The new Bills on civil code, conversion, and minority schools indicate an overt attempt to fold Uttarakhand into a Hindu-only political imagination.
Published : Sep 06, 2025 12:44 IST - 10 MINS READ
Members of Uttarakhand Numainda Group protest against the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) bill during a special session of Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly, in Dehradun, on February 5, 2024. | Photo Credit: PTI
On August 20, just the second day and what turned out to be the last day of an abruptly curtailed monsoon session of the Uttarakhand Vidhan Sabha, the Assembly descended into complete chaos. Demanding a discussion on the alleged rigging of the zila panchayat election in Nainital, Congress MLAs in the opposition stormed into the well of the House, raised slogans non-stop, tore documents, and flung the pieces in the air.
In the middle of the commotion, just before the session ended two days early, nine Bills were rushed through. They were passed in a matter of minutes by voice vote and without any discussion. Three of these Bills are contentious and are seen as a part of the Pushkar Singh Dhami government’s aggressive Hindutva push. The Bills in question are the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) (Amendment) Bill, 2025; the Freedom of Religion and Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion (Amendment) Bill, 2025; and the Minority Educational Institutions Bill, 2025.
The UCC (Amendment) Bill increases the quantum of punishment for unregistered live-in relationships. The changes include imprisonment of up to seven years and a fine for forcing individuals into relationships by pressure or fraud. The amendment also empowers the Registrar General to cancel any registration related to marriage, divorce, live-in relationships, or inheritance.
The amendment in the anti-conversion law seeks to enhance the punishment for “forced conversions” from a maximum of 10 years to life term. It defines “allurement” as “any gift, gratification, easy money, or material benefit, whether in cash or kind, employment, or by invoking divine displeasure”. Making a false promise of marriage and hiding one’s religion with the intention of getting married will be punishable by a jail term of 3 to 10 years and a fine of Rs.3 lakh. Also, speaking ill of one religion and praising another or spreading propaganda on social and digital media will come under the ambit of participation in religious conversion.
Both the UCC, with the regulations it imposes on live-in arrangements, and the anti-conversion law are seen as a deterrent to interfaith relationships. The official line of ruling party members, including Dhami himself, is that steps need to be taken against “love jihad”, a term used by right-wing groups to allege that Muslim men are conspiring to convert non-Muslim women to Islam.
A more aggressive push
Perhaps the most controversial of the three laws is the one dealing with minority educational institutions. On the one hand, it seeks to extend the minority status to institutions of the Sikh, Jain, Christian, Parsi, and Buddhist communities; on the other, the legislation will also make it mandatory for all madrasas in the State to seek affiliation from the Uttarakhand Education Board and apply for minority status to the Uttarakhand State Authority for Minority Education. Unrecognised madrasas will be shut down.
The BJP government in Uttarakhand, in its second consecutive term, is seen as aggressively fulfilling the Sangh’s Hindutva agenda. The UCC is, in fact, the centrepiece of the BJP’s larger effort to project Uttarakhand as an ideal Hindu State. Legislative measures, a crackdown on “illegal” madrasas and “illegal” mazaars (mausoleums), the routine slamming of love jihad, “land jihad”, and “thook [spit] jihad” by members of the ruling dispensation, including the Chief Minister himself, are seen not merely as instances of polarising politics but as part of a larger, systematic effort to turn the small hill State into a microcosm of Hindutva’s political project.
Chief Minister Dhami uses the term land jihad to attack what he describes as encroachment of government land by people belonging to the Muslim community. Thook jihad refers to accusations by Hindu leaders that Muslim vendors spit in the food they serve to non-Muslims.
The UCC law, amended in the monsoon session, was passed by the Uttarakhand Assembly on February 7, 2024, while BJP MLAs chanted of slogans of “Jai Shri Ram”, “Vande Mataram”, and “Bharat Mata Ki Jai”. It is believed that the enactment of the UCC in BJP-ruled Uttarakhand, the only other State apart from Goa to have a common system of family laws, is a test case for the BJP. Implementation of the UCC is among the topmost priorities of the saffron party and has been a part of its manifesto at the national level. For the RSS-BJP, the UCC, which is a part of the Constitution’s Directive Principles, is believed to be more of a Hindutva project, boiling down to a negation of Muslim personal laws.
Targeted harassment
“The UCC is not a plain and simple common civil code. It is clearly targeted at Muslims. The anti-conversion law is aimed at creating a perception that large-scale conversion is taking place, by force or by offering inducements. And now, the new legislation on minority education will have the effect of taking away the rights of the minorities to run their own educational institutions,” said Prof. Mohammed Saleem Engineer, vice president of the Jamaat-e-Islami-Hind.
The legislative measures are coupled with the State government’s actions, such as closure of “illegal” madrasas and demolition of “illegal” mazaars, all of which are being viewed as aimed at conveying to the majority community that the State’s BJP regime is dealing with Muslims with an iron hand.
