Vol. 14, Part I · pages 656–660

DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES638 another land or property. Once you change the law in regard to nonagricultural property, a change in the law in regard to agricultural property must necessarily follow. Though in the matter of distribution of legislative power between the Union and the States for taxation purposes, a distinction is maintained between agricultural and nonagricultural property, it is an accident only that certain power is given to the provinces and certain power is given to the Centre, and it cannot be denied that Hindu law of succession is single and entire. Succession is not a truncated affairs. Succession cannot be split up. Therefore, when you consider the question, you should consider it in all these aspects both in regard to agricultural property and in regard to nonagricultural property and you should address yourself to the question whether in the larger interests of society, the time has come for a revolutionary change in the family system. I request my hon. Friend, the Law Minister to consider the question why certain chapters of the Bill should not be postponed. Sir, I just want to deal with another aspect of the question namely the rights of succession of sons and daughters in regard to succession proper. I have got a special claim to speak on that behalf as I am a father of both daughters and sons and I repeat that. In fact the majority is on the woman side, four daughters and three boys. Therefore, I have a special claim to speak on this subject ( Hear, hear ). Apart from what little I know as a lawyer, I have a special claim to speak as a father of daughters and of sons. Now, I want you to look at the general set up of the Hindu family in dealing with this problem. If three sons find it difficult, you say, to live together and to own property in common how can you expect the daughters married to different people, may be people belonging to different castes or communities to carry on joint cultivation in villages ? Under those circumstances, is it in the larger interests of the country, that this property of the father as well as of the son be divided up equally between sons and daughters without any question of difference ? If it is a question of justice, if it is a question of equality, if it is a question of theoretical equality, I have nothing to say against it, but law is not logical—it does not mean that it is always illogical—but it has to take into account the social strata of society, the consciousness of the community, its effect upon the family life and other factors. Therefore, you have not a clean slate to write on. Therefore, let us take what happens in a Hindu family, Mr. Santhanam looks with equanimity from Delhi. If any marriage takes place in a brother’s house, the sister and the

DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 639 daughter occupy the most important part. It is regarded as a father’s house, the son looks upon the family house as his house. Every one of us know what an important place the sister and the daughter occupies in the household. ( Hear, hear ). If the mother and father sit together for the Aarathi, it is the daughter, it is the sister that brings it and you give the present to the daughters and the sisters on that occasion. After all we are all Hindus; you cannot forget that. The very first person who receives the present will be the sister or the daughter in the household. The second thing is that no marriage can go through in any Hindu household unless provision is made for presents being made to the daughters and to the sisters. Again even though, women who may not care to bear children may not appreciate it—daughters of the family are certainly cared for on every occasion such as srimanta or on occasions of first confinement and second confinement. A girl generally goes to the father’s house or to the brother’s house and it is only after getting two or three children that the girl does not go to the father’s or brother’s house, and this is Hindu life to-day. It is not the life in Delhi, it is not the life in Calcutta, it is not the life in Madras that is to be the guiding factor in these matters. It is the normal ordinary life in every village, in the whole of India, ( Hear, hear ). Therefore, I would ask you most respectfully the Members of this House, though I am addressing Mr. Deputy Speaker, to take these factors into consideration. The Bible said “I shall set father against father, son against son and brother against brother” or some such thing, but let not legislation result in a feud between the members of the family, an unnecessary feud between the members of the family. A certain amount of bickering, a certain feud is inevitable, so long as property is there. Sankara said that property is the soul of strife in our country and that is inevitable, but let us not give an impetus to it by stating that I shall set brother against brother, a sister against the brother, the brother against the sister and in that way mould the family life of the India at present. The time may come when each daughter may arrange for her marriage after they attain their maturity. Many of the girls look to their brothers for their marriage. Hardly a week passes when a brother or a father does not come and ask for a little help in regard to a marriage. It may be that I am old-fashioned to consider such requests, but that is Hindu life. I am supposed to be educated in English ways of life but what would you think of other people

DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES640 who are not so educated as myself? You may be more advanced, I may be less advanced, but I still claim that I am born of the Indian soil and my ideas are rooted in the Indian soil, and therefore, I plead for the retention of these great virtues which have characterized our Indian life ( Hear, hear ). I do not want to go against the modern trends of thought or the modern ideas of progress, but at the same time while it is our duty to keep in touch with the currents of national life, with the social currents at present working, there is no use our imagining that we represent the whole of India. I may tell you, even among educated women, all of them do not think alike and even women who are in the legislatures do not think alike with some other educated ladies who are members of respectable households; they differ in some respects. Shrimati Renuka Ray (West Bengal : General): Are our households not respectable ? Shri Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar : They are very respectable. I am glad that you have interrupted. I am accustomed and I may tell you they are quite as respectable, though they might be a little conservative,—as some of those people who are very respectable and who have advanced ideas in these matters. I have given my views and I certainly refuse to believe I am not a respectable man; I am at least as respectable as others, but my ways of life, my way of thinking, my attitude to these questions is different from those equally respectable because I am cast in a different mould. For example, I have the greatest respect for our Prime Minister and on certain questions I yield to him, but at the same time, I do not look at questions with the same glasses as my hon. friend, my esteemed friend, if I may call the Prime Minister my very esteemed friend. It is merely a mode of approach. The Honourable Shri K. Santhanam (Minister of State for Trnsport and Railways) : What is your actual proposal ? Pandit Lakshmi Kanta Maitra : He is giving his proposals in an excellent way. Shri Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar : I do not fight shy of that. The question I have been put is in regard to un-married daughters whether any kind of special provision may be made either for marriage or a special portion may be set apart so far as the marriage of girls is concerned. The law may provide that the daughters will take the heritage of the mothers and the sons will take the heritage of the fathers.

DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 641 So far as daughters are concerned, I am quite willing to and quite anxious that as liberal and as obligatory, a provision be made for the girls who are un-married. I have absolutely no difficulty in that matter. That is my proposal. It may be worth anything, it may not be worth anything, but that is my proposal. An Honourable Member : What about the money from the mother? Shri Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar : There is no use speaking about that. You take a census of the people who pay income-tax in this country? They are not many. This is a poverty stricken country. So there is no use of saying that that the mother has no property. Many are poor. They may have no property, but they cannot get away from social obligations. Those who have property may divide their property, but that may have repercussions upon the people who have no property, or very little property, but at the same time who are quite sensitive to the social and family obligations. Therefore, in any step that you take, you have to see that the social obligations are not retarded. That is the plea I make so far as this is concerned. In regard to the institution of joint family property, I differ from my friend the hon. Dr. Ambedkar. It is seldom I differ from him. And I am often influenced by him, and have occasionally influenced him. Therefore, I have no doubt that he will pay heed to some of the criticisms which those of my persuasion have offered. He may look obstinate, but there is none who yields to reason more than my friend Dr. Ambedkar. I know him very well and it has been a great asset to me, I mean my close acquaintance with him these three years. Well, that is my view, so far the institution of joint family and the rights of equal succession of sons and daughters is concerned. The next aspect is with regard to Stridhana property, and on that, in so far as you remove all restrictions on the power of alienation, I am at one with the House, that is with the other Members of the House. This has merely led to unnecessary litigation, the reversionary filing suits for the declaration that alienations by the widow are invalid, going to this court and that court, and all sorts of evidence being let in. If only in the interest of unnecessary litigation being avoided, I am for the widow being given absolute powers of disposition during her life-time. But from that it does not necessarily follow that the course of devolution must be the same with regard to every kind of Stridhanam property. You call it Stridhanam and then begin to attach

DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES642 certain consequences in the matter of succession. Once you make it absolute property, why not it descend to the heirs? That is the question. I am willing to put the question to ninety nine Hindus I meet, “Here is a property devolving uopn the widow from her husband. It is absolute property, and after her death it is to go to her father and mother, in preference to the father and mother of the man whose property has devolved upon the widow.” I put that question. You may take a referendum in any part of the country and I am quite clear what the result of that referendum will be. And I challenge any Member to say in this House that the referendum will be other than what I feel. Therefore, as a lawyer, if you put me the question, can you have two kinds of absolute properties, one kind descending in one way and another kind descending in another way, and ask me, why not in the interest of uniformity, give the same rule of succession for one kind of property and the other kind of property? Then I say that you need not sacrifice social sentiments at the alter of logicality. Law need not always be logical. Law need not necessarily be Logical. Logic is not the essence of law. The Honourable Shri K. Santhanam : Should law be generally illogical? Shri Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar : My answer to my friend Mr. Santhanam is that law need not necessarily be logical. That is so because law is the product of social evolution and social adjustment, and therefore, how can it always be logical? Society does not move according to a particular standard or plan. Unfortunately, society, except in a communistic society, does not move in that way. Therefore, under these circumstances, you take the average sentiment of the Hindu into consideration. There is no use of saying that it is illogical to draw a distinction between one kind of stridhana and another. Why should the Stridhana be allowed again to go to the husband’s kindred? Why not it go to her heirs? In the very Bill that is the provision that is made. Therefore, so far as woman’s property is concerned, I think that is a point which may receive the consideration of the hon. Law Minister, before the Bill becomes law, consistent with the sentiments and the general feeling among the people. Until recently the widow did not have the power of disposition. The question is whether on the theory that each person when he inherits property, he or she must become the stock of descent, inherited property of every description must be treated alike. That is my plea with regard to woman’s property. Throughout I have refrained from resting on logic.