Vol. 14, Part I · pages 371–375

DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 353 present position to the position that we want to see enacted is very great and very violent. I would ask of the House to so arrange matters that this conflict is avoided. Now, Sir, I come from a place in the Punjab where there are villages upon villages having the same gotra and they believe that they are descended from the same common ancestor. You know this sapinda relationship which restricts the line of ascent and descent to three or five is not sufficient so far as those people are concerned. I do not want to say that you broaden it further. At the same time this will be unacceptable and a thing with which we could never reconcile ourselves, if you ask us to allow a marriage of sapindas. This is an impossible position so far as we are concerned, and if you allow this then you are really cutting at the very root of our social system as is enjoyed in the Punjab for a very long time. This is my feeling also for the whole of India. Of course, I do not speak for the rest of India because there are certain gentlemen who question it. My view is that in the whole of India the position should be the same. Well, I am not dogmatic about it, but this is a very wrong rule that we are enacting and that the requirements of section 7, that marrying couple should not be sapindas should be waived in so far as registered sacramental marriages are concerned. So far as the Sarda Act went, a marriage once celebrated according to the Hindu Law and our notions, was always indissoluble. We are making a break from this rule in so far as we are providing for disrupting marriage by codes or customs. Otherwise when rule 3 has been abrogated, you can convict a man and send him to jail. I have submitted to the House through a Bill that where a person not of proper age is married, instead of a fine he should be imprisoned and the law should not be vested with the discretion that he should be allowed to go free. The whole country was against the Sarda Act and the present provision shows that if Rule 3 is followed, then the marriage will become avoidable. This is going against principles which we have not accepted for more than 20 years. So far as the main provisions in the Hindu Code are concerned, I have dealt with them in brief with a view to bring them to the notice of the House and since my feeling is that the Bill is not to going to be throttled out, I will deal with those matters when the clause to clause stage is reached. To sum up, I want to say that so far as this House is concerned, it will be well advised in either sending this Bill out for circulation,

DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES354 because in that case nothing will be lost—as a matter of fact much will be gained: public opinion will be consulted and the public will feel that they are being ignored. As a matter of fact many amendments have been made even after it has come from the Select Committee : even before the Select Committee the people in general did not know anything about it. In spite of all that has been said, I am convinced that people know about it. Dr. Ambedkar referred us to the two gentlemen who drafted this report and said that they were very good people and not such people as could be regarded as very much advanced in their views. I have got with me so many opinions of high court judges and more opinions are pouring in every day. All these people are against it. I did not want to read them out from the evidence that is printed in the report of the Hindu Law Committee. I would with your permission refer you to page 13 of this report, where there is the evidence of a lady, Miss Subrul, Principal, Fateh Chand College for Women. She said: “The unmarried daughter, one who is not fit for marriage, or one who has made up her mind not to marry should get the same share as the son and she should also be subject to the same obligations as the son. A married daughter should not have any share in the property. If an unmarried daughter marries, her share should go back to her brothers.” When the Committee was in Lahore to record the evidence, it is said in the report. “As a matter of fact in the Punjab where I was presiding over the meeting of this committee some 500 women entered the Commercial Museum Hall, Lahore, where the meeting was held said with folded hands ‘Do not bring son-in-law into the family and ruin our business.” In regard to business if you kindly consider what effect this will have on the business people you will simply be scandalised, A prosperous business conducted by a father and his sons is going on. The father dies and the business is run by the joint efforts of all and then the son-in-law gets in. What will happen to the business ? It will go to dogs. I would refer the House to page 139 of the report. It is wrong to say that all the ladies are in favour. Thousands of enlightened ladies did not favour this, not because they did not want the daughter to be given any rights. I reiterate that so far as I am concerned as also those persons who think in the same way as myself, we do not want to see that the daughter is not given the full right or that women are not given their full right. We want women to rise to the same stature as man and to have the same rights. I am one with Dr. Ambedkar. I am like him a progressive conservative. I like

DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 355 that expression very much. I do not belong to the advanced school of thought. This Bill is not either revolutionary or radical, as Dr. Ambedkar said. This Bill deals with certain matters but the Bill has to be improved. Today there is in the Hindu society some sort of introspection and it is able to see that there has been decay. It is our duty to see that the dilapidation is repaired in the words of Dr. Ambedkar, I therefore submit that from this point of view let no body run away with the thought that we do not want to do justice to our sisters and daughters. If our sisters and daughters carry an impression like this they are entirely mistaken. I know about your good self, Sir. You are also in favour of the view that their rights should be secured. I therefore submit that this should not be looked at from this point of view. I want this Bill to be circulated and it may be taken up after the next elections when we have a more representative House. I do not maintain that this House is not fully competent or sovereign. If the House persists in proceeding with this measure there is no wrong in it but I would like to see that this Bill is considered and that justice is done to every interest concerned. At the same time what I do want as a lawyer and as a member of this House is that this Bill should be considered again by the Select Committee, even if it be for two hours, so as to remove all these defects and to legalise the original Bill being considered clause by clause and then this very Bill may be substituted if the Select Committee so pleases. I maintain that it is absolutely wrong to say that the original Bill was considered in the way in which the law required it to be considered or that the amendments were moved or accepted in the usual manner as is done in every Select Committee. This was not done. We should be quite cautious that we do not allow the thing to be done in a way which is fundamentally wrong. I would beg of Dr. Ambedkar to consider the question if he is satisfied that my objection is right. I would beg of him kindly to consider the point of view of the poor Punjab people who had no representation on the Hindu Law Committee. Honourable Members: What about Dr. Bakshi Tek Chand ? Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava : If you speak of Dr. Tek Chand who was on this Select Committee I will be very glad if you will give his due. If he had not written this dissenting note where would you have been ? If you accept him as a man whose views ought to be respected then go by his views. This is my submission. I am only a mouthpiece or a loudspeaker of what Dr. Bakshi Tek Chand

DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES356 has written. He has said in his note that you should allow nomination of an heir, that you allow divorce to take place in the same manner in which it is taking place today and he has also mentioned about non-sacramental marriages. In all these points when you take his name I beg of you kindly to follow him in what he has said in his dissenting note. Mr. Deputy Speaker: Shrimati Renuka Ray. Mr. Naziruddin Ahmad: Sir, my grievance is not being heard. Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable Member’s grievance will not go unheard. Mr. Naziruddin Ahmad : May I submit that I had certain points and I would like to have got the advantage of those points being made and the replies given to them. Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable Member will have the advantage of his observations going unchallenged. Mr. Naziruddin Ahmad: I do not like it, Sir. Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have already ruled that the honourable Member will not have his turn now. I have called Shrimati Renuka Ray. * Shrimati Renuka Ray : The Bill that is under the consideration of this House now, or rather the principles embodied in it, have been on the anvil of this legislature since 1943 and the insistent demands for these changes that are embodied in this Bill have been before the country for a very much longer time. It was more than 100 years ago that Raja Ram Mohan Roy wrote a treatise called “The Rights of Females to inherit property and their rights of marriage”, and this matter was first brought to public attention. Since 1931 and 1932 there has been an insistent demand throughout the country, and at that time the need for the removal of legal disabilities of women and the need for a uniform and comprehensive code of legislation was made manifest in this country. Due to the fact that on the anvil of the legislature there were a number of Bills dealing with this subject, due to the fact that piecemeal legislation was leading to anamolies in law and because of this insistent demand, the Government of that day was forced and compelled to appoint the Hindu Law Committee better known as the Rau Committee on Hindu Law. It was as a result of the report of this Committee that the two Bills on intestate succession and marriage were introduced in 1943. At that time the opposition that has now again reared its head also came to the forefront. The *C.A. (Leg.) D., Vol. II, Part II, 25th February 1949, pp. 925-29.

DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 357 substance of the opposition was the same as it is now but the approach was a very different one. The approach was naturally different because it was made to an alien government. The approach was made on the lines that they were the loyalists who were the ardent supporters of the Government, that it was the Congress, which was agitating, that was behind this demand which the women of India had brought forward and that the Government should not give any credence to it. I am not making statements without foundation. It is true that the nationalist press of this country did not give that opposition much chance. Yet the opposition did bring out many pamphlets wildely abusing our national leaders, not even sparing our belovd leader Mahatma Gandhi. There was a weekly paper produced called ‘Hindu’ in which these Bills were attacked and they were attacked on the basis that the national leaders of this country were behind it and it was due to their advice and under their influence that this was being done. Coupled with this factor, when the Government found that the women of this country were not willing to agree to those machinations which wanted to further divide and bring discord among them, when they realized that women were against separate electorates and that they stood behind those who were in the vanguard of the freedom movement of this country, then there was not much hope that a legislation of this type to improve the lot of women and to give them their rights would go through with the alien Government in power. It was then that we realized that it was necessary to wait till a national Government came in. Later the Government appointed the Hindu Law Committee, and the Bills were re-circulated. This Committee as the House knows, presented its Report after touring the country, taking the opinions of thousands of individuals and organisations in 1946 after the Intrim Government came in. I will not recapitulate the subsequent steps when this Bill was reintroduced after 1947 in the present Legislature as these are well known to the Members of this House. But I merely want to point out that the opposition which is in substance the same, in character the same, has a new approach. I would like to know who are they who were opposed to the Congress in those days to say today to the Congress ‘You will lose your elections if the Hindu Code Bill goes through.’ I would like to ask them when they were deliberately against the movement for freedom—when they neither supported it nor symalhised with it—when it was in spite of them that the Congress won the elections and the country’s freedom, who are they today to tell the Congress that they will not win the elections. If anyone of them comes into the legislatures of the country today it is by the grace of the Congress and so it shall be tomorrow also.