No ordinary Bill

There are three ways of looking at the Shariat Bill that the J&K legislative assembly passed on February 8, 2007 and which the council endorsed next week.
One, from the point of view of Muslim women's rights; two, from that of the state's integration into India; and three, from the angle of the discourse on the uniform civil code.
Broadly speaking, there is nothing novel in the Bill.All it does is make the Indian Shariat Act of 1937 applicable to the Muslims of J&K, something that applied to other Muslims in most parts of the country.
The 1937 legislation itself has an interesting history in which the Muslim League played an important role but that story is a complex one.
Still, what must be remembered is that the Act was a progressive move allowing Muslim women their rights in parental property, which was not the case with the Hindu women then.
Till the 1937 Act was passed, Hindu law governed several aspects of the personal law of the Muslims of North-West Frontier Province, parts of Bombay, Central Provinces and United Provinces.
With some concessions given to the Muslim landlords of Sind, the 1937 Shariat law brought almost all Muslims of India under the ambit of one Muslim personal law.
After Independence, Muslims of other areas as well were brought under the law. But since the integration of J&K into the Indian Union had a different history, the state remained outside the ambit of the Act.
There the Sri Pratap Jammu and Kashmir Laws Coordination Act of 1920 continued to be the law of the land, some aspects of which upheld Muslim customary laws that were not necessarily in consonance with those of the 1937 Act.
In that sense, the present Bill would mean that the customary laws of Kashmiri Muslims that governed their family law would now be replaced by Muslim personal law.
Of course, the question remains as to how much impact the law would have in actual practice. Customs continue to play an important role in India whether it is the Muslim community or the Hindu community.
Social anthropologists, who have worked on Muslim women, have underscored this point through their empirical research in several parts of north India.
In respect of J&K's integration into the Indian Union, the Act could be viewed as yet another step forward. The day
the Bill was passed in the assembly, Pakistan's high commissioner Shahid Malik reiterated his country's position that it had not given up its claim over Kashmir, an impression that was 'erroneously' being created in India, he emphasised.
One should not try to find a direct connection between these two developments for there is none, but as the implications of the Bill sink in, the Pakistani establishment would ignore it at their own risk.
One must not forget that the Bill was hailed by UP Muslims, who primarily control Indian Muslim politics, which is the biggest challenge to Pakistan's projection of its relations with India.
Finally, the relevance of the Bill for the discourse on the uniform civil code. The focus of the debate is whether the clarity and codification of personal laws are the inevitable first steps towards a uniform family code.
According to many, the best elements from the personal laws of various communities should be picked up, a draft uniform code prepared under a democratically constituted law commission, and then the draft thrown open for public debate.
It could then be passed by Parliament with modifications as suggested during the debate. The J&K Bill fits well into the model.
Of course, politics would come into play at each of these stages. But that is unavoidable in a democracy. The J&K Shariat Bill of 2007 is, therefore, not just a routine Bill.
Its implications are far reaching for India's legal discourse, for J&K's integration into India, and, above all, for India-Pakistan relations and the conflict over Kashmir.
The writer is with the School of Inter-national Studies, JNU.