Vol. 14, Part I · pages 606–610

DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES588 we were making the Constitution there were many who were asking . why we continued to have provinces, why we were building on the Government of India Act and why we were continuing to have Rajpramukhs ? Sir, our argument in reply was that while we wanted change and reform we wanted to build, as far as possible, on the existing foundations, that we wanted a judicious combination of conservation of the existing forces and the forces that make for change and reform. This Bill is based on the same principle. It seeks to conserve as much of the Hindu law as is consistent with modern needs and ideas and it seeks to change wherever such change is necessary. I think that is the only way the whole country as well as the Hindu society can progress without internal disruptions and violent revolutions. Sir, our policy is one of peaceful and voluntary change and this Bill is a notable attempt in that process of peaceful change in the social sphere. Sir, I don’s want to go into the clauses of the Bill. The time is not yet ripe for it and when we take up clause by clause it will be time to scrutinise particular provisions. Pandit Lakshmi Kanta Maitra : That stage will not come. The Honourable Shri K. Santhanam : Well, let us see. Pandit Lakshmi Kanta Maitra : Not unless there are elaborate lathi charges outside. The Honourable Shri K. Santhanam : There were people who were prophesying that the Constitution would never be passed ; but we have passed it. In the same way, we are going to put this Bill on the Statute Book. Sir, I am not saying that certain clauses, or even parts are not susceptible of slight changes or adjustments. Pandit Lakshmi Kanta Maitra : Slight! The Honourable Shri K. Santhanam : But I shall confine myself to the broad principles contained in the Bill and, leave details to a future occasion. Sir, this Bill has got four aspects, namely, codification, unification, rationalisation and reform. Sjt. Rohini Kumar Chaudhuri (Assam: General) - And falsification too. The Honourable Shri K. Santhanam : Well, I will leave that part to you. So far as the parts dealing with adoption, with minority, with guardianship and with maintenance are concerned, they are simply

DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 589 codification of existing Hindu law. ( An Honourable Member: Question). You may question it, but I think Sir B. N. Rau is a far greater legal authority than the hon. Member. Pandit Lakshmi Kanta Maitra : That is absolutely no argument. He may be or not. I can understand an argument—but this sort of talk I cannot stand. Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order, order. Pandit Lakshmi Kanta Maitra : But what is the meaning in arguing that such and such a man is far above anybody else here ? Is that any argument ? Mr. Deputy Speaker : There is no meaning in all hon. Members talking simultaneously. Each hon. Member will have his turn and I am prepared to sit here as long as the House wants me to. So far as the hon. Member’s reference to Sir B. N. Rau is concerned, he probably meant that he was a Judge of the Calcutta High Court and it is not unparliamentary to say that the opinion of a particular person is highly valuable. Even as an individual the hon. Member perhaps meant that he knows him much better than any other Member of the House. The Honourable Shri K. Santhanam : Sir, I merely stated that Sir B. N. Rau is a better legal authority than the questioner. Sjt. Rohini Kumar Chaudhuri : On a point of order, Sir, Hindu Law is absolutely and intimately connected with Hindu religion. Can anyone tolerate the idea of a non-Hindu being an authority on Hindu Law and principles ? Mr. Deputy Speaker : I can well appreciate differences of opinion among hon. Members. But there is no room for excitement. Let there be patience first and all hon. Members will certainly contribute to the debate in a harmonious atmosphere. Shri L. Krishnaswami Bharathi : The hon. Member who just now interrupted seems to say that Shri B. N. Rau is not a Hindu ; it is an insinuation which should not be allowed. Shri B. N. Rau is not here and it is your duty, Sir, to protect him. Mr. Deputy Speaker : I am not in a position to say to what religion any particular person belongs. I do not know it personally. But I expect hon. Members to keep within limits, and because they have got certain privileges, they should not defame others. They should keep within limits, and if an hon. Member makes an aspersion, it will be wrong.

DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES590 The Honourable Shri K. Santhanam : Sir, I do not mind interruptions; but if those who are opposed to this Bill think that they have the monopoly of such tactics, they are mistaken. Sir, I assert with all the emphasis I can that Shri B. N. Rau is as good a Hindu as any in this House. And so far as I am concerned, I may say that my ancestors have come from very orthodox Hindus, and up to this moment we have not eaten even a little bit of fish, and I may claim to be more orthodox than. . . . Shri H. V. Kamath (C. P. and Berar : General) : Is eating or not eating fish a test of orthodoxy? The Honourable Shri K. Santhanam : In my part of the country eating fish is considered to be the most heterodox fashion. Pandit Lakshmi Kanta Maitra : And in my part of the country eating iddlies and rasom is considered most objectionable. Mr. Deputy Speaker : Let hon. Members come to more lasting things like marriages and divorce, than iddlies and fish. Shri R. K. Sidhva : Let us not reduce the House to a fish market. The Honourable Shri K. Santhanam : I again say that so far as adoption, guardianship, minority etc. are concerned, they are merely codification of existing law, as can be found in the judgments of British courts. Sir, whatever Manu might have written, whatever Yagnavalkya might have written, the present Hindu law is the law as interpreted in the British Courts for the last one hundred and fifty years, and against this interpretation, even Manu and Yagnavalkiya are utterly helpless. So the Hindu law now is the law as interpreted and as laid down by the British judges in this country. An Honourable Member : British judges ? The Honourable Shri K. Santhanam : British or Britishized judges. Therefore, Sir, I think we are at least as competent to change that law as the British Judges who have changed the ancient law into the present Hindu law as it is. Sir, I come now to the next aspect of the Hindu Code—the unification portion of it. I am surprised that any Hindu looking to the future should say that so far as the law is concerned, no unification is necessary, that each part can have a regional law, that in Bengal we can have the Dayabhaga law, that in Malabar they can have the Marumakkattayam law and other parts the Mitakshara law and so on, that everything should be as it was in the ancient days. I cannot

DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 591 understand people when they say that in politics and in economics we shall be in the year 1950 A.D. but so far as the law is concerned we shall be in 1950 B.C. Sir, to say so is wholly a disintegrating and disastrous proposition. If Hindus have to be one community, if they have to have vitality they must all come under one law, whether it be Dayabhaga or Mitakshra. I can understand some people saying, “Let us have Mitakshara” or “Let Bengal come under Mitakshara”. I can understand other people saying, let them all come under the Dayabhaga law. But to say that Hindus should be dissected into various regional groups, each having its own law, so that if a Bengali goes to Malabar, the courts would have to interpret three types of Hindu law, that I think, Sir, is pronouncing the doom of Hindu society. Sir, the enemies of Hindu society cannot ask for anything better than that Hindus should be administered by a dozen regional laws. Sir, by this Bill we are at last bringing Hindu society under one unified Hindu law, let it be any law, but it should be one unified Hindu law for the entire Hindu community, Sir, in this Bill .... Sjt. Rohini Kumar Chaudhari : Sir, on a point of order, the hon. Member is speaking communalism in this House. He is talking of unifying all the Hindus, probably against the Muslims and others. He wants one law for the Hindus ; so he is preaching communalism. Mr. Deputy Speaker : This point of order only enlivens the debate, but it is not really any point of order. The Honourable Shri K. Santhanam : Sir, the day this Bill is put on the Statute Book, the whole process of assimilation will begin and it will not be long before the rest of the Indians in this country will begin to conform to that law, and if necessary, we shall give them minor changes so that the whole country will come under one civil code. Sir, this process is not a disintegrating process but a cementing process. The process will go on and before long. Pandit Lakshmi Kanta Maitra : It is going on outside. Shrimati G. Durgabai (Madras : General) : It is going on inside. Pandit Lakshmi Kanta Maitra : Inspired by you. The Honourable Shri K. Santhanam : I have been in this House too long to be worried by these interruptions. Now, the question is whether we should prefer the Dayabhaga law or the Mitakshara law. My friend Pandit Mukut Bihari Lal said that Mitakshara law is followed by twenty crores of people and Dayabhaga is followed by five crores, and asked why should we choose the law of the five crores rather than the law of the twenty crores. I do feel

DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES592 that comparatively Mitakshra law was intended to serve the needs of ancient rural communities whose main property was agricultural land. It was on the basis of that conception of society that the right of birth and the right of survivorship were evolved. But we are fast evolving out of that primitive community into a modern community in which property goes from the immovable to the movable property. You have immovable properties diminishing and movable properties increasing. Even immovable property is being converted into movable property, in the form of shares, cash savings deposits and government securities and other things. Therefore, we should adopt that system which is in tune with these changes from the tangible immovable property to intangible and notional property. Where property is largely intangible, this right of birth is really impracticable. You cannot enforce it. It will always be open to the father to dispose of securities or shares or movable property. It is not possible for a son to inherit a right in shares. It is possible for him to inherit a share in agricultural land, but it is not possible for him to inherit a right in cash securities or other movable property. That is why this Bill has given preference to the Dayabhaga system of law rather than the Mitakshra system of law : not because it had any disrespect to the twenty crores who are under the Mitakshara law, nor because it had any special preference to the Dayabhaga system of law. Today, the right of inheritance by birth and right of survivorship have become archaic and impractical institutions. Pandit Lakshmi Kanta Maitra : Primitive. The Honourable Shri K. Santhanam : Either we drop them deliberately through legislation or they will be discontinued in an irregular and disorderly fashion. Pandit Lakshmi Kanta Maitra : Follow Bengal in other respects also. Some Honourable Members : Order, order. Sjt. Rohini Kumar Chaudhari : On a point of order, Sir, what right has a Member to call ‘ order, order ‘. I find Shrimati Durgabai calling ‘order, order’. Shrimati Renuka Ray (West Bengal : General): Is this a point of order ? Mr. Deputy Speaker : I am extremely glad to find that hon. Members are sharing the right of the Speaker along with me. Sjt. Rohini Kumar Chaudhari : (rose).