PERSONAL LAW LEGAL ORIGINS AND CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES
DEBATES OVER UNIFORM CIVIL CODES IN MODERN INDIA
Keywords:
Personal Law, Legal Origins, Uniform Civil Code, Modern India, Pre-Colonial History, The Colonial 'Rule of Law, Post-Independence, Shah Bano CaseAbstract
The world's largest democracy has in recent decades been besieged by a number of critical issues in the broad areas of justice and democracy, not least on the communal front where tensions between disparate communities have raked dangerously high. This challenge to the stability of the Indian society and its basically egalitarian aspirations, are marked by a number of deeper, structural formations that have arguably a longer history and antecedent causality than is otherwise acknowledged in some circles, populist and academic alike. Nevertheless, structures usually targeted for analysis comprise the
differential caste/sub-caste ordering based on hierarchical codes of privileging, linguistic and regional divisions, and inter-denominational and communal rifts, each of which plays a significant role in weaving the larger tapestry of community issues.
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