Working on polygamy and UCC laws, aiming to curb evangelism by banning magical healing: Assam CM Himanta Sarma

Guwahati: Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that the state is working to make robust legislation for polygamy and Uniform Civil Code.

Talking to media persons on Monday, he said, “Assam cabinet in its meeting has discussed both polygamy and UCC. We were following polygamy; Uttarakhand passed a law on UCC. We are now aligning both so that we can prepare a robust legislation. We are working on that.”

He added that the Assam cabinet has approved a very important legislation prohibiting magical healing. “Healing is a daisy subject used to convert tribal people. This bill we are going to pilot as we believe that the religious status quo is very important. Whoever is Christian, Muslim or Hindu let them be so that a proper balance can be achieved in our state.”


He added, “We want to curb evangelism in Assam. So the approval of the cabinet on a legislation which will ban magical healing will be a very important milestone.”

The cabinet meeting on Saturday decided to bring Assam Healing (Prevention of Evil) Practices Bill, 2024 whereby any person found guilty of committing the illegal act in the name of treatment/magic healing shall be punished with imprisonment and a fine.

The state cabinet has approved the proposed Bill which seeks to prohibit and eliminate practices of magical healing in the name of treatment of some congenital diseases like deafness, dumbness, blindness, physical deformities, autism, etc. It will prohibit such healing sessions completely and provide strong punitive action against healers' extorting the poor and downtrodden people in the name of treatment.

Sarma said, “Our expert will see, we were working on polygamy, UCC became a new thing. UCC is only banning polygamy making it a civil offence, but we were thinking of making polygamy a criminal offence. Now countries need a uniform policy. We will have a round of discussion with Central leaders to discuss which direction we should go.”