There are a couple of key incidents in India's history that led to the current situation 1. Soon after India become an independent nation in 1947, Prime Minis

There are a couple of key incidents in India's history that led to the current situation 1. Soon after India become an independent nation in 1947, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru sought to create a single civil code for the entire country. Although it had one criminal code, created by the British in 1860, there was no civil code that applied to all citizens in all of the previously British provinces or the hundreds of tiny and large states ruled by Nawabs, Princes and Maharajas. There was considerable opposition to this, especially to clauses that would have allowed women an equal share in ancestral property. It took almost a decade to see this though parliament and into law because of how much opposition this had. Its worth remembering that as the party that won India its Independence, Nehru had more support in Parliament than any government since, except one. At some point though, Nehru decided to exclude Muslims from the ambit of the Code, simply because it would have likely sunk the bill. All the leaders who had any pull with the Muslim community had left to Pakistan and there was simply no one who could convince the remaining Muslims that ditching Sharia for the new Code would be beneficial. So the Hindu code bills[1] were passed. (Incidentally, it applied to Jains, Sikhs and Buddhists as well) 2. In 1978 a woman named Shah Bano Begum [2] was divorced by her husband and left destitute. She sued for alimony and was granted it by the local courts. Her ex-husband appealed to the Supreme Court, which rejected his appeal. The Prime Minister at that time, Rajiv Gandhi then passed a law ironically called The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986, that nullified the Supreme Court's judgment in the Shah Bano judgment. He did so for he feared that he would lose votes in the next election if he didn't. And that is the reason that Muslim women in India get such a raw deal. However, the party in power at the centre and in most states is the BJP, a party that does not seek any Muslim votes to win elections. They have also been promising a Civil Code that will apply to all citizens for about 2 decades now. Some time next year, they will have the numbers in both Houses of Parliament to make that a reality. The main sticking point that will be difficult to reconcile is that Muslim men are allowed to marry multiple times while the current Hindu Civil Code doesn't allow that. If a Uniform Code is enacted, the status of these existing marriages would be in question. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_code_bills https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_code_bills [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohd._Ahmed_Khan_v._Shah_Bano_Begum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohd._Ahmed_Khan_v._Shah_Bano_...