[5] Other personal laws inherited from the British rule, for Muslims, Christians and Parsis, remain unreformed, forming an issue of debate among women, religious, and nationalist groups.
The Dharmaśāstra—the textual authority on matters of marriage, adoption, the joint family, minorities, succession, religious endowments, and caste privileges—has often been seen as the private law of the Hindus.
As a whole, the enacted bills carried further a modest trend toward increasing property alienability, reducing the legal importance of Varna (class), sanctioning religious heterodoxy and conversion and, most significantly, improving the position of women.
Certain feminists thus argue that the uniform civil code debate balances on the polarity of the state and community, rendering the gender-based axis upon which it turns, invisible.
[16] A compromise was reached in the inclusion in the first draft of an article that compelled the state "to endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India."
[17] Though Nehru himself likely would have favoured a uniform code, he knew that personal laws were linked with religious identity in India and therefore could not be easily abolished.
The committee was to resolve doubts about the Deshmukh Act's construction, ensure that its introduction of new female heirs was not made at the expense of the decedent's own daughter and consider bills introduced to abolish women's limited estate and to make polygamy a ground for separate residence and maintenance.
The code was to be shaped with the aid of orthodox, conservative and reformist Hindus and by a comprehensive blending of the best of the current schools of Hindu law and the ancient texts.
[19] It was the intention of the government that this first draft should become law on 1 January 1948, but the whole project was temporarily suspended when independence led to the priorities of the legislature to be consumed with the task of creating the new regime.
He chose not to test his combined powers as prime minister and party president, in regard to the bill at that time and allowed it to lapse.
[13] The Ministry of Law revised the first draft in 1948 and made some small alterations to it, making it more suitable for discussion in the Constituent Assembly, where it was finally introduced.
Significantly, it stipulated that the Hindu Code would apply to anyone who was not a Muslim, Parsi, Christian or Jew, and asserted that all Hindus would be governed under a uniform law.
Realizing that he would have to make significant concessions to get the bill passed, Nehru suggested that the proposed law be split into several sections.
He told the Constituent Assembly they would contend with only the first 55 clauses concerning marriage and divorce, while the rest would be considered by the Parliament of India after the first general election.
In a letter that he released to the press, he held that his decision was largely based on the treatment that had been accorded to the Hindu Code Bill as well as the administration's inability to get it passed.
Nehru made the Hindu Code Bill one of his top campaign initiatives, declaring that should the Indian National Congress win, he would succeed in getting it passed through parliament.
Congress won sweeping victories, with Nehru reinstated as prime minister, and he began a comprehensive effort to devise a Bill that could be passed.
;[25] As Mansfield writes regarding the need for personal laws in India — "The spectacle of large political entities in different parts of the world collapsing and giving place to smaller entities based on ethnicity, religion or language or combinations of these factors, rather than strengthening the idea that a powerfully centralised, culturally homogenous nation is essential for order and prosperity, may have confirmed for some the view that the pressing task for India is not to increase central power and cultural homogeneity, but to find an alternative to the 'nation-state' model, an alternative that will sustain unity through some form of 'pluralism'.
The integration of Hindus into a homogeneous society could best be done by enacting an all-embracing code which encompasses within its fold every sect, caste, and religious denomination.
[2] Nehru and his supporters insisted that the Hindu community, which comprised 80% of the Indian population, first needed to be united before any actions were taken to unify the rest of India.
"[29] They also felt that should equal property rights be given to women, the Mitākṣarā concept of a joint family would crumble, as would the foundation of Hindu society.
She also argues for a gender-equal framework of rights that covers the "public" domain of work (maternity benefits, equal wages) and is available to all Indian citizens, thus avoiding a direct confrontation with communities and communal politics.