Hindu code bills

The Hindu code bills were several laws passed in the 1950s that aimed to codify and reform Hindu personal law in India, abolishing religious law in favor of a common law code. The Indian National Congress government led by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru successfully implemented the reforms in 1950s. This process was started during the British rule of India.[1]

After the independence of India, the Nehru administration saw the reform of the Hindu code as necessary for modernising the Hindu society as well as to forge national unity.[2] After facing initial resistance, Nehru campaigned for it during the general election in 1952, and reintroduced the bills which were passed as the Hindu Marriage Act, Hindu Succession Act, Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, and Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act during 1955–1958.[3][4] These laws apply to all "Hindus", defined expansively to include Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs.[5] Other personal laws inherited from the British rule, for Muslims, Christians and Parsis, remain unreformed, forming an issue of debate among women, religious, and nationalist groups.[6]

  1. ^ Williams 2006, p. 18.
  2. ^ Williams 2006, p. 107.
  3. ^ Smith, Donald Eugene (1963), India as a Secular State, Princeton University Press, pp. 280–281, ISBN 978-1-4008-7778-2
  4. ^ Williams 2006, p. 106
  5. ^ Popkin, William D. (2001), "Some Continuing Issues", in Larson, Gerald James (ed.), Religion and Personal Law in Secular India: A Call to Judgment, Indiana University Press, p. 334, ISBN 0-253-21480-7
  6. ^ Williams 2006, p. 28