History and Context
With the formal independence of India from Great Britain on August 14, 1947, India acquired a new constitution as well as a complex legal system. While a Western influence is apparent in this system, it is not an exact replication. The Indian legal system has characteristics of common law, but is codified and thus is actually more similar to civil law in nature. The modern Hindu legal system is applied to strictly personal law, including issues of marriage, inheritance and adoption, whereas India's secular legal system is applied to issues of criminal law and civil law.
India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, worked to unify the newly independent India by proposing the reformation and codification of Hindu personal law. Nehru's efforts led to contentious debates over the so-called Hindu Code Bill, which he offered in the Indian parliament, as a way to fix still unclear elements of the Anglo-Hindu law. The Hindu Code Bill was initially and continues to be very controversial within and outside of the Hindu community. Criticism of the document is based on the belief that the laws in the Hindu Code bill should apply to all citizens regardless of religious affiliation. Though a small minority suggested some kind of return to classical Hindu law, the real debate was over how to appropriate the Anglo-Hindu law.
Nehru completed codification and partial reform, but overall the legal system only slightly changed. In the end, a series of four major pieces of personal law legislation were passed in 1955-56 and these laws form the first point of reference for modern Hindu law: Hindu Marriage Act (1955), Hindu Succession Act (1956), Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act (1956), and Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act (1956). Though these legislative moves purported to resolve still unclear parts of the Anglo-Hindu law, the case law and interpretive tradition of British judges and Indian judges in the British employ remained and remains crucial to the application of modern Hindu law.
The overall effect of the codification of these rules was negative. It was codified for the Hindus yet left them with limited legal option, as well as tried to stamp out any diversity name of "Hindu unity". To no surprise it also caused a deep rift between Hindus and Muslims. Some other negative effects included:
- It gave Hindu women the notion that they now had equal rights.
- Compared to the religious Muslim law, Hindu law appeared to be secular in nature, and thus the only way Muslims could "secularize" laws in essence to "Hinduize" it.
- Codification fossilized Hindu law and customs into a conservative mold.
Read more about this topic: Modern Hindu Law
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