India, Feb. 15 -- The Uniform Civil Code (UCC), in the news again now after the Uttarakhand government passed a bill in the assembly for enacting a law, must be looked at as a reform of women's laws. Regrettably, everyone commenting on it appears to treat it as a Hindu-Muslim issue. A few experts have gone so far as to imply that the UCC is an attempt to impose Hindu law on Muslims, who have long adhered only to the Sharia law. Muslim scholars in India often brag that Prophet Mohammad thought of the welfare of women before Hindu rishis and Christian popes. He gave women property rights, which the adherents of other religions did not until much later.

This claim isn't wrong; Hindu women obtained the right to inherit property as late as 19...