Opinion Express View on Uttarakhand UCC: Let them live in
Written with inadequate examination of existing laws and rights, and passed in haste without due public feedback, the Uttarakhand Uniform Civil Code has created more confusion than it has offered solutions
n its espousal of equal property rights for men and women, striking down the concept of illegitimacy for children and raising the age for marriage for both men and women, the UCC shows foresight, even if these measures leave loose ends. 
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The framing of a common set of personal laws to regulate marriage and its annulment, adoption, succession and inheritance across religions in a diverse country is necessarily a fraught exercise. It has been complicated further, in recent years, by the insularity of identity politics and its demands for an imposed top-down homogenisation. This is why discussions on Uttarakhand’s Uniform Civil Code (UCC), passed by the state assembly on Wednesday, that will spur similar legislation in other BJP-ruled states — common civil code being one of BJP’s three “core” issues, along with the Ayodhya Ram temple and abrogation of Article 370, with the latter two accomplished — necessitated a layered consideration of the task at hand. It also required great sensitivity, to ensure that the concerns of minorities are heard, and heeded.
In its espousal of equal property rights for men and women, striking down the concept of illegitimacy for children and raising the age for marriage for both men and women, the UCC shows foresight, even if these measures leave loose ends. Where it fails, completely and strikingly, is in its twisted vision on relationships that extend beyond marriage. In that, its policy framework shows a distressing lack of inclusivity and an unprecedented intrusion into the private lives of individuals by the state.
The attempt to institutionalise live-in relationships — interpreted by the Bill as a “relationship between a man and a woman” who “cohabit in a shared household through a relationship in the nature of marriage…” — through compulsory registration, shows a moralising highhandedness that arrogates to the state the power to police citizens’ “bad intentions”. Applicable to those living in Uttarakhand as well as residents of Uttarakhand elsewhere in the country, and with provisions of penalty, including jail term, for a failure to register the initiation and end of such relationships, it puts all couples at risk. A state official has argued that this is a safety measure to prevent heinous crimes committed in live-in relationships. That’s a ridiculous argument — hard cases make bad law and, anyway, the new Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita has enough provisions to address crime in this context.
In an election year, the political messaging behind the UCC is hard to ignore. Yet, the government needs to, first of all, listen to itself. The dissonance between the ham-handed provisions of the Uttarakhand UCC and the Narendra Modi government’s repeated stress on youth- and women-led development is jarring. As recently as December 2023, the PM had spoken of four “castes” that mattered the most: Poor, youth, women and farmers. At the launch of Viksit Bharat@2047, he reiterated that “Yuva shakti is both the agent of change and also the beneficiaries of change”. The provisions of the Uttarakhand UCC are out of step with that vision. The right of two consenting adults to decide if they wish to live together — without being married — is a foundational principle of a free society. It is liberating and empowering for women — and men — as they create their own safe personal spaces. The Uttarakhand law yokes their privacy, choice and freedom to a state-determined notion of acceptability. The UCC in Uttarakhand must be reconsidered urgently — as a first step, Section 378 that sets the terms for live-in relationships, needs to go.
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