Constituent Assembly’s 1948 UCC Debate Revisited as Mizoram BJP MLA Breaks With Anti-UCC Resolution

The news

New Delhi and Guwahati. The Indian Express on Wednesday revisited the Constituent Assembly’s debate of November 23, 1948 on what was then draft Article 35 and is now Article 44 of the Constitution. Article 44 says: “The State shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India.” It is one of the Directive Principles of State Policy, which guide the State but cannot be enforced in court. A uniform civil code (UCC) means one law on marriage, divorce, inheritance and adoption for all citizens, replacing religious personal laws. Against it, Mohammad Ismail Khan (Muslim League, United Provinces) saw no need “to compel people to give up their personal law”, and B. Pocker of Madras called interference “really tyrannous”. Naziruddin Ahmad of West Bengal cited a clash with draft Article 19 (freedom of conscience) and said what the British in 175 years “failed to do or was afraid to do” should not be done at once. Syed Hussain Imam of Bihar said a secular State is “not irreligious but non-religious”, and uniform laws should wait for literacy and economic progress. For the provision, K.M. Munshi of Bombay said it was not a “tyranny of the majority”. He said advanced Muslim countries had not treated minority personal law as “so sacrosanct as to prevent the enactment of a Civil Code”, and that the House had already accepted that religious practices in the field of social reform could be regulated. “We want to divorce religion from personal law,” he said, adding that a common code would raise women’s status. B.R. Ambedkar replied that India already had a uniform Criminal Code, and that marriage and succession were the “little corner” civil law had “not been able to invade so far”. He suggested a future Parliament could make adherence “purely voluntary”. In Mizoram, The Hindu reports that K. Hrahmo, one of the BJP’s two MLAs and the member for Palak in Siaha district, called for a closer look at the UCC in Aizawl on Monday, breaking with the State government. The 40-member Assembly resolved in February 2023 to oppose any UCC, and Chief Minister Lalduhoma recently called it a threat to indigenous customary laws and minority rights. Mr. Hrahmo argued a UCC could better protect Mizo women married to non-tribal men, and said tribal populations are excluded where UCCs exist. The syllabus link is GS1 and GS2.

Static syllabus linkage

1. Article 44 is a Directive Principle, and that placement was deliberate. Part IV of the Constitution (Articles 36 to 51) contains the Directive Principles of State Policy. Article 37 says they are not enforceable by any court but are fundamental in the governance of the country, and the State must apply them in making laws. Article 44 asks the State to “endeavour to secure” a uniform civil code, which is language of aspiration rather than command. Goa is the one part of India with a long-standing common civil law. It kept the Portuguese Civil Code of 1867 after it joined India in 1961. Uttarakhand enacted the Uniform Civil Code of Uttarakhand, 2024, which came into force in January 2025 and exempts Scheduled Tribes.
2. Article 25 protects religion but lets the State reform social practice. Draft Article 19, which Naziruddin Ahmad relied on, became Article 25. It guarantees freedom of conscience and the right to profess, practise and propagate religion, subject to public order, morality, health and the other fundamental rights. Article 25(2)(a) allows the State to regulate economic, financial, political or other secular activity associated with religious practice. Article 25(2)(b) allows laws for social welfare and reform. This is the “social reform” exception Munshi referred to, and it is the constitutional basis for the Hindu Code laws of 1955–56: the Hindu Marriage Act, Hindu Succession Act, Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, and Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act.
3. Article 371G gives Mizoram’s Assembly a veto over Parliament on customary law. Article 371G was inserted by the 53rd Amendment (1986) before Mizoram became a State in 1987. It provides that no Act of Parliament on the religious or social practices of the Mizos, Mizo customary law and procedure, the administration of civil and criminal justice involving decisions according to Mizo customary law, or the ownership and transfer of land applies to Mizoram unless the Legislative Assembly decides so by resolution. Article 371A gives Nagaland a similar protection. So a national UCC could not extend to these subjects in Mizoram without the Assembly’s consent. Parts of Mizoram also have autonomous district councils under the Sixth Schedule.
4. The courts and the Law Commission have pulled in different directions. In Mohd. Ahmed Khan v. Shah Bano Begum (1985), the Supreme Court regretted that Article 44 had remained a dead letter. In Sarla Mudgal v. Union of India (1995), dealing with Hindu men converting to Islam to marry again, it again urged the government to act on Article 44. The 21st Law Commission, in a 2018 consultation paper on family law reform, said a UCC was “neither necessary nor desirable at this stage” and suggested reforming each personal law to remove discrimination. The 22nd Law Commission invited public views on the UCC in June 2023. The Special Marriage Act, 1954 already offers a secular civil marriage open to anyone, regardless of religion.

