Vol. 14, Part I · pages 596–600

DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES578 Shri L. Krishnaswami Bharathi: I am told that they do not even pass through such a village. Pandit Mukut Bihari Lal Bhargava: Under the rules of devolution after the father and mother who are the persons entitled to inherit the property of the female ? If it provides that that will go to the husband’s relations, it is repulsive and it will create family feuds. Why should property go to the husband’s relations, if it has come to the daughter from the father ? That is why our law-givers have made several categories of stridhana which will accrue to different categories of people. You are not competent to understand the higher motives of our law-givers who made those salient provisions and you want to sacrifice their ideals at the alter of simplicity. According to our accepted notions of stridhan, if the property has come from the side of the father it is the father’s relations that are entitled to it. Why should not a provision of this character be incorporated in sections 106 to 109. That would be more acceptable to Hindu ideology . I now come to the other provisions of the Bill. On the day the Code comes into force, the joint tenancy will be deemed to have been converted into tenancy-in-common. The Bill makes a provision in clause 115 that it is open to every heir to go to a court of law and claim partition of the family property. Is this provision conducive to the preservation and maintenance of peace in the family ? After the death of the father, the daughter, the son, the widow of a pre-deceased son, etc., will rush to a court of law and claim partition as required by section 115. This will be like the Islamic law, entirely repugnant to Hindu ideology and cannot be tolerated in a Bill of this kind. It is claimed that this Code will resolve conflicts of opinion, that it is an exhaustive piece of legislation providing remedy for every malady in Hindu dharma. Are there not any omissions in the Bill and until they are filled in, will it not shatter the Hindu society ? Under clauses 88 and 89, you abrogate the doctrine of Pious Obligation. Under clause 89 you provide that the family members will be entitled to pay the duties existing on the joint family. What provision have you made when the father dies ? Who is to bear the funeral expenses or make provision for shradhas, or the other charitable objects connected with such occasions. Once this Code is brought on the Statute Book will there not be fight and feud between the different heirs ? On the death of a father every son and daughter will be so absorbed in assimilating the wealth of the father that they will forget their duty to

DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 579 perform the shradhas, which are essential for any self-respecting family. There is absolutely no provision in this regard in this Bill. Does the Code provide for the Hindu joint family ? In Hindu Law there is a distinction between co-parcenary property and joint family property. What is the number of families in India carrying on business ? Is there any provision within the four corners of the Bill for that ? How will succession take place in joint family business ? You claim exhaustiveness for this Code. Have you made any provision for an adopted son? Under clauses 52 to 54 every Hindu male on attaining the age of 18 is entitled to adopt a son with the consent of his wife. After adoption if the father gets his own son what will be the son’s rights in the patrimony ? Does your Code present any solution of this problem ? Our Hindu law-givers or smritikaras make ample provision for different parts of the country. What is the position of a son born after adoption of a son by the father ? In Dayabhaga he gets one-half: under Mitakshara he gets one-third; in the Bombay Presidency he gets one-fourth. Have you made any provision here ? If not, will it not create confusion and confusion of a worse character ? Have you made provision for partition of the joint family property and so many other things which are an essential, and complicated, branch of Hindu Law ? My respectful submission therefore is that this will create problems and questions which it will be very difficult to answer. Then the question arises what will be the rights and duties of a son who has no share in the joint family property. Under the present circumstances, a son by birth has got rights in the property and that is a shield behind which he can stand for his maintenance, education and other things. You may point out to me the provisions of clauses 126 and 128 of your Bill which lay down that it will be the duty of every husband to maintain his wife, and the wife may claim separate maintenance from him on certain grounds as those of illness like leprosy etc. There again is the door for litigation and a paradise for lawyers. And in clause 128, you will say, you have provided for the maintenance of children and aged parents. But by providing for maintenance under clauses 126 and 128, are you effectively safeguarding their rights ? My submission is you are not. You are placing them in a worse position than what they occupy under the present Hindu Law. Under the present Hindu Law a son has an inherent right to maintenance out of the family property, and if the father or manager or karta of

DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES580 the family is so undutiful as not to look to his interests he has his remedy in a court of law. He can even claim partition. Every student of Hindu Law knows that while a minor has very restricted rights to claim partition in Hindu Law, if the father or the manager or karta of the family abuses his power to the detriment and prejudice of the minor, he has the legal remedy open to him and he can proceed in a court of law to enforce his right to partition. That is a valuable right and you are taking away that valuable right. Similarly you say that in clause 126 you have provided for the maintenance of the wife and in clause 128 you have provided for the maintenance of children and aged parents. If a husband happens to be penniless, if he cannot earn, if he has got nothing to support himself, how can he support his wife ? Therefore I submit that this pseudo right conceded to the wife is only a sham and a paper right. In the present Hindu Law every wife, every female has a valuable right of residence and of maintenance and she can enforce the right through a court of law if the manager or the karta abuses the right. Shri L. Krishnaswami Bharathi: Even if her husband is penniless ? Pandit Mukut Bihari Lal Bhargava : I am talking of joint family property. The matter will be different if you decide by a piece of legislation that every piece of property is to disappear and there should be socialisation and nationalisation of every property. But, keeping intact the institution of joint family you are depriving the minors, the widows and the females of their valuable rights which exist under the present Hindu law. In the name of equality which is sham and paper equality you are perpetrating a wrong which it will be very difficult to remedy. My submission therefore is that judging from every point of view this piece of legislation is not only opposed to the accepted principles of Hindu Law but is liable to create such confussion in Hindu Society which it will be very difficult to overcome or remedy. Sir, before I conclude I have to sum up what I stated on the 2nd of April and now. I said that there is absolutely no necessity and no desirability of the codification of Hindu Law. It is neither necessary nor desirable. It is not wanted by judicial opinion in the country. There is no conflict of authority of such a series character as to warrant the interference of a Legislature. There is no public demand for a measure of this character. The quntum of evidence upon which the Rau Committee relied was analysed by me in my speech on the 2nd

DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 581 of April and I pointed out that the overwhelming weight of opinion in the evidence recorded by the Rao Committee was opposed to every innovation and change that is incorporated in the Rao Committee Bill which has been further aggravated in the present Hindu Code Bill as it has emerged out of the Select Committee. On every point, on the question of divorce, on the question of sacramental cum civil marriage, making sacramental marriage liable to be converted into civil marriage at one’s sweet will under clause 21, there was opposition, and opposition from every quarter. From every quarter the overwhelming weight of opinion was against the ending of the joint family status. Therefore, on every crucial point, the overhelming opinion was against the Rao Committee Bill. Even now in the opinions that are pouring in from the various quarters in the country, from judicial quarters, from bar associations, from other citizens, there is a unanimity of opinion that a measure of this subversive type is not at all required under the present circumstances. Therefore I had submitted, and I repeat it today, that codification of the Hindu Law is neither desirable nor necessary. I have pointed out that the marriage provisions contained in the Bill are a misnomer for marriage. It is in fact introducing the principles of Islamic and Christian marriages into the Hindu Code under the garb of sacramental marriage. It will be a sham. It will be shameful for any Hindu to go into a marriage of this character which is liable to be changed at one’s sweet will into a civil marriage. This cannot be tolerated. Shri S. Nagappa : This Bill does not prevent sacramental marriages. Pandit Mukut Bihari Lal Bhargava : I have already met your argument, an argument that is often repeated on the floor of this House and outside, that this is an enabling measure, a permissive measure. If that is so, scrap off everything and have one omnibus clause in the Bill that everybody is competent to marry anybody. That will meet the requirements. Why do you make a fetish of the sacramental marriage ? The sacramental marriage of the character you have provided in the Bill is nothing but a mockery, an insult to the time-honoured institution of sacramental marriage. It is only a misnomer to deceive the people, to convince them that there is no departure from the eastablished practice. It is a hoax that is sought to be perpetrated on the Hindu society. No self-respecting Hindu can possibly tolerate this state of affairs.

DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES582 Better do away with these provisions commencing from clause 5 to 52. They are wholly opposed to Hindu ideology, to Hindu culture and to Hindu civilization. That is my submission in respect of the marriage provisions. As regards the divorce clauses I had already made my submission. About adoption, I had said and I repeat it today that the very conception of adoption is a creation of Hindu law, and if you cannot in this modern age, on account of what you call your advanced views, subscribe to that ideal of adoption, then do away with adoption altogether but don’t provide for a hotch-potch adoption of the nature you have done. According to the provisions of the Bill, every person, every Hindu, can be adopted as a son. There is no restriction of Gotra, there is no restriction of caste, there is no restriction of the status, and it is left to the person concerned to adopt any person. Those, who are well conversant with the codes of Hindu law, very well know how the adoption of a stranger in the family has been the source of litigation. There are well-established, customs and usages having behind them the sanctity and authority of judicial pronouncements whereby only a member of a family of the same Gotra can be adopted. All those usages, all those well-established customs are very easily given the go-by; without even thinking of the disastrous consequences this step is being taken. I shudder to think of the very terrible consequences that are bound to follow from a provision of this character. Better do away with the institution of adoption altogether rather than provide for adoption of this kind. In fact, I may be permitted to remark—and I do so with full responsibility—that the sponsors of this Bill had an inherent abhorrence, an inherent hatred against everything related to Hindu culture, and that is why we find provisions of this character being included without appreciating or finding out what were the motives of the Hindu lawgivers in providing for adoption. The sole purpose of adoption under the Hindu Law is that a person may have a son to administer to his spiritual needs, to offer oblations on his death. That is the sole purpose of the conception of adoption but by making a provision that any Tom, Dick and Harry can be adopted you are cutting at the very root of that conception. Do not therefore, make such a provision. Better do away with adoption. It doesn’t exist in so many societies. Where is the necessity to perpetuate it if you are so averse to it ? But then do not make a mockery of the conception of adoption. Sir, I shall submit that every provision in this Bill has got a stigma which is anti-Hindu and therefore cannot be acceptable to any Hindu. To me this Bill is an insidious effort on the part of its sponsors to