Vol. 14, Part II · pages 141–145

921 DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL Sir, you will pardon me if I say that the Hon. Law Minister would not have dealt with the House in the way he is proposing to do, hurling insults upon individual Members of the House if it were not for the declaration of the hon. the Leader of the House that he stands or falls with this Code. Shri Syamnandan Sahaya : Forget that. That is not the position now. Shri Biswanath Das : I am not speaking to the Members : I am speaking to you, Sir. I will be happy if the Members will leave me alone, though I very much like and appreciate their help. Therefore, I claim that the Hon. Law Minister has not been fair to the hon. Members of this House. Then, I come to the second assertion that he made and that is the declaration that there is lack of commonsense in those who demand a common code for India. Why ? I should have been glad to be favoured with reasons for an insult which I claim is not merited. He said not only that but he proceeded further and said that he could present a Civil Code in two days. Dr. Ambedkar : Yes. Shri Biswanath Das : Then by all means, let him do so. We have been waiting for it for the last so many months. If it is possible to let us have a common Civil Code in two days, by all means let us have it. Let him then favour us with it. Dr. Ambedkar : That will do, Mr. Das. You will exhaust yourselves. Conserve your energy. You are not in best of health, I find. Shri Biswanath Das : I take note of the advice tendered by my, hon. friend. I do confess that the caste system will do no good to India, that the sooner it goes the better. I cannot think of a society living on the Bhat Handi system, on a system which says that if anyone touches my pot of Bhat or cooked rice, or my roti, caste is violated, because he does not belong to my caste. That is harmful. Let us do away with that system. The sooner we do that the better. At the same time, do I not realise that my ancestors, my forefathers have founded a system much nobler and much higher than the Bhat Handi system ? pkrqo.;Z e;k l`"V xq.kdeZ LoHkko'k% I created the four Varnas (i.e., fourfold castes) according to the Gunas (i.e., qualities), Karmas (i.e., action) and the svabhavas (i.e., natures)

922 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Have the frame-work on the lines laid down in the Gita—that will be acceptable to all. Instead, what does my hon. friend do ? Instead of taking me upwards he takes me downwards. I could agree to go with him upwards, but…… Shri J. R. Kapoor : To heaven and not to hell. Shri Biswanath Das : To heaven or mid-heaven, but I refuse to go with him downwards. Dr. Ambedkar : You do not know how to choose your friends. Shri Biswanath Das : I am glad I have committed that blunder. Well, a common Code is not unknown. In Portuguese India you have it to-day. There are Hindus living in Portuguese India. Why not have it in India which is far more advanced than Portuguese India ? And if it is so easy to have a common Civil Code as my hon. friend says it is, let him come forward with it, and he will find at least some of those who are now against him will be with him. But, in respect of this Hindu Code, we cannot and we will never agree to go along with him. You cannot touch Muslim society, because then it will be the cry of religion being in danger. You cannot touch Christian society, then also it will be a question of religion being in danger. But you can kick Hindu society and have your new experiments propagated in that society with ruthless uniformity. We cannot agree. Being a man of sixty, I cannot agree with my hon. friend in his constitution of a society based on rationalism. In our country there had been eternal strife between spiritualism and rationality, and in that fight it is spiritualism that has come out and rationalism has gone down, and the rationalists were branded Nastikas and the spiritualists as Astikas. I refuse to be Nastik. The form of society that the Hon. Minister proposes through his Hindu Code is nothing short of a society for which agitation was carried on in India in days of yore, and the country as a whole rejected it and the country today I make bold to say, will reject and is bound to reject it. If my hon. friend refuses to leave it for option, it is because of his apprehension that society will not go with him. If he is afraid of a plebiscite it is because of his apprehension that he cannot carry the country with him. If he is afraid of any other legislature but a packed Parliament in an indirectly elected legislature, it is because of his apprehension that so bitter a pill as this cannot be swallowed by any other. It is these apprehensions that make the hon. Minister and those of his way of thinking to rush the measure through this Legislature. Because my leader the Hon.

