Meghalaya CM says UCC not in MDA govt’s agenda

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaJanuary 30, 2025

Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Thursday said it is not in the Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) government’s agenda to bring in the Uniform Civil Code (UCC).

“As a state government, we are very clear that uniform civil code is not in our agenda to bring in UCC. We respect the secular fabric of the country and the state. We respect the identity of our different tribal communities and we are very clear that the protection of these practices of different communities must be respected,” Sangma told reporters.

Emphasizing the need to understand what the UCC is all about, the CM said “There are two parts to it, one is the concept itself that uniform civil code, the whole thought process of what is uniform civil code is and then a bill or an act that defines what is in uniform and what is not uniform. So, these are two different things which you have to look at. You cannot put both together. Why? Because UCC as a concept of making sure that everything becomes uniform is not possible in India because again, there are tribal communities, there are different kinds of communities, indigenous communities who have their practices and it may not align with the other communities and the uniformity that maybe some people would want.”

“So, therefore that concept to impose it on every aspect of life and every community and everything uniform may not be possible because and it’s not correct, but uniform in certain aspects and keeping certain communities out like for example Uttarakhand has clearly mentioned that tribal communities in the practices are not part of the uniform civil code in Uttarakhand,” he said while adding “So now if you bring a bill that, as I keep repeating at the national level or at the state level and say that the whole country will become matrilineal from now, I think Meghalaya will support that bill because we are matrilineal society. So it depends on the content of the bill, what is going to be uniform and what way it’s going to be uniform.”