Why UPSC loves this

1. Mains has asked why India has not enacted a UCC. GS2 has asked candidates to discuss the factors that stop India from enacting a uniform civil code under the Directive Principles. The Constituent Assembly debate provides the original arguments on both sides, and the Mizoram story adds a dimension most answers leave out: tribal customary law and the special provisions of Article 371.
2. Prelims tests Part IV and the special provisions. Questions have asked which Directive Principles are Gandhian, liberal or socialist, whether Directive Principles are justiciable, and which States have special provisions under Articles 371 to 371J. Article 371G’s protection for Mizo customary law and Goa’s civil code are well-suited to statement-based questions.
3. GS1 links the UCC to women and secularism. GS1 covers the role of women, social empowerment and secularism. Munshi’s argument about the status of women and Imam’s distinction between ‘non-religious’ and ‘irreligious’ are useful ways into answers on Indian secularism and gender justice in personal law.

Analysis

1. The 1948 debate was mostly about timing, not about principle. Read closely, many opponents did not reject uniformity forever. Syed Hussain Imam wanted to wait for literacy and economic progress, and Naziruddin Ahmad objected to doing it “all at once”. Ambedkar himself offered a voluntary route. The Assembly responded by choosing the words “endeavour to secure” and placing the provision among the non-justiciable principles, which was a decision about sequence. The counter-view is that 75 years of waiting has itself become a choice, and women governed by unreformed personal laws have paid for it. Both sides can claim the founders’ support, which is why the debate never settles.
2. Ambedkar’s ‘voluntary’ suggestion is the most neglected idea in the debate. A voluntary code is not hypothetical, because the Special Marriage Act, 1954 is already a secular option that anyone may choose. Expanding it into a full optional code on succession, adoption and divorce would let citizens opt in without the State overriding anyone’s faith. It would also test demand honestly. The counter-view is serious: those who most need protection, usually women in unequal households, are the least able to insist on opting in. A voluntary code helps the educated and the independent first, so it is at best a first step, not a substitute for reform.
3. Mr. Hrahmo’s two claims pull against each other. The MLA argues that a UCC would protect Mizo women married to non-tribal men. He also says tribal populations are excluded from UCCs where they have been implemented, which is true of Uttarakhand’s law. If a Mizoram UCC followed that model, it would exempt the Mizo women it is meant to protect. If it did not, Article 371G would require the Assembly’s consent, and the Assembly has resolved against it. His argument is really about customary rules on mixed marriages, inheritance and land, which can be reformed through Mizo customary law and State legislation. The report does not specify what protection he has in mind, but the gender concern he raises is real and should not be dismissed as partisan.
4. A uniform law is not automatically an equal law. Munshi’s case tied uniformity to women’s uplift, but these are different goals. A single code could still be unequal if it adopted one community’s rules, and several personal laws could each be made gender-just through separate reforms, which is the route the 21st Law Commission preferred. Dr. Ambedkar’s comparison with the uniform criminal code is instructive, because criminal law was made uniform by a colonial legislature, not by consensus. The counter-view is that piecemeal reform is slow and uneven, and a common baseline of rights on divorce, maintenance and inheritance would end forum-shopping between laws. The honest position is that equality should be the test and uniformity the tool.
5. Imam’s ‘non-religious’ state is still the key concept in today’s arguments. Syed Hussain Imam distinguished a State that is irreligious, meaning hostile to religion, from one that is non-religious, meaning it does not take sides. Indian secularism has since developed as ‘principled distance’: the State may intervene in religion to reform it, as Article 25(2)(b) allows, but must do so even-handedly. The UCC debate and today’s national song case both turn on this idea. The question in each is whether the State is reforming for equality or imposing one tradition’s norms. A UCC that is visibly even-handed, and that treats tribal and minority concerns as constitutional rather than political, will be far easier to defend.

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