Seven years ago, India's Christians told the Union government they were ready for sweeping changes in their outdated personal laws to make it gender just. The community now plans an all-India
campaign to demand prompt legislation from the BJP-led NDA
government
When a delegation of Christian leaders met Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in early December, among other things, the long–pending demand of the community for reform in Christian personal laws also entered the conversation. “I told Mr. Vajpayee, "Why don’t you make this a new millennium’s gift to India’s Christians?’ But the Prime Minister did not make any comment”, Delhi’s archbishop Alan de Lastic told Communalism Combat.
What the archbishop was asking for and what the Prime Minister would not commit himself to is, in fact, not a question of ‘gift’ but a matter of ‘justice’ and ‘right’. Since February 1994, successive governments in New Delhi have been sitting tight on three Bills, which suggest comprehensive reforms in the family laws of India’s Christians and which enjoy the full backing of both the clergy and laity of virtually every Christian denomination in India.
When enacted, the new laws would be applicable only to the Christian community in the country. But judged by the yardstick of gender justice, they would compare well with progressive family laws in force elsewhere in the world today. Among other things, several progressive features contained in the country’s Special marriages Act, 1954 have been incorporated in the proposed reforms.
Having waited for seven long years – first, for the avowedly secular Congress and United Front governments, and, subsequently, for the BJP–led governments to introduce fresh legislation — the All India Catholic Union (AICU), an organisation of the laity representing the largest body of Christians in the country, has now decided to launch a national campaign to jolt the Union government into action.
As it is well known, all religion–specific family (personal) laws in India — pertaining to marriage, divorce, maintenance, succession, adoption — are heavily biased against women. In the case of the Christian personal laws, the Indian Divorce Act 1869 (IDA 1869) and the Christian Marriage Act 1872, are in particular and urgent need of change. However terrible and traumatic the marriage may be, it is virtually impossible for a Christian woman to get a divorce under the provisions of the IDA.
These laws were enacted by the British Parliament during the British rule in India and based on the then prevailing notions of marriage and divorce in English law. Ironically, while they have since been radically overhauled in their country of origin, in India the situation has remained static for well over a century. Understandably, different segments of the Christian community have been engaged in intra–sect and intra–community dialogue, discussion and debate for changes in the personal laws applicable to their community since the mid–’80s.
The issue of reforming existing laws was first raised by Protestant groups who have been asking successive governments for a new Christian Marriage Act. But initially there was resistance from the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI), the all-India religious body which represents Roman Catholics, the largest group of Christians in India. This is because for them marriage is an indissoluble sacrament; once a marriage is consummated, no power on earth could dissolve that bond.
The Joint Women’s Programme (JWP), which began efforts to change the Christian personal laws in 1984, took the initiative in preparing a new set of draft bills for reform. By 1990, three new bills — the Christian Marriages and Matrimonial Clauses Bill (1990), the Indian Succession Amendment Bill (1990) and the Christian Adoption and Maintenance Bill (1990) were ready for consideration. Taken together, they were positive efforts towards updating family legislation and based on egalitarian gender values.
Among other progressive changes, chapters 5, 6 and 7 of the Special Marriage Act 1954, on anullity of marriage, divorce, jurisdiction and procedure were incorporated, with the additional provision that marriages annulled by the Church be declared null and void.
The new bills enjoyed the support of Protestant and orthodox churches, as also of the All India Catholic Union, Satyashodhak (a Mumbai–based active group of Catholic women) and a large section of Catholics in the country. But the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) did not give its consent because of the provision for divorce.
At a national conference held in New Delhi, in 1990, to discuss the draft bills and at which representatives of the church and other Christian organisations of the laity were present, the CBCI told that it would not associate itself with that part of the bill which deals with divorce, but would not oppose the rest of the provisions which were in keeping with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.
After protracted dialogue over the next three years, the CBCI finally agreed to give its consent after a compromise was worked out. It was agreed that divorce would be defined as “a termination of the civil effects of marriage” which does not compromise the teaching of the Catholic Church on the indissolubility of marriage. Finally, three draft bills — Christian Marriage Bill, 1994, Indian Succession Amendment Bill, 1994 Christian Adoption and Maintenance Bill, 1994 — acceptable to all Christian denominations in India were submitted to Prime Minister Narasimha Rao in February 1994. There was also common consent on the repeal of the existing Indian Christian Marriage Act, 1872, Indian Succession Act, 1925 and Indian Divorce Act, 1869.
The consensus for change within the Christian community was arrived at after extensive dialogue, discussion and debate in which a large number of organisations, representing both the clergy and the laity of different denominations were involved. Despite this, in response to a query, the then Union law minister, H.R. Bharadwaj, coolly stated in Parliament on March 6, 1996: “As the policy of the government has been not to interfere in the personal laws of the minority community, unless the initiative came from the community concerned, the government has requested the National Commission for Minorities to assess the views of the Christian community by interacting with different sections of it, before the matter is processed further. Hence, it is too early to set any time frame for undertaking any legislation in this regard.”
The Minorities Commission responded to the government with one of its members, B.S. Ramoowalia, observing that “the Minorities Commission had already informed the government that the CPLs (Christian Personal Laws) be changed according to the request of the Christian community”. Ramoowalia also recommended that the different church denominations send letters supporting the proposed bills.
It is now four years since that requirement has been complied with. But for some inexplicable reason, successive governments at the Centre have reluctant to act. In the process, Christian women continue to suffer.
It is in the context of this backdrop that the working committee of AICU, which met in Kanpur on January 15, has resolved to launch a nation–wide campaign on the issue. AICU is a mass–based, democratic, grassroots federation with a presence in more than hundred of the 122 dioceses of the Catholic Church in India. It has a collective membership that runs into lakhs. Will the NDA government listen?
Archived from Communalism Combat, February 2000. Year 7 No, 56, Cover Story