Vol. 14, Part II · pages 291–295

1071 DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL I challenge the hon. Member to produce a single Member of the Sikh community who is in favour of this Bill completely and totally ? Shri A. C. Shukla : What about those outside the House ? Sardar B. S. Man : Again and again on the floor of this House, speaker after speaker has pleaded, let us not proceed with the majority of the Members here. Let us conduct a referendum of the people outside. If that is what you want, let it be referred to a referendum of the Sikh community. Till then it should not be passed with the majority of the Hindu Mebers here. I am not a Hindu. I have never followed the Hindu Law. I am constrained to say that this law is a conversion law for the Sikhs. You are bringing in totally obnoxious principles, certain novel innovations which have never been followed and which in the villages have never been heard of and you are forcing down our throats something alien to us. Even the ladies here, though few, are consulted and listened to and we the seven Members are unanimous about Sikh opinion that certain provisions which are retrograde and obnoxious should not be forced on us. My friend asks whether they have passed any resolution to that effect. My grievance is that Sikh opinion has not been consulted. The very fact that Dr. Ambedkar has not received the memoranda of the Sikh societies and S.G.P.C, which is an authentic body to speak on behalf of the Sikh community so far as their personal law is concerned as also their religious precepts shows that the Sikh community has not been consulted....... Sardar Hukam Singh (Punjab): Resolutions have also been passed in certain Sikh conferences against this Code. Sardar B. S. Man : My hon. friend Sardar Hukam Singh enlightens me that there have been resolutions. At the time of the original introduction of the Bill or at the time of the formation of the Select Committee no Sikh Member was either consulted or represented on the Committee. Dr. Ambedkar says that Gyani Gurmukh Singh Musafir was there. Would be then listen to his advice, if he was there ? If there had been a single Member of the Sikh community would he give due weight to his opinion ? He was not a member of the Select Committee then but when the House adjourned and later when Dr. Ambedkar agreed to consult more pandits and he had a sort of informal conference, incidentally then Sardar Gurmukh Singh Musafir was asked to give his opinion. If as he says that he consulted Sikh opinion in the person of Sardar Gurmukh Singh Musafir then please listen to his advice so far as the Sikh community is concerned. But the Government did not think

1072 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES it proper to include Sikh Members in the Select Committee and we of the Sikh community were never really agitated because till this day we were led to believe that agricultural property would not be touched and will be made an exception. Suddenly when this Bill is introduced we find that in his wisdom he has brought even agricultural property within the purview of this Bill. We were indifferent in the original instance because of the exemption of agricultural property and we never really applied ourselves to the provisions of the Bill. Now this Bill has suddenly emerged : it is a hotchpotch, it is retrograde in many respects and an advance in some other respects, it is a heterogenous combination and it is thrown at our face asking us to accept it. I frankly admit that I for one fail to comprehend its provisions and much less will the illiterate person or peasant in the villages. Much less so an illiterate person, a peasant in the field, because the peasant was told. “ do not be worried because it is not going to touch you”. My grievance is that Sikh opinion was not consulted to any apreciable degree. And now when you pass this Bill with the help of the Hindu majority here, it will leave a very bad taste and memory in the minds of the Sikhs that in spite of their unanimous opposition to the Bill, in spite of the fact that they were led to believe that most of the provisions of the Bill will not apply to them suddenly, at the fag end of the session it was passed much against the will of the community. An Hon. Member : Then let your Members show the opposition. Sardar B. S. Man : Yes. My esteemed friend, Sardar Hukam singh who can speak on behalf of the Sikhs in a much better capacity than myself has shown his opposition. After all, it is not a political matter that you may not accept his advice. It is not such a matter in which because he sits in opposition his opinion may be declined. On matters of personal law, on matters of religious precepts, on matters of adoption of Hindu communal law, you must accept the opinion of the representatives here ; and we are unanimously opposed to it. And if in spite of our opposition you proceed and make the provisions applicable, then it will be a strange thing—it will go down as something autocratic, something savouring of the communal. It so happens that we are only seven Sikh Members here. But we want that so far as religious matters are concered, so far as personal law is concerned, due weight should be given irrespective of the fact that a section may be numerically very much weaker. You have already made exceptions. I am not arguing on these lines because you have made exceptions. Because a Muslim is

