Vol. 14, Part I · pages 341–345

DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 323 which, according to Shrimati Durgabai, is something higher in level from those that can be passed taking into consideration the opinion of the common people. Mr. Tajamul Husain : May I be allowed to move a point of order ? Mr. Deputy Speaker : What is the point of order, please ? Mr. Tajamul Husain : My point of order is this, Sir, that the contempt of the whole House has been committed by my honourable friend in this way; you heard him out and he says that there are members of this House who have not understood the Hindu Code Bill. This amounts to a contempt of this House and I want a ruling on this. Mr. Deputy Speaker : I do not think that there is anything in this point of order. All that the honourable member means is that the full implications of the Bill may be understood differently by different sections of the people. According to him they have not been understood in the manner in which he would like honourable members to understand it. Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava : Besides this Sir, I do not claim and I am not at all prepared to say that I have understood the provisions of this Bill any more than the other honourable members of the House About myself I am prepared to say that I have not understood fully all the provisions, all the clauses and all the implications of this Bill and this I can say about all the honourable members and myself in particular. The honourable members here, who are not lawyers, can say that they have fully understood the Bill; but the lawyers present here cannot say with confidence that they have understood all the provisions of the Bill as has emerged from the Select Committee. I am not permitted in this House but, if I be permitted then I like to put two or three questions to Mr. Tajamul Husain and he should give an answer whether he understands or not. It is not at all my intentions to commit contempt of the House. Very respectfully I beg to submit that it is not at all my intention . . . Mr. Deputy Speaker : Every citizen is presumed to know the Law, every honourable member is presumed to have read this Bill. The honourable member can go on with his speech. Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava : I was submitting Sir, after this introduction, I was submitting why I am in favour of Mr. Naziruddin Ahmad’s amendment. Sir, I submitted some facts for your kind consideration, that this House is not so representative as it is to be tomorrow and this is not to take much time, in a few months the

DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES324 new house will come into being and therefore it would have been proper to (postpone the discussion on this Bill till the new house comes into being). A still stronger argument in favour of my submission is that you, Sir, are well aware of the fact that today property includes two different types of thing. One is lands and the other houses. As far as the landed property is concerned this Bill does not affect it. What will be its effect on succession in a country like India which is mainly an agricultural country and where 90 per cent of the people live in villages. After the death of a person his lands will be governed by one law and his house in the village will be governed by another law. What will happen to me ? If I have some property in Delhi then this property will be overned by one law and my landed property in Bahadurgarh will be governed by another law. My house built in my fields at Bahadurgarh will be governed by one law and my house at Delhi by another law. Is this uniformity ? If such a thing is being maintained then what the result would be ? The appointment of an heir takes place at Bahadurgarh whom the Hindu Code does not recognise, then that boy, who is the appointed heir, will of course inherit the landed property at Bahadurgarh but on the residential house of the deceased some one else would have a claim. The boy will get the landed property but will have no claim on the house, then after all where the boy will go ? The effect of this Bill would be that it will not apply on landed property. I think that Dr. Ambedkar wishes to pass a Bill whereby economic holdings could be made and the landed property of average man may not be partitioned. But when this Act will come into being and when the abolition of zamindari takes place, I am not aware of this. Shrimati Renuka Ray : You can introduce such a Bill immediately. Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava : Respectfully I beg to submit that intentions are not so easily fulfilled in this world as my honourable sister thinks that simply by introducing a Bill this intention will be accomplished. This is a Bill for the benefit of the country, but how many obstacles this Bill is encountering. How much time the Land’s Bill, whereby the rights of everybody will be usurped, will take and where will it be passed ? This is under the power of the Provincial Government. I wish that we may make such changes in our constitution whereby, as far as the question of lands is concerned, under

DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 325 the constitution, this may also be within the powers of the Central Government. If this Bill is passed then I see in it the defect that it does affect the residential property and does not include the landed property. This is a great confusion. A change has now been made in the original Bill that now this Bill will also apply to the lands in the Centrally administered areas, i.e., it will be applicable on both the residential and landed properties of Ajmer Merwara and Delhi. In other provinces this Bill does not apply to lands. In Delhi and Ajmer-Merwara this will apply to both the rural and urban properties. This is a great defect of this Bill and which knock out its bottom. As yet the people are not aware how this Bill would affect them. For this reason only I had submitted that full publicity has not been given to this Bill. I know that if today people were to know that through this Bill such far reaching and fundamental changes are being made in their law of inheritance, changes which will have affect on each and every family of India, then at one time the people of the whole of India on coming to Delhi would present their applications that this law may not be passed. Many people are not aware of this. The knowledge is shared by the members of this House. Bar associations and a few of those who read newspapers. You can well understand how small the number of such persons is. Such a Bill, which affects the entire Hindu Society, has not been given sufficient circulation and no opinions on this have been taken. A committee was set up, it took evidences at many places and the report of the committee is with me. If you would see as to where the members of this Committee went, what they did and whose evidences they recorded; then you would find that the committee has asked the opinion of some well placed and educated persons only and they have not taken the opinion of a major part of the country. In this there is no question of education. For this Bill every mother and father, who fully realize their responsibilities, can give their opinions. Everybody is affected by this and so every person is competent to give his opinion. Besides this I would submit that nobody has the knowledge of the changes that have been made-by the Select Committee in the original Bill. Only the members of the Assembly have information of these changes, the rest of the people do not know what changes the Select Committee has made. Now the question arises that as the Select Committee has made changes in this Bill so its circulation has become very necessary. Leave aside the old question that no law should make

DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES326 rapid changes in the customs of the people till the opinion of a majority of those people, who are to be affected by it, be not taken. The Bill that is being introduced today is one wherein the Select Committee has made such changes as are of vital importance and about which everybody must have full information. For this reason only its circulation is all the more necessary. Before I submit anything about these changes, I wish to draw the attention of the House towards one point. I regret to say that the Law Department itself which is an embodiment of law because its name even is Law Department, these same people do not respect the law. When these people themselves establish such a procedure that they must not have established, then I will have to say— I do not want to touch the question that has been decided by your predecessor. That question has been decided. That ruling is final for me. I do not question it. I highly honour that ruling although I know that this ruling according to my opinion was not correct, yet I do not want to question it. Mr. Tajamul Husain : No one can say inside the House that the ruling of the Chair is wrong. Mr. Deputy Speaker : I am sorry the honourable member has not understood Mr. Bhargava at all. What he says is that he does not agree with the ruling but he cannot question the ruling here. It is open to any member to think for himself and also to say that in his opinion he does not accept it, but he is bound by the ruling. I think there is nothing wrong. Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava : I am very sorry that whenever my honourable friend Mr. Tajamul Husain raises any point of order it does not survive even for a minute. I wish that he may raise such a point of order which I may also be able to reply. I know that at this time he is enquiring from another honourable member whether this Bill applied to lands or not but he pretends and says that he understands this Code Bill. Then I like to submit that I am perfectly within my rights if I say that on the ruling I hold a different opinion. I wish to submit a few other fundamentals that have not at all been touched by the Honourable the Speaker’s ruling. Most humbly I beg to draw the attention of the House particularly towards the fact that this House which is a constitution making House, is a master of her

DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 327 laws. None of our matters can be referred to any court in the country. If this house forsakes its principles for the sake of passing a certain Act then we commit such a mistake that we cannot be absolved of its responsibilities. I beg to submit that in this redrafted Bill, reported by the Select Committee, the mistakes that we have committed therein are of three types. Firstly when a Bill comes before the House, comes in the possession of the House, and is introduced in the House, then after this except for the House no member of the House, however big he might be, however good he might be, cannot even change a comma therein without the consent of the House. If there be any electrical mistakes then it is another thing; and if that also be a material mistake then it will have to be printed again and re-circulated and after again being introduced in the House can be referred to any committee. Very respectfully I beg to submit Sir, that I am presenting two or three technical points for your kind consideration., About these points I will have to submit very humbly to the other honourable member, but not to Dr. Ambedkar as he is familiar with technical rules and things, and he knows how much injustice can be done by forsaking these technical rules. So I was submitting that by forsaking these technical rules except injustice and unlawful things nothing beneficial can be accomplished. Mr. Oslow has been a very famous speaker of the house of Commons. He had said that no work should be done in contravention of the technical rules. For the protection of minorities, for the protection of the House as a whole, there are technical rules, and these rules are of such a fundamental character that whenever the limits will be transgressed nothing except mistakes can be accomplished. This principle has been laid down in the May’s Parliamentary Practice, which is the convention of the mother of Parliaments. The convention is that as soon as Bill is introduced it passes out of the hands of the member introducing it and comes within the power of the House. I am translating the words of May’s Parliamentary Practice which I will soon read out to you. Mr. Deputy Speaker : I do not think anybody in the House doubts that any honourable member even though he may be the mover has got the right to change the Bill when once it has been placed before the House. As I understand it, the Honourable Speaker’s ruling is that the very same Bill was considered in the Select Committee. Therefore, there is no good canvassing that position. The Honourable the Law Minister did not say that another Bill was considered in the Select