The All-India Feminist Alliance (ALIFA) has issued a sweeping condemnation of the push to implement Uniform Civil Codes (UCCs) across 21 BJP- and NDA-ruled states, warning that the legislation masquerades as gender justice while fundamentally expanding state surveillance, criminalizing consensual relationships, and undermining the constitutional and economic rights of women and marginalized communities.
In a comprehensive statement released on September 21, 2026, the alliance unequivocally rejected the state-level codes, demanding an immediate rollback of enacted laws and a halt to pending bills until widespread, inclusive consultations are held with women, queer and transgender people, Adivasi communities, and other affected groups.
The feminist coalition’s statement comes in the wake of a renewed political push for nationwide uniformity, highlighted by Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s public declaration on September 13, 2026, that a UCC would be implemented in all 21 BJP- and NDA-ruled states before 2029. ALIFA noted that Uttarakhand’s UCC has been in force since January 27, 2025, while similar bills passed by the legislative assemblies of Gujarat, Assam, and Madhya Pradesh are currently awaiting Presidential assent. According to the alliance, a critical scrutiny of these frameworks reveals that none provide a model that incorporates substantive gender equality, let alone genuine gender justice.
At the core of ALIFA’s legal critique is the argument that the new codes reproduce regressive provisions that roll back decades of hard-won rights. The alliance pointed out that the codes retain the restitution of conjugal rights, a remedy long denounced by women’s rights advocates for its potential use against women attempting to leave abusive marriages. Furthermore, the codes restrict access to divorce during the first year of marriage and include religious conversion as a ground for divorce, while failing to address critical gaps in existing personal and secular laws. ALIFA emphasized that the legislation ignores persistent demands from women’s and queer movements regarding marital property, no-fault divorce with safeguards, marital rape, and equal adoption and guardianship rights irrespective of gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, or marital status.
The economic dimensions of the proposed codes also drew sharp criticism. ALIFA argued that the legislation completely ignores women’s economic inequality within marriage by failing to establish a marital property regime that recognizes unpaid care and domestic labor. The alliance warned that formal equality in inheritance means little if women are left without an enforceable share in the wealth their labor helped create. Additionally, the succession provisions require closer scrutiny, as frameworks like Uttarakhand’s UCC remove distinctions in Mitakshara coparcenary property and permit disposal by will, potentially stripping daughters of existing protections against disinheritance. Similarly, the codes displace mandatory share protections for legal heirs under Muslim Personal Law and forced heir protections under Goa’s succession laws, replacing them with unrestricted testamentary powers that could lead to economic dispossession.
A major focal point of the statement is the alarming expansion of state surveillance and the criminalization of intimate, consensual adult relationships. ALIFA highlighted that the codes transform private intimacy into a matter of administrative verification, police record, and criminal punishment. Under Uttarakhand’s law, and mirrored in the Gujarat, Assam, and Madhya Pradesh bills, adults in live-in relationships face mandatory registration within a month under threat of imprisonment. The Gujarat Bill further allows registers to be open to inspection, requires records to be forwarded to local police, and permits third-party complaints to trigger proceedings. The alliance warned that these measures are especially dangerous for inter-faith, inter-caste, queer, and transgender couples, who already face extreme societal scrutiny and stigma, and noted that corresponding protections against forced marriage or familial coercion are absent from the codes.
The alliance also underscored the democratic and social exclusions embedded in the UCC push. The codes explicitly exclude Scheduled Tribe communities, who constitute nearly 15 percent of the Indian population, and largely organize marriage and family around binary categories, failing to recognize same-sex marriages or the relationships of queer and transgender people. For instance, the Gujarat Bill contains no reference to transgender persons at all. ALIFA further dismissed the frequent citation of Goa’s UCC as a successful model, noting that it remains far from uniform and continues to harbor discriminatory provisions, such as empowering the male spouse to manage marital property. The statement also invoked the findings of the 21st Law Commission in 2018, which concluded that a UCC is neither necessary nor desirable, recommending instead the amendment of existing personal laws to remove discrimination while preserving non-discriminatory diversity.
Despite the central government’s push, ALIFA noted that the UCC lacks consensus even within the ruling coalition, pointing out that Bihar’s JD(U) has ruled out implementing a UCC in the state and other allies have called for consultation rather than automatic implementation. The alliance accused the BJP of manufacturing consent and cynically co-opting the language of women’s empowerment to advance a wider project of cultural homogenization, social control, and the establishment of a Hindu Rashtra, drawing parallels to other initiatives like the proposed High-Powered Demography Mission.
In light of these concerns, ALIFA has outlined a series of firm demands. The alliance called on the Uttarakhand government to immediately repeal rights-repulsive provisions, including those criminalizing the non-registration of consensual live-in relationships and mandating police and parental notification. It demanded that the governments of Gujarat, Assam, and Madhya Pradesh immediately withdraw their respective UCC bills. Furthermore, ALIFA urged the governments of Maharashtra, Rajasthan, West Bengal, and Chhattisgarh, which have set up committees to draft UCCs, to halt all further steps and instead institute widespread democratic consultations with women’s rights organizations, queer and transgender groups, Adivasi organizations, disability-rights groups, and minority communities.
Moving forward, ALIFA insists that any reform of family or succession laws must be assessed against substantive outcomes of equality, autonomy, dignity, and economic security, rather than uniformity for its own sake. The alliance stressed that legal recognition of live-in relationships must be rights-conferring and dignity-affirming, ensuring access to maintenance and protection from violence without compulsory registration or intrusive data-sharing with police and third parties. Ultimately, ALIFA framed the resistance to the UCC as a defense of India’s plural reality, asserting that gender justice does not require the erasure of non-discriminatory differences, and that true legal reform must be rooted in the meaningful participation and lived experiences of the diverse communities it claims to protect.
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