Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs M.Venkaiah Naidu told the Rajya Sabha on Monday that there was some “intolerance” in society, but it had to be identified and firmly dealt with rather than being generalised. He said this in the context of an outcry over the killing of some writers and Dalits in some States.
The House debated the Constitution and B.R. Ambedkar, the chairman of its drafting committee, through the day.
Mr.Naidu also made a tacit pitch for a common civil code by noting that there was no uniformity in laws on marriage, divorce and maintenance despite Ambedkar having desired it.
“Dr. Ambedkar wanted to have uniformity of law, civil as well as criminal. ... After so many years of experience, have we done justice and moved in that direction? Is there uniformity of civil law?” Mr. Naidu said. He sought to know whether it was possible to “talk about, accept and work out the modalities of a common law with regard to marriage, inheritance, divorce and maintenance.
“No, so far we have not been able to do it, whatever may be the reasons,” he said, adding he did not favour a particular law, like the Hindu law, prevailing over the rest.
Congress speakers, on their part, used the debate to attack the government on “intolerance”. Congress MP Kumari Selja wondered why present Ministers could just think of the “dog analogy” whenever there was a case of atrocities against minorities or Dalits. This was seen as a hint not just at General V.K. Singh’s comment on the death of Dalit children in Haryana but also at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “puppy” remark in an interview to a news agency before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
Congress leader Ashwani Kumar rued that there was a debate on secularism even today and dubbed attempts to “dilute” it “wrong and anti-national.”