In January 2025, the Indian state of Uttarakhand became the first to implement a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) post-independence, ostensibly to promote gender justice, legal uniformity, and administrative efficiency. According to this law, live-in relationships (section 378) along with marriages including interfaith ones (section 7), are legally required to be registered with district authorities, ostensibly for the protection of women. In practice, however, this legislative shift, when considered alongside increasingly rigid anti-conversion laws, signals a growing legal architecture aimed at regulating and restricting inter-community relationships. These measures are concerning as they entrench social divisions in three ways.

First, by bringing private relationships under state surveillance, the law reinforces the state’s patriarchal control. The UCC requires couples in live-in relationships, regardless of marital status, to register with district authorities and the local police station. The couple must submit a “statement of live-in relationship” to the Registrar within one month of beginning or ending cohabitation, which the district officer would use to “verify from her/his own sources or from community heads or from religious leaders” the possibility of marriage between them. The 16-page application also includes submission of personal documentation such as Aadhaar cards, evidence of home addresses, details of previous relationships, etc. Under the UCC, live-in relationships face significantly heavier regulation than marriages: they must be registered within a shorter deadline (one month versus two), involve far more intrusive documentation, certifications, and official scrutiny, and carry steeper penalties, including longer jail terms for non-compliance. Marriage registration, by contrast, has simpler procedures and lighter penalties.  This move effectively brings private non-marital relationships under state surveillance, with the nature of that surveillance being increasingly repressive, curtailing the space for personal autonomy in matters of love, cohabitation, and intimacy.

Second, by creating familial notification requirements and religious approvals for consenting, adult interfaith and inter-caste couples, the UCC, like India’s religious personal laws, empowers orthodox family and religious institutions. By mandating religious approvals akin to those in personal laws, the UCC also slots interfaith couples within one or the other religious group – thereby defeating the idea of a secular marital or live-in union. These developments in the UCC, however, do not stand alone, as India’s legal landscape has already been hostile to interfaith unions. The secular Special Marriage Act of 1954 (SMA) is a bureaucratic maze. It requires a 30-day public notice before marriage, exposing couples to social stigma, administrative delays, and sometimes, even violence by dissenting groups. Individuals seeking to marry across religious boundaries under personal laws must convert to their partner’s religious identity to make marrying possible. This process, essential to interfaith marriage-making (except when it’s under the SMA) becomes perilous under state-level anti-conversion laws, enacted in Uttarakhand, among several other states. These laws mandate declarations, official permissions, and proof that conversion is not being done for marriage, effectively criminalising the personal and spiritual decisions of consenting adults.

The combined effect of the anti-conversion law and the UCC is to restrict the freedom of individuals, particularly women, to choose their partners and to live without interference from the state or society. Since the passage of the anti-conversion law in Uttarakhand, the police have arrested numerous interfaith couples, often based on complaints from the woman’s family and community members. In many cases, the woman herself denied coercion, yet the authorities proceeded with legal action, reflecting the deeply patriarchal assumption that women lack agency in choosing their own partners. A recently proposed amendment in the law also penalises “inducement” as digital propaganda over social media or messaging apps, including acts such as “praising another religion”. Women in such relationships are not only portrayed as passive victims, but also as security threats, narratives that either strip them of agency or see them as devious and anti-state. By mandating parental notification for live-in arrangements, the UCC also heightens the risk of honour-based violence and familial coercion in a society where a woman asserting independence can face fatal consequences.

And third, perhaps the most troubling, is that the UCC creates a legal framework that enables extra-legal actors and vigilante groups to take violent action against the couple. As reported widely, the mandated public notice of an intended interfaith union in the Special Marriage Act or anti-conversion laws, and now, even the UCC, creates actionable records that right-wing vigilante groups use to track and disrupt interfaith unions. Reports indicate that such groups gain access to registration data, through public, police, or legal sources, and use it to harass couples. The UCC provides an opportunity to vigilantes to attack those couples who aren’t even married yet.  Reports of young couples being attacked, harassed, or forcibly separated have become disturbingly common in the north Indian states.

In summary, the law, instead of protecting these individuals, provides legal cover for such extrajudicial interventions, often with police complicity. The framework, thus, not only legalises surveillance of intimacy but facilitates a culture of intimidation, echoing historical regimes where the state sought to preserve social divisions by policing personal relationships.