Article 44 of the Constitution declares that “the State shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India”. For decades, this remained largely a constitutional aspiration. It has now entered the realm of legislation. The trajectory of the debate must therefore move from objections over whether the timing of legislation is propitious to the more important question of what the law must contain.

The Union government has found a way of getting around the objections raised against legislating a uniform code for the whole of India by encouraging BJP-ruled States to initiate steps for it through State legislation. The significance of these initiatives lies in distinguishing enacted law from proposals at different stages of preparation.

Uttarakhand enacted its Uniform Civil Code in 2024 and brought it into operation in January 2025. Gujarat enacted its Uniform Civil Code, 2026, following presidential assent on September 17, 2026, though its full implementation depends upon the prescribed commencement process. Assam, likewise, enacted its UCC after presidential assent on September 29, 2026. Madhya Pradesh has passed its UCC Bill, while other States remain at different stages of committee work, drafting, and consultation.

With these initiatives in place, the debate seems to have shifted to what kind of civil law should govern citizens in a constitutional democracy. A uniform code should not become an exercise in replacing one set of personal laws with another set of rules applicable to everybody. Uniformity by itself is not reform: a rule does not become just merely because it is applied uniformly. The real objective must be to construct a body of civil law founded upon equality, dignity, autonomy, protection of children, gender justice, and a rational distribution of family property.

Uniformity need not mean cultural sameness

The word “uniform” can itself be misleading. Uniformity may mean that the same law applies to everyone; it may mean that everyone enjoys the same civil rights; or it may mean that the state prescribes common legal consequences while permitting different religious and cultural ceremonies. There is no constitutional necessity for a Hindu to abandon saptapadi, a Muslim nikah, a Sikh anand karaj or a Christian church ceremony merely because the civil consequences of marriage are governed by a common law. The significant issue is not the ritual by which a marriage is solemnised but the legal consequences which the state attaches to that marriage. Whether the parties are entitled to marry, whether the marriage is monogamous, how it may be dissolved, what maintenance follows, what rights children possess, and how property devolves upon death are matters of civil law. This distinction between ceremonial diversity and legal uniformity should be fundamental to the development of the UCC. A constitutional democracy need not erase cultural identity in order to establish equality before civil law.

The emerging State experience supports this proposition. Uttarakhand, Gujarat, and Assam seek common civil consequences while continuing to recognise marriage solemnised through religious or customary forms. The UCC, therefore, need not make ceremonies uniform; it must make civil rights equal. This distinction is particularly important because the public debate has too often assumed that a common civil code necessarily means cultural homogenisation. It does not. The Constitution itself accommodates diversity while insisting upon equality. The task of the UCC should be to identify those consequences of family relationships which are properly matters of civil law and to make those consequences common, fair, and accessible.

Beyond the question of Muslim personal law

The public discussion of the UCC has too often been reduced to the question of what should happen to Muslim personal law. That is an inadequate conception of the problem. Personal law concerns marriage, divorce, maintenance, adoption, guardianship, succession, and inheritance, and every one of these areas contains questions of equality and individual autonomy across communities.

The more profound issue is whether civil rights should depend upon religious identity at all. If two daughters inherit from their parents, should their shares depend upon their religion? If two widows are similarly situated, should their rights differ because they belong to different religious communities? If a child is born outside a formally solemnised marriage, should the circumstances of the parents determine the child's civil rights? If a woman is deserted after living in a relationship resembling marriage, should the absence of a formal ceremony deprive her of an effective remedy?

These are not essentially questions of religious reform. They are questions of civil justice. That is why the UCC should ultimately be conceived not merely as a law replacing personal laws but as a common civil framework governing family relationships and property.

Uttarakhand, Gujarat and Assam: three experiments

The contemporary State initiatives should not be treated as three identical versions of the same law. They represent three stages and contexts of legislative experimentation. Uttarakhand is the first contemporary State to have actually brought a comprehensive UCC into operation. Its Code and Rules deal with marriage, divorce, matrimonial disputes, succession, inheritance, testamentary succession, and live-in relationships.

The State has created an administrative structure through Registrars and Sub-Registrars and has established online procedures for marriage, divorce, live-in relationships, and testamentary succession. The Uttarakhand experience is, therefore, particularly valuable because it has created an administrative record of the operation of a uniform civil code.

Gujarat has followed the Uttarakhand model in broad outline. Its UCC addresses marriage, divorce, succession, adoption, and live-in relationships and seeks to establish common civil rules irrespective of religious identity. But Gujarat has not simply reproduced Uttarakhand's provisions. The precise formulation of registration, residence, succession, and enforcement provisions differs.

