Personal & political: Uttarakhand's UCC should have been more accommodating

The discretionary power of a faceless state bureaucrat to legally intrude into the private decisions and personal morality of Indian citizens is patriarchal, unwarranted, and unjustified

Uttarakhand on Monday formally notified the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), entering the history books as the first Indian state to do so after Independence. Goa was allowed to follow its UCC of the colonial period when it became part of India in 1961. Launching the UCC portal and issuing a notification, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said his administration’s objective was to “end discrimination”. Mr Dhami has fulfilled a long-standing national project of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Uttarakhand may be a test case for other BJP-ruled states. Prima facie, the need for a progressive UCC that does