Divorce and Democracy A History of Personal Law in Post-Independence India

"This book demonstrates that family law, arguably the most visible sphere of such contestation, emerged as a particularly hospitable arena for conversations between religious and legal regimes, to institute the normative framework that could govern the domestic lives of citizens. The work illustrates how the codification of religious personal laws permitted the Indian state to enter into an intimate dialogue with citizens, largely mediated through religion. Thus, through this process, the state also secured monopoly over determining what constituted religion, as well as the right to determine the validity and scope of religious practices. This book therefore suggests that religious personal law played a key role in determining the legal place for religion in India's secular democracy. The controversy on the issue of personal law has contributed to a unique evolution of both the rule of law and the doctrine of secularism in twentieth century India. By tracing the response of legislature, the courts, and civil society movements to the question of cultural rights and notions of abstract citizenship, this book exhibits how the translation of marriage and divorce laws of Hindu, Muslim, and Christian communities into statutes introduced new questions on the tenuous links between the law and the sacred, as well as on the problematic rhetoric of the reformative potential of law"--