Am I a trendsetter?

Sometime ago, I saw American History X and did a post on how the issues dealt with in the movie and how they are similar to issues hampering the progress of the Indian society these days. Reproduced here are the last two passages from that post.

“So all this leads us to what has been irking a lot of people in India, the move to unveil a Uniform Civil Code and bring everyone under one set of laws as it prevails in most other countries. In fact even in the countries that strictly follow the Shariat, there are no existing laws specifically of people from other religions. So a Uniform Civil Code is the key. But this has been opposed by the different groups of people who have long grown used to easier ways of getting past the law of the land. I don’t know anything about the specifics of such a code. However since a lot of people have been seen to propose compromise initiatives, I am sure a lot of acceptable compromises can be arrived at while framing such a code. But will the judiciary be given a free hand?

From the above harangue, all of you who have seen Edward Norton’s outburst against the INS in American History X, will identify me as the same fool that I have described earlier. Believe me when I say that I am fighting against it. And since nothing we have done has improved our life, why don’t we do something different and change the laws of the land?”

And a week after this post, comes the news that, on July 23, a Supreme Court bench noted that “A common civil code will help the cause of national integration by removing the contradictions based on ideologies." This comes virtually out of the blue, though the undercurrent has been going strong over the last decade or so, ever since the Shah Bano case kicked this issue into the open.

However, my ego tells me that Chief Justice V N Khare, Justice S B Sinha and Justice Dr A R Lakshmanan, who comprise the above-mentioned bench, read my blog regularly. What say guys?

QOTD: "The Supreme Court has no right to interfere in the matter and it is 'inappropriate' on its part to advise the Parliament." - Samajwadi Party MP Shahid Siddiqui, commenting on the SC's views on the Uniform Civil Code.