Policy · Podcast · 12 September 2026
How Uttarakhand drafted India's first Uniform Civil Code
A member of the drafting universe, Manu Gaur, sits with Vidur Drishti on live-in registration, Halala, equal inheritance, and what the hill state actually wrote — not what television summarised.
Uttarakhand did not invent the Uniform Civil Code. The Constitution asked for it. A hill government, under Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, did the unglamorous thing: it appointed drafters, took the abuse, and passed a law.
Our conversation is not a victory lap. It is a walk through the clauses people fight about — mandatory registration of live-in relationships, the ban on Halala, equal inheritance — and the political weather around them. Manu Gaur has been inside that weather. The short we cut from the interview is a door. The full podcast is the room.