India’s Assam state plans to ban polygamy

Authorities in an Indian state want to ban polygamy as part of a bid by the nationalist central government to standardise the civil code across the country, Reuters reported.

Polygamy, the practice of having more than one spouse, is illegal under the Indian Penal Code.

“I plan to ban polygamy in Assam,” Himanta Biswa Sarma, chief minister Assam state in the northeast, said.

“We want to make this a consensus-building process rather than some kind of a provocation,” said Sarma, a senior member of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The central government wants to impose a uniform civil code to replace a patchwork of religious and cultural codes governing matters such as marriage, divorce, inheritance and adoption.

Supporters of the code see it as a way to ensure gender equality but opponents see it as a government strategy to dilute rights sanctioned under other religions.

The federal government in a 2020 study found polygynous marriages were prevalent among more than 30 tribal groups in the remote northeast, including Assam.

Sarma said a team would scrutinize legal provisions along with the religious and personal aspects and religious groups and report back to him in 60 days.

In April, another BJP ruled state, Uttarakhand in the north, announced that an expert panel would examine the possibility of applying the uniform civil code there.

The Supreme Court in 2017 outlawed the practice of “triple talaq,” by which a man can divorce his wife by saying “talaq” (divorce) three times.

The BJP championed a campaign by women and activists to outlaw that divorce practice.