Vol. 14, Part II · pages 271–275

1051 DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL Shri Bhatt : We don’t want to frighten them. I remember that the Hindu Code Bill Committee prepared a draft of the Bill and it was presented to the House in April, 1947. In the statement of Objects and Reasons was this sentence : “ There is a growing public opinion in favour of codification and a uniform code.” Beides this our hon. Kaka Saheb Says, “It is difficult to say which side is stronger” Mr. Deputy Speaker : In the Official Report it will be difficult to understand who “Kaka Saheb” is. Shri Bhatt : I admit the truth of what you say. As Kaka Saheb i.e, the Hon. Minister Shri Gadgil said just now and others said yesterday, that the English knowing people and even those who do not know English but have progressive views, agree to this. But if this is true, why do so many demonstrations take place against this Bill ? Both sides demonstrate. Abound the Parliament House, those who are in favour of the Code Bill and those who are against it, both of them demonstrate. I know both sides have scholars and intelligent people among them and also men and women. Dr. Ambedkar : They are all lunatics. They are out because our lunatic asylums are too small. Shri Bhatt : Then Hon. Dr. Ambedkar says that those who are opposing the Bill are lunatics. I beg to submit with respect that I want to stand against this statement. If you call them lunatics, they would call you a hundred times bigger lunatic. I want to emphasise that if a person calls his opponents lunatics, he is living in an age with which we are fed up. During British Rule, such Government was here as neither listened to, nor tolerated what others thought. I don’t agree to Dr. Ambedkar’s statement, who has been compared to Manu, that his opponents are lunatics and are out because our lunatic asylums are too small. I agree….. Shri R. K. Chaudhari : May I say that we are losing all the humour because the hon. Member is speaking in Hindi. Those who know Hindi understand but we are not following him at all. Pandit Malaviya : It is not humour but grim humour. Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava (Punjab) : My hon. Friend does not understand, otherwise he would be somewhere else according to Dr. Ambedkar. Shri R. K. Chaudhari : I understood Dr. Ambedkar to say that those who were opposed to this Bill are mad. Is that in order ?

1052 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Mr. Deputy Speaker: He has not said so. Shri Bhatt: I was saying that Dr. Ambedkar may hold certain views and ray views may be different. After 1947 this Bill was sent to a Select Committee, which presented its report in August 1948. After that this bill again came up for discussion. As you are aware sir, our Government does not want to hurt anybody, nor does it want to do anything which might create a sensation among the people. So our Government consulted Pandits. Dr. Ambedkar also listened to what certain Pandits had to say. He gave them an opportunity to put forward their views, though not to their heart’s content, but they were given an opportunity all right. I do not know whether he accommodated their viewpoint or not, but after that he put forward something new and amended it. Now he is bringing forward new amendments every day and that is good ; there is nothing wrong in it. He wants that he should bring round his opponents, and taking their grievances into consideration, put forward an agreed legislation. With this idea in mind the Government have introduced this Bill and we are discussing clause 2 of the same. This Bill contains many different things, but if I have rightly understood, for the time being only two parts, viz., those relating to marriage and divorce are to be taken up. If we are going to take up only one thing as suggested by Shri Gadgil, who has expressed the hope that it would demonstrate our might. I would request them to stop there if they have any idea of what is practicable. I repeat what I said in an earlier speech ; and that is the Government should wait till the next House is elected within four or five months. Those who will get elected to the next House, will put this question before their electorate, before the people. This has become a burning question and it will remain before them. Put it before the people and the members of the next Parliament will get a mandate from them on this question or will tell their electorates what they would do when they sit in the new House. While speaking on the Child Marriage Restraint Bill in 1929, Qaid-e-Azam Jinnah had said, “It is necessary that children under 14 should not be allowed to marry. If my electorate does not agree to this, I will resign from the House, and they may elect somebody else to represent them”. We should be definite about what we want. The idea that we should not antagonise anybody, now that we have reached the last stage, should not enter our calculations. The best possible draft of the Bill should be put forward before us and we should clearly know as to how far we are to go. Why should you put only one thing before us ? We have to scrutinise every

