JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION, INDIA
VOL. 21, 2022
government has been working towards a separate legislation to govern Buddhist marriages
and inheritance laws, to maintain the distinction of Buddhist religious rituals from Hindu
rituals. Buddhists who form under one per cent of the country’s population are at present
governed by the Hindu Marriage Act of 1955. There was a lack of unanimity seen in this
proposal, with Prakash Ambedkar, then leader of the Bharip Bahujan Mahasangh, insisting
that there should be a uniform code for all religions (Phadke, 2015). As if this itself was not to
be, in furthering the extension of personal laws of minorities, in 2012, the Manmohan Singhled UPA government moved an amendment to the Anand Marriage Act of 1909, to provide
for registration of marriages of Sikhs. This was following long-pending representations from
the Sikh community, especially those in the diaspora who did not wish their marriages to be
registered under the Hindu Marriage Act, since they belonged to the Sikh religion. In 2018,
the Delhi government also notified the Act, so that members of the Sikh community could
register their marriages (Basu, 2018).
This essay has been a concise attempt to foreground feminist visions for gender justice,
including campaigns that attempted to use secular and constitutional means to secure for
women their rights and entitlements within the familial and intimate relationships. These
efforts in the last couple of decades also gained impetus following resonance with newly
emerging voices of the queer and trans communities, as also women from minority, Muslim
and Christian groups. A further in-depth elaboration of these concerns and a sustained
public campaign is the need of the moment to advance gender justice in a deeply caste-based
heteropatriarchal and capitalist society.
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