs SC ST and minorities. V. P Singh or reservation policy did not create casteism, it merely attempted to create an equal representation of our extremely biased society. Kumar Vishwas of the world should truly come out of not just their surname but their caste mould. (Disclaimer: The author writes here in a personal capacity).

Opinion: Why caste-based reservation is anathema to many

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Explained | What is so contentious about India's Uniform Civil Code that aims to annul personal laws?

Opinion: Why caste-based reservation is anathema to many