Among the first announcements made by Dhami after he became Chief Minister the second time was action against “illegal” mazaars. The State government has so far demolished over 500 “illegal” mazaars, claiming that almost 9,000 acres of government land had been freed from encroachment. Over 200 “illegal” madrasas have been sealed so far in the State since Dhami announced action against such institutions in March this year. The main reason cited is that these madrasas had unauthorised construction, and some were not registered with the Uttarakhand Madrasa Board.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami at the opening of the portal of Kedarnath Temple, in Rudraprayag district, on May 2, 2025. | Photo Credit: PTI
Dhami has, while warning of action against “illegal” mazaars, said his government would not allow land jihad in the State. “The people who are occupying land in the name of these illegal mazaars should remove these structures on their own or the administration will demolish them,” he said in April 2023. In March this year, Dhami said in reference to the government’s action against “illegal” madrasas that tampering with the culture, tradition, and geography of Uttarakhand would not be tolerated.
Dhami has said on more than one occasion that he will not allow love jihad, land jihad, or thook jihad to alter the State’s original form. “The original existence of Dev Bhoomi should be saved. This is my resolution, the resolution of Dev Bhoomi,” he said at the inauguration of Sadhvi Ritambara’s ashram in Kankhal on June 1.
“Every two to three months, we see that the ruling dispensation comes up with an issue that has communal overtones. Sometimes, Dhami talks about love jihad, and on other occasions he rakes up the issue of land jihad or even thook jihad,” said the Dehradun-based political analyst S.M.A Kazmi.
Dhami raised the issue of thook jihad in October 2024; then his government announced a fine of Rs.1 lakh for spitting in food. Kazmi said: “The monsoon session was held in the midst of rain havoc. It was expected that the Assembly would discuss the damage caused by the unprecedented rains. But what happened instead was the passage of the three controversial laws.”
Deliberate exclusion
Critics of the government, especially members of the Muslim community, feel that a deliberate effort is being made to project Uttarakhand as a State where Muslims do not belong. The State’s population comprises 86 per cent Hindus and 14 per cent Muslims. The majority of the Muslims are settled in the plains, in the districts of Dehradun, Haridwar, and Uddham Singh Nagar. Small numbers of Muslims have traditionally been living in certain pockets in the hills too.
If the laws and certain steps taken by the government over the past couple of years have had an overtly communal tone, the many instances of Hindu-Muslim violence in the same period have led to the Muslims feeling targeted, alienated, and insecure.
Purola village in Uttarkashi erupted in communal violence in May 2023 after an attempt was allegedly made by two men, one of them Muslim, to abduct a Hindu girl. The protests resulted in the economic boycott of Muslims. Over 20 Muslim families fled Purola then, returning only when normalcy was restored a couple of months later.
Hindus vandalise shops after a minor girl was allegedly molested by a barber, at Nandnagar, Chamoli, on September 1, 2024. | Photo Credit: PTIJust a day after the UCC Bill was passed in the State Assembly, on February 8, 2024, six people were killed in violence that erupted over the demolition of a mosque and a madrasa in Haldwani. In September 2024, protesters in Nandprayag town of Chamoli district vandalised shops belonging to members of the Muslim community after a barber was accused of misbehaving with a minor girl.
In Uttarkashi, on October 26, 2024, Hindu right-wing organisations held a “Jan Aakrosh [public outrage]” rally to protest against a mosque that they claimed was illegally constructed. The clash between the protesters and the police left more than 20 people injured.
According to the historian and cultural expert Pushpesh Pant, while the State was referred to as “Dev Bhoomi” in ancient scriptures, the term is now defined by the politics of the day.
“The term was used in a purely religious context. Now, it is used more in the context of pilgrimage tourism. But it is not as if local people are benefiting from it, apart from the damage it is doing to the environment. The term is also being used for political purposes,” he said.
More loyal than the king
Dhami, 49, was handpicked by the BJP leadership to helm the State government seven months before the election in 2021 and was brought back as Chief Minister when the party won, although he himself lost his seat. Experts say he knew his political survival depended on how well he ticked items off the Hindutva to-do list in the State and got down to the task at hand without any delay.
“When Dhami took oath as Chief Minister, he swore allegiance to the Constitution. He took the pledge that he would treat everyone equally in accordance with the Constitution and the law. He has forgotten that oath,” said the Dehradun-based political analyst Jay Singh Rawat.
“Dhami is competing with the Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma to be regarded as the biggest Hindutva hero,” added Rawat.
According to Pant, the Dhami government is attempting to combine Hindutva with the issue of security and nationalism since Uttarakhand has a border with China and almost every family in the State has somebody either in the armed forces or in the paramilitary forces.
“They talk about Dev Bhoomi and stress upon developing pilgrimage tourism. They talk about the need to build broad, all-weather roads that will make the Char Dham more accessible while also improving the road infrastructure in the border areas. We are witnessing a mix of the Hindutva agenda with the securitisation of the border in Uttarakhand,” Pant said.
Experts say it is deeply concerning that the Dhami government appears to be in sync with the increased aggression of right-wing groups and the calls allegedly made by them for the ouster of Muslims from the State, or their economic boycott, or even violence against them.
“Hate speeches have been made at events organised by right-wing organisations. We have fake sadhus calling for violence against Muslims. There has been an involvement of such groups and people in recent incidents of communal violence in the State. But no action has been taken against them,” said Rawat.
According to Prof. Engineer, an Uttarakhand model that threatens to destroy the syncretic social fabric is taking shape, sending out a clear warning to the rest of the country.
“Earlier, we had a Gujarat model. It was supposedly about development, but it actually referred to the subjugation of Muslims. Now, we have the Uttarakhand model. They are forcing Muslims to leave the State. They are demolishing the very idea of India by doing this,” he said.
