Uttarakhand’s adoption of a uniform civil code (UCC) is truly welcome. UCC privileges individual rights over customary, religious and community practices that come in the way of Indian law. Much noise has been made about putting ‘human’ before ‘member of community’. Uttarakhand can provide a template for UCC, while maintaining that the code isn’t bandied about against any particular community.As with any law, proof of the pudding lies in the changes it fosters in personal matters, such as the domain of marriage, divorce and inheritance. The Uttarakhand UCC clearly set out age of consent, procedures of divorce, inheritance and succession. The state and courts will treat all persons equally without regard for religion or gender. Treating every person as an individual – and not as a unit of a bigger group based on religion or gender – is the obvious way forward. UCC provides protection from existing practices that religions or communities’ favour in contravention of law. The mandatory registration of marriage, setting a common age of consent and creating conditions that would make it possible for individuals to exercise their rights are part of this supra-communal (in the sense of community) arrangement by law.
Some aspects, though, will require finessing. Take the business of mandatory registration of live-in partnerships. It’s 2025 and hidebound rules of ‘relationships’ should not be conflated in ‘non-personal’ law. The Uttarakhand UCC is a major step for a religion-, caste-, creed- and community-agnostic civil law structure that puts individual rights above that of ‘herds’. As UCC is rolled out, the state must ensure that the law maintains the balance between individual rights and curbs to ensure all persons enjoy equal rights.
