INTRODUCTION
The law embodies the story of the nation’s development through centuries and to know what it is, one must know what it has been, and what it tends to become.[1]– Oliver Wendel Holmes
The object behind stressing out the history of common personal laws is not to enter into the vast galaxy of various personal laws that prevailed in the world or to find out the philosophy behind them. It has limited purpose of looking into the status of and policy on common personal laws in a historical perspective. The universe is famously dubbed as the land of the cultural diversities, with multiple languages, cultures and religions. While the diversity is always appreciated, it often leads to the problem of integrations and governance over the citizens. There are specific codes that govern the different communities, religions and cultures.
Personal law governs the legality of marriage, adoption, divorce, succession, etc. as per the belief and customs of religions.[2]India is well known with the phrase “Unity in Diversity”. Indian society has always been governed by the Hindu, Muslim and British Legal system.[3] Apart from it, a Human Being is the creation of God. Every human being is similar in feature.
A human being may belong to different religions. He or she may be Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Parsee, Buddhist or anything else, but he or she cannot be denied from the fact that he or she is first a “Human Being”. So every person who belongs from different religion is entitled to have certain basic and fundamental Human Rights. Human Right is an absolute fundamental Right of all human beings irrespective of their nationality, culture, tradition, sex etc.
The Preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was adopted on 10th December 1948 embodies; “Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the Human family is the foundation of the freedom, Justice and peace in the world”.
Article 12 to Article 35 of the Indian constitution guarantees certain fundamental rights like right to equality, right to life and personal liberty, right to equal opportunity, Right to religion and certain rights incorporated under Article 36 to Article 51 of the constitution right to equal pay for equal work, equal justice and free and legal aid etc cover most of the declaration of Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The settlement of foreigners into the soil of Indians, invasions of other country men attracted by the rich sources along with the natives of India has made country “INDIA” “Country of different RELIGIONS”. It is indeed a pride for all Indians that India stand united in spite of diversities in cultures, traditions, religions, clothing, belief and resources.
It is always said that “Every coin has two sides”. The first side of the coin (Religion) has been mentioned above in brief but the other side of the coin (Religion) is that religion has been misused to generate inequality by unreasonably raising the rights of some and suppressing the rights of others. When voice is raised by the suppressed community, they were either threatened or pacified in the name of religion or religion beliefs.
CONCLUSION
“The point of saturation is when the human rights and human beings get affected just because of the mask of the religion. The nature remains unaltered for all irrespective of that God whom human being worships. The human body, inner senses, rights are all the same regardless of the gender and religion. Even then there is discrimination among human beings in the personal laws drafted on the basis of religion. Today Human Beings are killed in the name of the “Religion”. Does Hindu Religion or the Religion of Muslims, Christians, Parsees or the Buddhists impart the teaching of killing other human beings in order to safeguard their rights and religion? It has been said that “A Human Being is born free and equal in dignity and god has created all human beings equal, when god has not discriminated the Human beings, it is the human being itself who has discriminated humanity on the basis of the caste, creed, colour, religion etc. When a child is born the first thing that is inserted in the column after the birth of the child is the “Religion”. The child which hasn’t opened its eyes nor has breathed properly was put into the ties of the Religion”.
[1] A.N Saha, Marriage and Divorce 1 (Eastern Law House, Calcutta, 1996)
[2]Infact:Equality, freedom the key issues in continuing Uniform Civil Code debate, (available at: http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/in-fact-equality-freedom-the-key-issues-in-continuing-uniform-civilcode- debate/ (last accessed on 11 May, 2018; 10:15 am)
[3] D.K. Srivastava, Religious Freedom in India 213( Deep&Deep, Delhi, 1982).