1053 DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL clause. Dr. Ambedkar has become so impatient that he wants to bring forth a child, no matter if it is blind, devoid of limbs or unable to move. What he wants is a son so that he may have somebody to offer Pindas to him. An hon. Member : So that he may get deliverance ? Shri Bhatt: Pardon me. May he live for a thousand years ; I am speaking only figuratively. If Dr. Ambedkar and Pandit Jawaharlal feel so strongly about passing the Bill, we will bring round those who have been termed as lunatics. Use whatever methods you like to bring them round, to repress them, we are with you and may be we would also come under your influence but please refrain from passing a legislation that is incomplete, invalid and base. On the contrary it should be lofty. Why do you say that you do this and you do that just to accommodate us ? Don’t do it if you think it is not right. If we are elected to the next House we will say with more courage that we are armed with the mandate of the people on this question and we are not going to bow to the directives of anybody else. We will bow only to the will of the people. I am a quiet man and do not wish to prolong my remarks on this point. A couple of days back I had occasion to go to a factory. People working there asked me what all this fuss about the Hindu Code Bill was. I countered that question With the remark as to why they were afraid of this measure. They said “This is going to put an end to our religion, there would be chaos in our society and we will deteriorate.” So I had a talk with them. Many of them were intelligent people, who had read the draft Bill. We should not think that those who are opposing this Bill are doing so without understanding it. They referred to the provision about divorce and said that these days they can get divorce more easily according to the prevalent customs. “Why should you”, they said, “ drag us into the court and make us say that a woman is immoral and make the women accuse their men of adultery ? It is better to discuss these thing in our Panchayats and people who understand the truth about a particular couple will separate them.” Now, this needs a lot of consideration. Will Dr. Ambedkar argue that divorce rules, wherever they operate are very lenient and should not be so because that will endanger Hindu religion ? Hindu religion is not endangered because of that. There are others who say that Hindu religion will be endangered if this Bill is passed. We have to tax our brains to see which side is right. Everybody has to think. Then I asked those people in the factory as to what else they had in their minds. Then they mentioned the problem

1054 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES of the share of the daughter in her father’s property. What I want to show is that those who are opposing the Bill are not lunatics and that they are not acting without intelligence. Some members of the Adarsh Mahila Sangh came to me and put the same question. Now they are also wise and reasonable. No doubt, the hon. Member Shri Renuka Ray, Shrimati Durgabai or other lady members are wiser and more well-read. But that does not mean that women outside this House do not understand the significance of things or, as somebody said, that they are mere blockheads. The ladies I referred to just now, started discussing and said that we should do nothing that may bring down the whole structure of society. We have opened a way by passing the Civil Marriages Act. Persons marrying under this Act can also give divorce. Why should we go further ? Let our customs remain as they are. We do not say that a certain person should not do a certain thing. Gradually people would begin to understand. Shri Kunzru has spoken about monogamy. People don’t have enough to live on. In many cases it is difficult to support one wife even, how can everybody support two ? Muslims are allowed to have as many as four wives, but has everybody four wives ? In very few cases, men have two wives and very rarely one has four. I could not obtain census figures in this respect. Our Statistics Department is still far behind. The question now is, how Muslims came to be allowed to have four wives at a time. Hazrat Mohammad fought the battle of Ohad in which a large number of men were killed. The result was a preponderance of women over men, for the protection and upkeep of whom those who could support upto four wives were ordered to take that number of women as wives. This thing has happened in Germany and France at different times. In our country there is more or less a parity between the numbers of men and women. The number of women is some thousands less than that of men. (pandit thakur daS B hargava in the Chair ) But if, unfortunately, the number of women goes up by two crores, a new legislation will have to be passed to meet the new situation. I am going into detail to show that our laws were made according to the demands of time and place and even now they are being made according to the same standards. Dr. Ambedkar wants a legislation of that sort but that legislation should have the effect of healing. In our country marriage is not a matter of convenience only. He may be of the view that marriage is merely a contract, pure and simple. These words have

1055 DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL been used by leading lawyers. But the basis of our society is not only materialism. Our society is based on our ancient Shastras—the Shastras pertaining to agriculture, zoology and sociology. From the point of view of genesis the horse and the ass, belong to the same genus, as all of us are human beings. But human beings differ in different countries. A person likes the same sort of climate and environment in which he has been brought up. The same is the case with other living beings. Take somebody from Hissar to a new place and see the reaction. Take the case of trees for instance. Can a tree from Kashmir thrive in Rajasthan ? Many attempts were made to plant mango trees in Rajasthan but they all failed. After all there is some principle behind it. Land, seed, water and climate, every factor has something to do with it. You can’t plant a tree anywhere. The same is the case with marriages. You can’t marry somebody to anybody. Even for trees one has to consider which tree can be grafted upon another. I don’t want to go into details. My point is that our society is based on certain political, educational, hygienic, eugenic and sexological principles. If you want any proof of this, I will quote a portion of Dr. Bhagwan Das’s long speech which he delivered while presenting his Hindu Marriage Validity Bill. In this speech he quoted many things from the Shastras. Dr. Bhagwan Das said : “The hygienic and eugenic and sexological principle is that every possible care and caution should be exercised and all possible cleanliness and purity secured in respect of food and marriage and that persons with similarity of tastes and habits and purity of temperament should dine together and marry together so that the individual and racial-health and happiness may be promoted.” I do not see much in eating and dining. Even before Gandhiji I did not believe in this. But if you ask me to dine with a fish-eater I would ask to be excused. I do not consider him an untouchable, but I have formed a habit. If somebody asks me to marry a certain woman…. Dr. Ambedkar : There are not so many fish that could be supplied to everybody. Shri Bhatt : I was going through census figures and my friend Shri Sidhva and others may pardon me, when I say that I found from the census that many men marry at the age of 60 even. I, for one, do not want to marry. I was saying that compulsion cannot be used in regard to our way of life. One’s way of life should be according to one’s own temperament. It will come about after some time, if not today. I am sure that Panditji,