How Assam’s UCC could threaten indigenous moral traditions

The Assam Government has passed the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) Bill in the Assam legislative Assembly on May 27, 2026.  

The UCC, which has already drawn the attention of the concerned people, civil society members, and political leaders of the state, will legislate on the four primary areas related to the minimum age of marriage, prohibition of polygamy, equal rights for daughters in parents’ property, and matters related to live-in relationships. 

These are serious personal and social matters that should have been discussed meticulously with stakeholders, even before proposing them as a bill.

This becomes more important as social activists and feminist scholars have pointed out how, in the garb of championing the rights of women, the UCC is directed towards advancing and strengthening Hindutva ideology, which uses uniformity as a means to achieve a Hindu majoritarian nation. 

Of all the areas in question, what has particularly drawn my attention is the mandatory registration of live-in relationships. One, because of my own research interest in non-normative relationships.

Two, it is the first time in the legislative history of India that a relationship, which has mostly remained insulated from state interventions or any form of political and social institutionalisation, has come under the purview of the state.

A live-in relationship is generally referred to as a heterosexual relationship in which two adults choose to cohabit or stay together without formalising their relationship through the institution of marriage.

These are primarily those relationships which are not institutionalised, meaning they are not legally and socially codified. In the Indian context, while these relationships are legal, socially they continued to be largely construed as taboo and unacceptable.

Live-in relationships become ‘problematic’ precisely because of their non-institutionalised nature. The NDA-led government has described the mandatory registration of such relationships as a step towards creating a legal framework for them. 

This will not just offer rights to partners but also grant legitimacy to children born out of live-in relationships. The government also frames the compulsory registration of these relationships as a means of assisting the state apparatus in providing safeguards to women who may be experiencing distress in these relationships.

However, feminist scholars have shown how, in the pretext of offering protection, the state has often monitored women’s movements and interpersonal relationships.

Beneath this protection narrative of the state lies a morality which views heterosexual marriages within the same religion, caste, generic ethnic identities, and class as the only accepted union between two adults.

Consequently, any form of relationship between a non-married man and woman, other than the kin relations of brother and sister, must be policed and disapproved.

The UCC has already been introduced and implemented in the northern Indian states of Uttarakhand and Gujarat. Assam is the third state to join the list. These three states are similar in terms of how their ruling political party subscribe to a Hindu right-wing ideology, and subsequent adherence to the singular morality related to interpersonal (binary) cross-gender relationships. 

However, if one looks into people’s everyday lives, including interpersonal relationships, ways of living in a community, shared cultural practices, this uniform moral framework becomes antithetical to how people live, make and unmake relations in the state. 

In Assam, a relationship between a non-married woman and a man is not just looked through the lens of a romantic, heterosexual couple relationship.

Friendships, with multiple degrees of intimacy, from deep bonds to less intimate ties or acquaintanceship, are socially acceptable forms of relationships and mostly considered normal by the people of this multi-ethnic state.

The ethics related to these cross-gender ties are ‘ordinary’, which are observed as everyday practice rather than a belief or knowledge, and hence, are invisible. 

Furthermore, vernacular literature, folk songs and dance forms of the state have depicted flirting and playfulness between men and women without categorising them into rigid boxes of heterosexuality. 

In my doctoral research on friendships and intimate relationships in Assam, people across different generations, classes, and ethnic backgrounds have expressed how they have shared non-romantic or ‘platonic’ friendships with man/woman.

Some of these ties remained non-sexual, while some others transformed into romantic and marital relationships. 

Several people, from preceding generations, mostly women, have further remarked that the normalisation of cross-gender relations played a significant role in enabling young men and women to work together, co-organise, lead and sustain the six-year-long Assam Movement. 

It is important to understand that two adults, identifying as a man and a woman, may share different forms and levels of intimacy.

Just as in Assam, people engage in a variety of cross-gender heterosexual relationships, they also have different and overlapping moral frameworks attached to these relationships. These intimacies and moralities can incidentally also make relationships ambiguous.

Bringing live-in relationships under the purview of the state is not just an intrusion into people’s personal lives, but also the first step towards placing legal sanction and criminalising heterosexual relationships, particularly those which are not approved by the state.

By doing so, the state government has set a precedent to check, police, and even criminalise other forms of cross-gender, sexual or non-sexual relationships that do not fall into the fixed categories of heteronormativity. 

Subsequently, it reduces diverse and fluid moralities to a single, rigid, uniform code. It is also important to note that different communities that reside in Assam and consider it their homeland are not gender-just but patriarchal.

So, when UCC is implemented, making non-normative relationships like live-in relationships institutionalised while bringing them under state surveillance, it also legitimises, encourages and, therefore, intensifies the moral policing of women more than men.

Assam’s Chief Minister has termed Assam’s UCC a customised law, referring to its unique feature. The uniqueness lies in keeping the Scheduled Tribes outside of its purview as a mark of respect to their customary laws, which, according to the government, already protect women and discourage polygamy.

Research, however, has suggested that customary laws are gendered and, in many instances, are interpreted to benefit men in these communities. 

Furthermore, these communities do not live isolated lives, nor do they form relationships only with their own community members. So, what happens when two people, one from the ST tribal community and the other from another community, decide to be in a live-in relationship?

What about the traditions, rituals and moral practices of those tribal communities that do not have ST status but identify themselves as tribals, as well as religious minorities, and caste-Assamese communities? 

The UCC is trying to replace personal laws of minority communities with laws similar to the Hindu Code Bill. However, critics have pointed out how the Hindu code bill is itself problematic as it erases the diversity and liberal aspects of Hindu rules and practices, while replacing them with North Indian upper caste norms. 

So, in this context, a few pertinent questions arise – What kind of moral manoeuvring is Assam’s government, claiming to be pro-indigenous, doing with respect to the indigenous moral beliefs and practices? 

Is the government trying to incorporate Indic values, implement heartland Indian, Brahminical/upper caste moral frameworks in a state that has historically and socially had less affinity to the Indian heartland moralities, a state where the multiple ethnic communities have maintained their traditional practices,  despite the ‘Hindu-ising’ and ‘Hindi-ising’ tactics of the Indian state? 

UCC, reintroduced by the ruling party, is not just anti-minority, it is also anti-indigenous. Far from enabling gender justice, it, in fact, legitimises patriarchal practices of judging women’s character and policing their lives.

As a result, the law has diminished the already restricted space in which women in Assam were able to experience liberties and fewer moral judgments when engaging in cross-gender relationships.

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