Vol. 14, Part I · pages 691–695

DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 673 Prabhavati Raje—she was a wonderful woman worker—leading the audience completely with her like the Joan of Arc of old, I saw the danger of letting orthodoxy do this. On invitation I went there and I spoke for an hour, and I was taken to task for appearing on the opponent’s platform. I said, “What is the use of speaking to those who are converted ? I must convert those who are not converted.” I fully believe in educating the people about this new Hindu Code Bill. You must not precipitate matters and decide this issue by force of majority. But whenever this may happen, it is our duty to educate the people. Let us produce the result by popular educational propaganda. After all you have not nationalised the key industries. Where has this item gone ? The capitalists struck and we had no money and we had to eat our words,— I believe in patience. One of these days things will be all right. We are afraid to do any nationalisation now. We are hesitating to abolish the zamindaries. We are hesitating to proceed with River Projects. We are hesitating to proceed with the development of cottage industries,—all because inflation is staring us in the face, and we cannot make all these necessary improvements. We are face to face with conflicts, contradictions all round. Life is not a smooth path like a journey on a railway. It is like a motor car journey upon bad roads in the midst of congested traffic. I ask you whether it is not the duty of the members of this august house to undertake the very useful and very fruitful task of educating their masters. What happened in the year 1878 when Robert Low said after the extension of the franchise. “Let us go and educate our masters.” Our masters are outside. We are not the masters. The Ministers are not our masters. We can deal with them as we like. We may dispense with them tomorrow if we do not want them. That is our right and that is our privilege and our safety also. Therefore I say that this is a matter in which we should go slow. I am second to none with regard to my love for social reform. I was a social reformer even in the year 1898 when I was in the B. A. class, which was 51 years ago, long before half of the audience was born, and ever since I have sustained that interest. I very early came under the influence of the Brahmo social reformers and I have fully imbibed the reformist spirit from the Christian missionaries under whom I studied from my fourth form to my B. A. classes. Therefore it is not what should be done on the subject that matters, but how we are going to do it. We have got to remember the political bearings as well. Tomorrow you are appearing before the Polls. What

DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES674 a sad plight we were in yesterday ! I was not here yesterday ; otherwise I should have witnessed the scenes with my own eyes. I went to Alwar and returned only last night at eleven o’clock and the first thing that my wife told me was that there was a lathi charge and some people were dangerously wounded and so on. Naturally the news is exaggerated from lip to lip and from ear to ear. It is a most pathetic spectacle again that I witness today opposite to me. Generally I speak under an impulse or inspiration, but today I speak under an irritation of the sight of three women Police sitting opposite to me in the gallery. Has it come to this that this house cannot get on and the women that are in attendance in the gallery and below cannot be trusted except under the care of the baton of the women Police ? Are you really proud that these police women should arraign our sisters hereafter ? We have had enough of policemen. You know this is the most tragic development of this Bill. The Doctor will kindly note and if you cannot come to this house without the protection of the Police, women police for the women and men police for the men, then woe betide our progress, our legislation and our Assembly. I am really very sorry. I now leave the general observations and come to one or two salient points with which we are concerned today here and before that I shall submit a word about the progenitors of this legislation. I am very sorry that it should have fallen to Dr. Ambedkar’s lot to pilot this Bill The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (Minister of Law) : I am not sorry at all. Dr. B. Pattabhi Sitaramayya : I know ; otherwise you would not be sitting so proudly in your seat. The doctor knows what I said about him. I referred to the indomitable, irresistible, unconquerable spirit of Dr. Ambedkar,—for good or for evil, whatever it be. We want always to say that the spirit is there and, therefore, we admire him, but at the same time, he is out of tune with society. Shri L. Krishnaswami Bharathi : He is perfectly in tune, absolutely in tune. Dr. B. Pattabhi Sitaramayya : I do not call him a misanthrope, but he is not a normal anthrope, that is all I can say ; the training, the surroundings, the environment, the culture, all these put him out of tune with the spirit of the nation. He is one of our best intellects, there is no doubt about it and I wish he would have health and prosperity for a long time, but all this does not mean that we accept his point

DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 675 of view with which we came into conflict even in the Constitution when we passed that steam road roller law of a common civil law. Some of us resisted, though in vain, with the best of our might and main. Now I recall to your mind something that I said in the first day when this Bill was introduced in this house. I hope many people have forgotten so that they may not blame me for repeating what I am saying. In fact, I myself have forgotten the main point, but that point was that, I take it., that social reform in this country must be effected through the intercession, through the advice and through the inspiration of a Social Council we must bring into existence. I then gave the example of the Church Council of England in which the ecclesiastical dignitaries form the main element of strength and whatever they bring in by way of changes in life or law, the House of Commons accepts without changing a comma or a full-stop and that is, as it ought to be, in regard to religious or social matters and let us adopt such a course. In Germany there used to be an Economic Council which dealt with economic matters which require expert knowledge. The Reichstagg used to accept the recommendations of that body. Let us, therefore, go slow and deliberately so that we may know exactly where we stand. Now I come to a few points in the Bill and I won’t detain you long. The Bill contains some very good points. I like civil marriage on the top of sacramental marriage. Mere civil marriage is like executing a document in order to register a transaction between two people. It is a contract. The moment a document is written, it gives rise to strife, whether the intention is correct, whether the consideration is passed, whether it is valid in law etc. but when it is a sacramental marriage, there is no appeal against it. The old purohit is never called upon in life to stand up in a court of law and give evidence as to the genuineness and the bona fides of marriage. The marriage is there and nobody questions ; it is like the integrity of the spoken word. When the nation has preserved the integrity of its spoken word, which it has lost during the British time and under the influence of the law courts, then I say, we shall have recovered our character once again. But there are circumstances such as those under which a friend of mine suddenly discovered on the marriage platform that his daughter and his would be son-in-law were of the same gotra. They could not possibly give up the marriage even at least for economic reasons, let alone religious reasons. So immediately they passed through the sacrament and then went to the Registrar of marriages and registered

DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES676 it. That it should be open to us to register our marriages is a great privilege and I also like that the question of the share of the property to the girls must be settled once and for all. For a long time I have felt that the daughter must be an equal inheritor of the father’s property with the sons. Now I see that it is going to bring about endless complications in our social and economic structure. There is a friend of mine who has six daughters and one son and I asked the girls one after another separately and individually as to whether they would like to have a share in the property of their father. No : they said, “this will give rise to quarrels with our brother. We do not want this. We have our husband’s property and that always remains with us.” It is not however available to them as the stridhana would be available to them. Stridhana is a most wonderful thing, and I should like to know where in the world is there a parallel to this stridhana ? The stridhana is an institution by means of which the stridhana given to the girl at the time of the marriage becomes the absolute property of the girl which cannot be touched by the husband or by the father or by any human being at all. It is the reserve fund of the family which she is sure of and when her husband is very ill, she goes to the market to sell the jewels away for paying the doctor’s fees and if the husband lives well and good, but if he dies, it is the last service to her Lord. Such a reserve fund is cast off and a share for the wife in the husband’s property under T. V. Seshagiri Ayyar’s Bill, which became law about 15 years ago, has now come to be recognized, but after the death of the husband, in equal measure with each of the sons and only as a life interest. Our law, in spite of the British people’s unwillingness not to interfere with the religious institutions of this country for fear of their political stability being disturbed, has been slightly changed as has been already described by one of the earlier speakers and yet it is not sufficiently changed. The unfortunate feature is that the British people felt loathe to interfere with the social customs of this country for political reasons and therefore the law has become petrified. In every country custom goes on changing and when the King adopts a change in social customs, immediately that becomes the law and it sets the tone and the pace for all society. But unfortunately in our country for a thousand years we have not had indigenous kings and after the British came, they positively resisted all temptation to make any social changes in the social set-up. Therefore the custom has become petrified and it is that custom, that petrified custom which

DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 677 we must make plastic, which we must make elastic, which we must make impressionable and therefore, mutable. Instead of doing that if we suddenly throw one stone of law against another of custom, both the stones break and that is not the way of achieving this change. Changes in this customary law must be set in motion in order to bring about social changes. Now with regard to this custom for the girl’s share I am quite willing that she should have a share, but I wish to make an alteration and that is that the moment she marries, she becomes a partner in the husband’s property and that will not give any chance for the misbehaviour of the husband as it sometimes happens unfortunately. Then we go to the divorce question. I have spoken to many women. This morning four women came to me. They are good people, highly cultured, and there was also one among them who was introduced to me as one who had been abandoned by her husband, and they said, it is not only those who are happy that withheld their support from this measure, but also those who are unhappy, the unfortunate victims of man’s fury and tyranny. That is not the point, I said to them. The point is this. Ninety per cent, of our marriages are exellent but what about the remaining ten per cent ? They want relief. In India we marry and love, the English people love and marry and then give up their love, because what is called love at an impressionable age is a fanciful affair. One does not know what it is. In Hindu society there is a law or rule that in respect of marriage Shree, Kulamu, Roopamu, Bandhu Shreni and Sampradayam, —all such things should be considered. All these have to be considered before a marriage is settled. Shree means Sampatti or prosperity, then comes Kulamu or caste and position, and then Roopamu, that is appearance, Sowndariya or beauty; and then Bandhu Shreni or collection of relations and then there is sampradayam or the tradition of the family. All these five have to be carefully considered. Can a girl of eighteen—quite marriageable in age—select by judging, all these things ? Can she distinguish between one and another among these things ? No. The other day I asked my wife’s sister’s husband’s sister. No, that is not a distant relationship, you know, my wife’s sister’s husband is my brother-in-law and his sister was married. But I learned that she had said something to her father before her marriage. I went to her husband’s house, with her husband accompanying me into the inner apartments and there I said to him, “ Do you know this girl never married you ?” He was