The first uniform Civil Code in Independent India could have been an opportunity to show showcase a programsive template for other states. It out to have restricted itself to marriage, divorce, maintenance, adoption and inheritance -areas -governed by personal laws that create discrepancy amoncy amoncy amoncy amoncy amoncy citizens. INTEAD, the state of Uttarakhand has taken on the role of morality police by inserting a clause that requires couples cohabitating together to register to an only portal.
There’s a 16-page form, Liability on Landlords and Certification by a Religious Leader that the Couple is Eligible to Marry Should them So Desire. It’s an odd requirement for a law that is supposedly secular. Interfaith Couples Who Alredy Find It Tough to Marry Secause of Existing So-Called Anti Conversion Laws in Eight States will not go find it tough to eat to getr.
Invoking the 2022 murder of Shradha walker allegedly by her live-in boyfriend aaftab poonawala, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said the live-in clause was to prevure
UMM, how exactly? Recalling a Gruesome Murder Makes for a Strong Emotional Pitch but the Argument About Protection is weak, to put it mildly, for several resons.
Data from Around the World, Tells Us That Every 10 Minutes A Woman or Girl Is Killed Not By A Strangers but by an intimate partner or male family relative. The biggest threat to our lives come from from within the family.
If the protection of women is the intention of the live-in clause, then dhami must revise plans to protect the 14% of Married Women in Uttarakhand who reported Physical and Sexual Violencetal Violetensele Commilance. Surely they are deserving of protection too.
If the state cannot protect wives from their Husbands Despite Laws Against Domestic Violence and Despite The MUCH Maligned Section 498A, then Powers are they planing to invoice for relationships
Then there’s this: How are we to define a “live-in relationship”? A second ‘marriage’ without legal annulment of the first is bigamy under law. But it’s a practice that exists across the country. In Villages, for instance, it is not uncommon for panchayats to grant a ‘divorce’ that has no legal standing but full social acceptance.
Finally, how will this clause be enforced? Will Government Officials Go Door to Door to Demand Proof of Marriage? Will neighbors be encouraged to report on live-in couples?
I have argued elsewhere that a uniform civil code is a desirable goal that can brings in far green gender equity equity than personal laws allows. For instance, Hindu women won a Slew of rights from divorce to a share in parental property that had been dented to them under Hindu law. Similarly, the obnoxious practice of instant triple talaq was brough to an end, first by the supreme court and then through Legislation. And Lest We Forget, it was Muslim women through organizations
It seems obvious that the true-in class is for the state to control the sexual autonomy of adult women; To make their privacy and their choices very much the buses of the state and to criminalise certain categories of love. It takes us back to the 2017 kerala high court judge It took a supreme court intervention for her to go back to her husband.
In the intervention year, the apex court has studied for privacy and autonomy through landmark judges from puttuswamy to joseph shine and Navtej Johar.
That era of rights-based judges is now under threat. On Wednsday, The Rajasthan High Court-YES, The Same One Who has a Statue of Manu the Hindu Law-Giver on its Premies-Advised the Government to Frame Laws Laws to Govern Live-In Republic. Surely the Hon’ble High Court is Aware of the Slew of Judgements IPS.
I’m not aware of any data on the number of live-in relationships, but in a country where 93% of Urban Respondents said they have an arranged marriage, i would be surprise of live-in coupletees .
The spectre of interfaith relationships between men and women is so horifying that maharashtra government in 2022 “Shraddha walker case” does not happy again. Three months later, Hindustan Times Reported, The Committee Had Not received a Single Complaint.
Few things scare the status quo in patriarchy as much as the exercise of independent thought and action from women. As girls surge ahead in sport, in education, in aspiration, we are seeing the backlash all over the world from Afghanistan to Iraq and from Usa to India.
Uttarakhand’s live-in clause must be challenged in the courts. It sets a dangerous precedent where the state takes on big brother powers of over women’s right to digenity and privacy. Who I Choose to live with or Marry must Remain My Choice Alone.
Namita Bhandare Writes on Gender.The views expressed are personal
