A lost opportunity for a forward-looking civil code

Given that it is a project over seven decades in the making and a core promise of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) manifesto, you would imagine that post-Independence India’s first Uniform Civil Code (UCC) would be breathtaking in the scale of its imagination — or at least reflective of Constitutional values of equality and dignity.

Uttarakhand’s UCC is neither. It does little to promote equality or inclusion, goes against the grain of more progressive judicial pronouncements such as the right to privacy, and fails to reflect a modern society’s changing social mores including the rising aspiration and desire for autonomy among women.