Young people across Uttarakhand are aghast at the forcible imposition of a registration clause for live-in relationships amongst consenting adults. This is one of the key sections in the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) Bill of Uttarakhand 2024 that was passed recently.
While the overall objective of this controversial Bill is clearly political, as it deprives the minorities of their personal laws and replaces these with a common set of laws governing marriage, divorce and succession, the clause that has young people most alarmed is the one about live-in relationships.
The Bill mandates that all residents of the state, whether living within Uttarakhand or outside, must register their relationship with a registrar to be appointed by the state. The registrar is expected to verify the antecedents of the couple to ensure that neither partner has been already married or has been in a prior live-in relationship or is a minor. He must also ensure that the partners are not related by blood or marriage.
Once these details have been clarified, they will be given a registration certificate which can be forwarded to the police station under whose jurisdiction they are residing.
This correspondent spoke to several young people in Dehradun, the state capital of Uttarakhand, to elicit their views on the UCC Bill. Predictably, none of them was willing to be identified but they definitely had strong views on the subject.
A young executive in his mid-20s who has been cohabiting with his girlfriend from the time they studied together in a college in Dehradun scoffs at these clauses.
“Three people will benefit from this registration process. The first will be a relative of the registrar who will head a company to issue fake certificates. The second will be the policeman who will collect a hefty sum from couples to ensure their names do not enter the public domain. The third will be the landlord who will mark up the rent he extracts from young couples like us who want to shack up together,” he says.
The reason why several young people start living together is because they do not want to enter into a formal relationship via an arranged marriage where they end up being saddled with many responsibilities for which they are ill-prepared. They find it hard to negotiate relationships with each other’s families before they are sure they have a future together.
Another young man in his late 20s, who is in a relationship with a young teacher, pointed out: “Living together was like doing a reality check on each other since we wanted to find out whether we would be able to make a go of our relationship.” After four years together, they have decided they would like to marry and plan to do so by the end of this year.
A woman in her early 30s was very upfront in admitting she had been in a live-in relationship but had walked out a year later because she felt it was not working. While she admitted registration did offer the possibility of providing greater protection to women, she felt a subject as complex as live-in relationships should have been opened for much greater debate before the public and should have incorporated the views of young people.
The UCC Bill has failed to spell out what time frame they are looking at when they talk about live-in relationships. “To expect a man to give maintenance to a woman after they have lived together for one year is totally unrealistic. A couple needs to be together for at least a period of three years before any claim for maintenance should be made,” she added.
However, the Bill does not spell out any such details. Even in the West, maintenance is given only for long-term relationships.
The Bill also states that if partners decide to terminate the relationship then they must go back to the registrar and inform him of the same.
It is not uncommon for young village women, who have migrated to find work in the larger cities of Uttarakhand, to enter into live-in relationships. Such relationships meet their sexual desires and economic needs too, as sharing a room and expenses makes living affordable. Coming from conservative backgrounds, they hide such relationships from their families back home.
Having to go public on their private life is something that the majority of young people in this state feel is an “extremely regressive” step. Young women believe that if they do not apply for registration, this could well open them for blackmail by neighbours or vigilantes.