923 DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL the Prime Minister stated that he stands or falls by this Code, and though that statement was made without the concurrence of the party, we have to stand by him. And we do stand by him, and I appeal to him and I do so through the Hon. Minister of Law…… Dr. Ambedkar : A bad medium. Shri Syamnandan Sahaya : But that is the only medium left. Shri Biswanath Das : If it is a bad medium, I leave it and I would appeal to you, Sir, for that is the only medium left to me now. Mr. Deputy-Speaker : This medium is colourless. Shri Biswanath Das : I appeal to him to eleminate the most controversial items in the Code so that there may be an easy passage. I have already stated, and I repeat it, that we cannot agree to this Code, and so far as I am concerned, even on my death-bed I will record my protest and say “no” to any attempt to constitute Hindu society on a rationalistic basis, as is being proposed in this Bill. My hon. friend said that he was only making the legislation easy. As a student I knew, and most of my friends here also know that we were accustomed to read not text-books but “made easies”. Some of the professors of the Calcutta university used to make a lot of money by bringing out such “made easies” editions. And I know the terrible trouble that the students had to take because of this. Hon. Members will find reference in the Calcutta University Commission’s Report— I think it is the Sadler Commission’s Report—to the system of cramming. It is called the “crammig system” and I refuse to follow that cramming system in Hindu Code ; and I implore my hon. friend not to think of constituting any society—leave alone Hindu society—on the basis of—I have no other expression by which to call it—of cramming. To give an illustration from ordinary life there are among Vaidyas both learned and quacks. The learned vaidya never takes to rasa or pashan: they dread them. But a quack throws open his batua and immediately treats you with rasa and pashan, such as mercury and arsenic. I refuse to have this arsenic treatment from my hon. friend and I would beg of him not to apply the treatment to a society which has lived thousands of years with harmony. Looking at the history of the world you will see that the Hindu family or the Hindu home is the only happy home you find. There may be difficulties in some cases, they are bound to arise in a society of 30 crores of people. But the fact remains that you do not have here the horrible and tragic

924 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES incidents that mar the social life of the West. I do not say that our society does not want changes, it does. Have changes by revolution or evolution as you like but let proper consideration be given to them before you launch on a legislation of this character. While talking of marriage under this Code, my hon. friend from Bihar, who is a jurist of eminence, stated that in marriage, the husband and wife are partners. I join issue with him on that. The Bill does not make them partners. If they were partners I would have little difficulty in accepting it. But the Law Minister is bringing contractual relations, thereby doing away with the sanctity of marriages enjoined by samskara. He is introducing contractual relationship of the Western type into our society and enforcing it in all its rigidity by means of registration. Are you going to have legislation for ‘haves’ or ‘have nots’ ? If you want to have legislation for ‘haves’ by all means have it with all your pleaders, vakils advocates, etc……. Shri Syamnandan Sahaya : ‘haves’ do you mean those who have wives ? Shri Biswanath Das : I am not concerned with them. You go to the mofussil. India lives in its villages and Indian life is village life. Barring the few upper class people, the rest of the people celebrate their marriages for ten, 15 or even less in some cases. You are now going to have registration departments with all their formalities, making it more expensive. I want to know from my hon. friend whether he has calculated what the expense under this head is going to be to the State. I record my strongest caveat in this regard against the Bills that have been thrust upon this House without any calculation of the expenditure that a Bill entails on State Treasury in its operation. I was a member of the old legislative council and I know that under the Devolution Rules it was a part of the business of the then irresponsible Government to calculate the financial implications of each Bill. I have a claim to ask my hon. friend to give us the financial implications of a Bill of this important nature and the expenditure it will involve on the State treasury. [mr. Speaker in the Chair ] You are going to have your cases mostly decided by the district court, which means a higher court than the Munsiff’s court. As a member I am being called upon to give my assent to this Bill. I have a right to know what is the money that I have to spend under each

925 DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL of the items. You are going to open registration department. You are going to have special marriage courts. I have a right to know what? you are spending now and what you propose to spend hereafter. It seems to me that the expense that the State would have to incur under this head would be unimaginable. Think of a population of 33 crores. You can laugh………. Mr. Speaker : The hon. Member may address the Chair. Shri Biswanath Das : I am sorry, Sir. The Hon. Law Minister may laugh or others may laugh. I do not worry. But I claim that Government have the responsibility to place a working sheet before the House to show what they would have to spend to give effect to the various provisions of the Bill as used to be done by former Governments. Taking one per cent of the total population as people resorting to courts your country will be flooded with courts and registration departments. Mr. Speaker : May I point out that we are at present discussing clause 2 of the Bill which refers to the application of the Code. The point that the hon. Member seems to make relates to the cost to be incurred in the administration of the provisions of the Code. Could that not more appropriately be taken up when we consider the question of marriages ? In the clause where it is provided that marriages shall be registered this question will arise. This is not the stage of a general discussion of the entire Bill. We are at present at the clause by clause stage. Therefore, instead of interfering with the hon. Member’s speech now and then, I would request him to reserve his remarks till we come to the clause which provides for compulsory registration of marriages. Shri Biswanath Das : Sir, I thank you for the guidance you have given me, which I bear in mind. But I have also to make my submission in this regard. There are amendments to clause 2 to the effect that State legislatures may be given the option to give effect to the provisions of the Bill after it is passed into law. Therefore I submit the question of finance comes in prominently in various States. You have been good enough to refer to marriage. But it is not about marriage that you have to spend money…….. Mr. Speaker : I referred to marriage because the hon. Member was referring to it. It was only by way of illustration that I referred to it. The State Governments would be required to give effect only in case the amendment is carried. But assuming 3 P. M.