Vol. 14, Part I · pages 686–690

DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES668 us—the Jats, the Moghuls, the Turks, the English and others—they have perhaps assimilated many of the good points in us and they have enabled us to assimilate many of their own good points, so that the confluence of these cultures over a thousand years has enriched, both in volume and in content, the stream of our own national culture. Now, we are the inheritors of this proud heritage. How shall we deal with it ? Is there a philosophy behind it or is it merely a random growth ?—an accretion of conditions, an amorphous composition in which parallel forces are in juxtaposition without organically combining with one another or is it a solution and an assimilation of all the various factors, with the merits dissolved and the demerits left on the surface ? These are the points which we have to consider. Have we considered these points before embarking upon this mighty reform? Who has initiated this reform ? When was it initiated ? In whose time was it initiated ? Has it been taken up after the National Government has come into being, or is it merely a legacy of the past Government which we have taken on hand through the Secretariat ? What is our initiative ? What is our part in dealing with it ? Society, I told you, is a living organism. It has certain philosophical truths behind it. It has economic propositions before it. Take Hindu society. Have you come across any society in the world which is more socialistic, inherently and internally, than Hindu society ? I have got fifty acres of land. I have got two sons. My two sons are each heirs to only twenty-five acres. My first son has four sons. Each boy gets only six acres. Is property allowed to accumulate in our system of inheritance ? Not at all. It is a socialistic structure of the supremost kind. You want to destroy this socialistic structure and then you want to substitute an individualistic civilisation where each man owns his property, where property is inherited not by birth, but by survivorship. What happens ? Individualistic property comes into being. Perhaps the next step will be Dr. Ambedkar’s Bill on a law of progeniture for the common man. Then you will create and maintain an aristocracy. You bring into existence a class society, not a classless society. A classless society where learning and property, learning and wealth are well balanced gives place to a society in which wealth reigns supreme. That is exactly what happens in the West. That is exactly what cannot happen in the East. Here, through a system of social organisation, we have balanced the wealth and the culture, and then having brought them into existence, we have attached greater

DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 669 value to culture than to wealth. Wealth has taken a subordinate place. Now what are you going to do ? You allow a lawyer to amass ten lakhs of rupees. He is the supreme master. He has obtained all the wealth that his brothers could have given him in sending him to England and making him a Barrister-at-Law. But the gains of his learning are his own exclusive property under the law which has been brought into existence by the British—thanks to their ideals. Now, whereas the other people, the other brothers, the agriculturists as well as the traders who have gone through the same process of righteous labour, have to divide their property with the educated Barrister-at-Law, the Barrister-at-Law is exempt from sharing his properties with those two brothers. Is this justice ? It is outrageous nonsense compared to the noble standards which have been adopted in our society. Now let us pause here for a moment and ask a question : Have you appointed a Commission to go into the social, political, economic and the moral implications of the structure and functions of this society ? Have you got a report based upon a study of the psychology that lies behind this structure which has endured the buffets of time and circumstance for a period easily and admittedly, of five thousand years and perhaps which has gone back to thirteen thousand years and may be, possibly to thirty thousand years, because there are all these three versions about the age of the Mahabharata and the Vedas, about the age of our society and ancient civilisation. How is it that you don’t do that. If you want to give tariff assistance to a little quantity of iron that is being imported from Antwerp, you appoint three people drawing Rs. 3000 each, constitute them into a Tariff Board, obtain a report from them based upon the evidence that has been led by all the capitalists in the country, then you consider it in the Finance Department, you place it before the Assembly and then you grant that tariff weightage. What have you done with regard to our society ? You snap your fingers at it—this ancient society, this relic of ancient barbarism, this vestige of antiquated stuff! No; you say “let us go the whole hog”. We have cast our universities after the style of London ; we have adopted our legal system after the style of High Courts in London and we have carved out Legislative councils and legislatures after the manner of the Parliament in the West, and now it only remains for us to copy the Western society. Western manners, Western social institutions and Western civic laws. Please do not mistake me. I have

DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES670 been in sympathy with divorce for a long time. I have been thinking of divorcing my wife and I have also heard that she wants to reciprocate the honour. That is not the point. I tell you I am in sympathy with many of the items of this measure. But I want to tell you what kind of approach and attitude you are adopting towards the institutions of India after you have attained Swaraj. This summary, this absolutely impromptu method of dealing with this question does not appeal to my fancy, much less to my conviction. But I know that you will tell me : “Oh, this Bill has been hanging fire ever since the Congress left the portals of the Legislature.” Yes, it has been hanging fire ! You however, remember that in 1938 July, the Congress passed a resolution that it should walk out of the legislature because armies had been sent to Egypt and to Singapore, which were then considered the frontiers of India. So, as a protest against that act, and as a protest against the breach of the pledged word of the Government who said that they would not send any armies abroad without the specific permission of the Legislature, we walked out and ever since we never walked in until 1946. During this time, men who were not patriotically inclined, men who were the proteges of Western civilisation, men who had spent their whole time in England or abroad, were put into a Committee and they evolved this formula for us. I got in 1944 October the first report on the Hindu Law Reform Committee while we were in the Ahmadnagar Jail. Now the main inspirer and agent of this measure was Shri B. N. Rau to whom we owe all that we have achieved in the New Constitution. He is a lawyer noted for his knowledge of constitutional law, case law, codified law and customary law and one who has done yeoman service to us. He was a Judge to the Calcutta High Court in Bengal where Dayabhaga prevails. I suppose you know Mitakshara prevails in Madras and one or two other provinces while Mayukha is the Law in Bombay. This gentleman who never had any experience of Mitakshara and who was a Judge of the High Court of Calcutta and whose knowledge of law is absolutely unquestionable has initiated this. Later on the Congress Party or the popular party never had the opportunity of discussing this question in the Central Legislature. When Mr. Asoka Roy came as Law Member, he said that he would not touch this Bill even with a barge pole. (Shri Mahavir Tyagi : What is a barge pole). A barge pole is a pole which is used to drive a barge on the waters. After all, this matter has come up ; and as if we have been waiting for it in eagerness and expectancy, we have taken this up without so much as mentioning a word about it in our election manifesto.

DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 671 Have you ever come across a party which draws up a comprehensive election manifesto covering all questions from China to Peru and contemplating the nationalisation of the key industries, abolition of drink and zamindaries and various other things, but never saying a word about social reform which is the central factor relating to India ? It is not merely a piece of social reform. In India society is closely mixed up and intertwined with religion. Religion is the sanction behind everything. Now I am a most irreligious man, but I have the greatest regard for the sentiments of my neighbour. Otherwise, I am an uncultured brute. If I want to practise my heresy upon the convictions of others then I am not worth the salt that I eat. Now then, not merely religion, but economic factors, social factors and other things are intertwined. The joint family system is the creation of ages. What is this joint family system ? It is an insurance trust; it is a co-operation union ; it is a labour society. It is a labour society where all the poor brothers toil; it is a cooperative society in which all the brothers live together—each for all and all for each, and it is an insurance union in which the widow of the deceased brother is the care and charge of the surviving brothers. This is what the Mahatma said when he opposed insurance. But I know everybody is not Mahatmaji. The Joint Hindu Family is a noble combination of these three features based upon a religious background and held together by a social bond. Can you produce an equal to it by all your labours, by all your statutes and by all the Halisbury’s Laws of England ? You cannot do any more than you can produce an equal to the economy of handspinning which the Father of the Nation rediscovered. Permit me, with my usual immodesty, to say that I wrote a Book in 1938 which is called “The Hindu Home Rediscovered”. As I entered life as a heretic, brought up in Christian traditions and western heresies, I began to discover in every festival, in every ceremony and in every religious observance of Hindu society there was something deeply religious, uplifting, inspiring and ennobling. When I lived with my sisters and my brothers, I rediscovered the Home and after twenty-five years I ventured to write this little book in which I have tried to idealise these things. I would not say that these ideals do exist in life, but when you judge an institution, you must judge it in its pristine purity, and not in its degenerated imitation. If you want to idealise any concept, popularise any institution and resuscitate it, then put it before the nation as it was conceived 5 P.M.

DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES672 and get the consent of the nation for it. I can assure you that wherever I go, I always state the pros and cons of every proposition on this Bill. This Bill may be good in parts as the Parson’s egg and it may also be bad in parts. If you say that you must do this for women because women have come to their own, yes, do it by all means, but why be in such a huffy ? I want them to come to their own, they have come to their own, and in the next Assembly I feel sure my sisters can fill half of the seats; out of five hundred, there can be easily two hundred and fifty women if they only make up their minds. Shri L. Krishnaswami Bharathi : Will you allow them ? Dr. B. Pattabhai Sitaramayya : I admired Rajkumariji when she said before the Provincial Model Constitution Committee that women did not require any reservations. I thought it was rather an audacious statement for her to make and a great responsibility to shoulder but I know now that they are quite able to take care of themselves. If half a dozen lady members of this House can drag us by heels and make us take up this Bill, I wonder what our position will be when there are two hundred and fifty of them here. I am not joking. If I have a voice at all at the time of selection, I may assure you that I will do it, notwithstanding Mr. Rohini Kumar Chaudhuri. [At this stage Mr. Deputy Speaker vacated the Chair which was then occupied by Shri S. V. Krishnamoorthy Rao (one of the Panel of Chairmen)] In this connection, I tempted to read a little statement that I have here from Picture Post of March 12, 1949. “From woman comes an incessant call for equality. What does she mean by equality? From the material point of view at least, she has the lion’s share. Probably ninety per cent, of all advertisements cater solely for her. Film producers say eighty per cent, of films are made for her. Fiction publishers appear to think entirely in terms of woman. As for clothes, woman has a wide choice and range at reasonable prices, while shabby, thread-bars man can only gaze for long at a few miserable suitings in some sombre shop window and think of the fantastic prices charged. With our prophetic eye, let us gaze into the future. Woman has got more than equality and man has become a spinster’s spaniel existing on woman’s scraps and everything is beautifully lukewarm.” I may assure my sisters that nothing will be lost by their exercising patience. I was the other day questioned for having appeared on an orthodox platform with a Swamiji from Benaras and when I saw