Advocate and politician Erwin K Syiem Sutnga has written to the Law Commission of India to oppose the application of the proposed Uniform Civil Code (UCC) to the Khasi-Jaintia, Garo and other matrilineal tribes of Meghalaya.
The Law Commission had sought views on the divisive UCC and Sutnga has submitted his on behalf of the indigenous tribal communities of the state.
In a lengthy missive, Sutnga said, “The proposed enactment of Article 44 of the Constitution of India, commonly known as the Uniform Civil Code, into law has raised serious alarm bells that another basic structure of the Constitution of India, especially the rights of tribals and minorities enshrined in Part III -Fundamental Rights – will be done away with and what will remain will be a watered down version.”
“This is because implementation of a Uniform Civil Code while having been enshrined as one of the directive principles of state policy is totally at variance with the basic features of the Constitution of India protecting the rights of tribals and minorities and if imposed on us can only become a mechanism of oppression and tyranny of the brute majority of non tribals against tribals and minorities in India.”
“Our personal laws of inheritance, marriage, religious beliefs, language, social customs as is our unique private ownership of land which belongs to the people and not to the government the hallmarks of our identity as a matrilineal society which is one the fewer than 50 societies in the whole world will be totally denied in the harsh embrace of a patriarchal system which will manifest itself in the guise of a Uniform Civil Code.”
As almost the entire population of India follows patrilineal customs, Sutnga fears that the UCC will not have space to accommodate the matrilineal customs of the Khasi-Jaintia and Garo tribes.
He also referred to leftover issues pertaining to the accession of the Khasi states to India after independence and whether the entire process was fully completed.