Assam has now added another State model. Its UCC follows the general architecture of Uttarakhand and Gujarat but must be viewed in the particular constitutional and social context of the north-eastern region, including customary practices and the position of Scheduled Tribes.

The comparison produces an important constitutional question: if three States enact a “Uniform Civil Code” and the provisions are materially different, what precisely does uniformity mean? It cannot mean that every State must enact identical section numbers. But neither can Article 44 ultimately be satisfied by a situation in which every State has its own substantially different personal-law regime under the name of a UCC. The State initiatives should therefore be regarded as laboratories of legislative experimentation, not as the final destination. Their purpose should be to identify what works, what does not work, and what constitutional principles should guide a national code.

Marriage: common consequences without cultural erasure

Marriage is the natural starting point. A common civil law can prescribe monogamy, minimum age, prohibited degrees of relationship, conditions of validity, registration, divorce, and maintenance while permitting different religious ceremonies. This is broadly the approach emerging from the State UCCs. The important distinction is between how a marriage is solemnised and what the State considers to be the legal consequence of that marriage. The former may legitimately accommodate cultural and religious diversity; the latter should ordinarily be common. This also explains why the UCC should not be conceived merely as an anti-polygamy statute or as legislation directed against one community. Monogamy, for example, is not merely a reform of Muslim personal law. It is a principle concerning the legal structure of marriage itself. Likewise, equal grounds of divorce, equal capacity to seek maintenance, and equal rights of children are not matters of religious reform. They are matters of civil citizenship.

The three State models nevertheless demonstrate that even apparently common concepts may be implemented differently. Uttarakhand has created an elaborate administrative machinery for registration and recognition. Gujarat has followed a broadly similar registration-based architecture but with its own legislative formulation. Assam has adopted the common framework while dealing specifically with the circumstances of a State where customary practices and tribal institutions have a constitutionally significant place. These differences are not necessarily defects. But before Parliament adopts a national code, each should be subjected to three questions: Why is the distinction necessary? What constitutional objective does it serve? Could the same objective be achieved by a less burdensome rule? That discipline would prevent a national UCC from becoming an accumulation of every administrative requirement contained in the State codes.

Divorce and economic partnership

The same principle becomes particularly relevant when a marriage ends. Indian matrimonial law often approaches divorce primarily as the dissolution of a legal relationship and treats financial consequences through separate claims for maintenance, alimony, or division of particular assets. A modern UCC could consider whether divorce should instead trigger a comprehensive matrimonial settlement in which the resources and liabilities of both spouses are first identified and considered together for the purpose of determining an equitable distribution. Such a system need not mean that every asset automatically becomes the property of both spouses. It would mean that the law recognises the economic partnership created by marriage and requires the financial consequences of its dissolution to be determined comprehensively rather than piecemeal.

The contribution of each spouse should be assessed not merely by reference to salary or title but by considering economic contribution, domestic labour, care of children, sacrifices made for the other spouse's career, duration of marriage, future needs, existing property and liabilities, and the welfare of children. A matrimonial settlement could thereby become an instrument of substantive equality rather than a discretionary afterthought. This would also connect the law of marriage with the law of property. The UCC should not treat them as separate compartments when, in reality, marriage creates an economic partnership whose consequences continue to be felt long after the relationship ends.

Goa deserves more serious study

There is one State where a distinctive common civil law has historically existed. Goa should not be treated merely as an historical curiosity when considering the future of a common civil code. Its matrimonial property regime presents an idea that deserves careful examination for possible assimilation into a national framework. The distinctive feature of the Goan regime is the treatment of property held by spouses individually and jointly within the matrimonial regime as property held in commonality, subject to the applicable legal structure. The idea is significant because it challenges the assumption that property acquired by each spouse should necessarily remain exclusively that spouse's property merely because the title stands in an individual name.

A national UCC should therefore study whether a matrimonial regime based upon commonality of property can provide a more equitable foundation for marriage. Such a regime recognises that the economic life of a marriage is often a joint enterprise even where the legal title to particular assets stands in one spouse's name. The contribution of a spouse to a family may take the form of income, domestic work, care of children, support for the other spouse's professional career, or management of the household. A property regime that takes into account the economic partnership inherent in marriage may therefore have a stronger claim to substantive equality than one which looks exclusively to title.

Equally important is the Goan conception of a legitime or non-disposable extent of property, which places limits upon the power of unilateral testamentary disposition where the rights of the other spouse or family members are protected by the matrimonial regime. The future debate should therefore examine whether the national UCC should merely prescribe common rules of succession after death or should also redefine the character of property accumulated during marriage.

This Article is first published in FRONTLINE on 16 October 2026