Uttarakhand’s UCC

Uttarakhand’s move to implement the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) is nothing short of groundbreaking. By aiming to standardise personal laws across religions, the state has stepped onto a path laden with promises of equality and justice. Yet, like an ambitious recipe missing a few key ingredients, the UCC rollout leaves a lot to be desired. On paper, the code is a bold vision: mandatory registration of marriages and live-in relationships, a ban on polygamy and nikah halala, and equal inheritance rights for children, regardless of their parents’ marital status. It’s a nod to gender justice and modern values. But dig deeper, and you’ll find glaring gaps. Where’s the acknowledgment of same-sex marriages? Why the silence on adoption laws? These omissions make the code feel less like a sweeping reform and more like a patchwork quilt.

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The exemption for Scheduled Tribes, while culturally sensitive, raises questions about the true “uniformity” of this code. Isn’t the very essence of a UCC to apply equally to all? Furthermore, the lack of legislative debate feels like a rush to tick a box rather than a genuine effort to build consensus. How can we call it a people’s law when the people’s voices weren’t adequately heard? Some provisions tread dangerously close to moral policing. Mandatory registration of live-in relationships, with penalties for non-compliance, sounds more like an attempt to enforce conformity than to ensure fairness. Add to this the unchanged colonial-era laws on succession and the UCC seems less like a reformist beacon and more like a reluctant nod to the past.

Uttarakhand deserves credit for taking the first step, but the road ahead demands more courage and creativity. If this initiative is to inspire the nation, it must move beyond tokenism and truly reflect India’s modern, pluralistic ethos.