Hindu Code Bill

The Hindu code bills were several laws passed in the 1950s that aimed to codify and reform Hindu personal law in India. Following India's independence in 1947, the Indian National Congress government led by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru completed this codification and reform, a process started by the British Raj. According to the British policy of noninterference, personal-law reform should have arisen from a demand from the Hindu community. That was not the case, as there was significant opposition from various conservative Hindu politicians, organisations and devotees; they saw themselves unjustly singled out as the sole religious community whose laws were to be reformed. However, the Nehru administration saw such codification as necessary to unify the Hindu community, which ideally would be a first step towards unifying the nation. They succeeded in passing four Hindu code bills in 1955–56: the Hindu Marriage Act, Hindu Succession Act, Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, and Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act. They continue to be controversial to the present day among women's, religious, and nationalist groups.

While there may be a permanence of certain fundamental beliefs about the nature of life that is pervasive through Hinduism, Hindus as a group are highly non-homogenous. As Derrett says in his book on Hindu law, "We find the Hindus to be as diverse in race, psychology, habitat, employment and way of life as any collection of human beings that might be gathered from the ends of the earth." The Dharmaśāstra—the textual authority on matters of marriage, adoption, the joint family, minorities, succession, religious endowments, and caste privileges—has often been seen as the private law of the Hindus. However, whatever is known and interpreted about this Hindu law is a jumble of rules, often inconsistent and incompatible with one another, that are lacking in uniformity.

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