1073 DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL allowed to marry four wives, I do not say that I should be allowed to marry four times. The fact is that you have made exceptions. Why ? Because you found that the law of the Muslims, the law of the Christains, so far as their personal law was concerned, was absolutely different. And since it was completely different and in many respects diametrically opposed to the Hindu Code, therefore you made an exception so that it may not be forced down their throat. That way you gave a latitude and thus you accepted the principle that irrespective of the fact that the Hindus may be in majority here they will not force a law of theirs, so far as their personal usage, religious precepts, etc. are concerned, down the throat of any minority. If you have accepted this because the Muslim Law and the Christain Law and even the Parsi Law is fundamentally different, then I may be permitted to prove on the floor of this House—on any given subject that you are trying to legislate, for example, marriage succession or divorce—that the Sikh Law is entirely different. Then I claim the exception which you have extended to the Muslims. Because the Muslims proved that they were governed by an entirely different set of laws they were given an exception. And if I prove here that I am also governed, in every single item which you are trying to legislate here, by a different law, and that my law is fundamentally different from yours, then I claim the same concession which has been extended to Parsis, Muslims and Charistains should be extended to me also. Mr. Chairman : The Hon. Member may continue tomorrow. The House then adjourned till Half Past Eight of the Clock on Wednesday, the 19th September, 1951.

1074 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES *HINDU CODE— contd. [9-30 a.m.] Clause 2. —(Application of Code )—contd. Mr. Deputy Speaker : Before the discussion starts I might inform the House that this is the sixth day of the debate on clause 2. Practically all shades of opinion have been covered. ( Interruption). It is not as if every hon. Member should be allowed to speak. The matter has been sufficiently placed before the House both for and against the Bill as a whole and also particular clauses. We must be able to see the end of the discussion so far as clause 2 is concerned. I would request hon. Members not to occupy the whole time but give opportunities to other hon. Members so that we might close the debate on the clause today. hon. Members will try to be brief and short, as all the points have been elaborately discussed already. † Sardar B. S. Man (Punjab): When the House adjourned yesterday I was advocating that the Sikhs be absolved from the operation of the Bill and I was basing my arguments on two counts. One was that we in the Punjab are predominantly agriculturists, who form 95 per cent. of the population and the Sikh community forms a predominent part among the agriculturists. We in company with other fellow agriculturists, both Hindus and Muslims, are governed not by a Brahmanical rule of law, but by an entirely secular set of laws. We are governed by customs, secular customs and they are different fundamentally from the proposed provisions of the Bill. Secondly, I said that Sikh opinion on this vital matter has not been consulted. I was dealing with the second point. I have now looked into the matter and gone into the entire body of opinion circulated to us in the report of the Hindu Law Committee and I find to my dismay that not one authentic opinion on behalf of the Sikh community has agreed to this Bill. ( An hon. Member. How authentic ?) There is an interruption asking how it is authentic. Perhaps many hon. Members in this House may not be aware that we have a statutory body for the Sikhs set up by law which votes according to the law made by the Government of India. There are 151 members who represent the entire community for the management of the gurdwaras and the administration of their religious laws. This body is known as the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee. Incidentally it may be taken in this House that this body is dominated by certain very very * P.D., Vol. XV, Part II, 19th September 1951, pp. 2841-98. †Ibid., 19th September 1951, pp. 2841-48.

1075 DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL aggressive or communal Sikhs but it will be a surprise to the House to know that at present its president is no less than Sardar Nagoke, a staunch Congressman. The body is entirely dominated by Congressites. This body which is not aggressively communal and which has been set up by statutory law has expressed its emphatic opinion against the Bill. Nothing can be more representative than the opinion of the S.G.P.C., let alone the numerous conferences and gatherings of Sikhs which have expressed their opinion against it. The Minister of Law (Dr. Ambedkar): Where ? Sardar B. S. Man: Outside the House, I ask the Government to take one position. Either pass this Bill because you are sure that the majority of the Members here, who are representatives of their communities, want it or you think that the representatives of a particular community are so outmoded that they do not represent the real opinion outside the House, which wants the Bill. Stand on any of these two positions either inside or outside the House. We are six members here representing the Sikh community. (An hon. Member : You said seven yesterday.) The senvth is from U.P. Even if you are prepared to base your position upon his opinion I am prepared to risk it, though I have not consulted him because I know very well the opinion of the agriculturists and he is one of them. We six Members here represent P.E.P.S.U. and the Punjab. You cannot say that we all belong to the same party. Here are Ministerialists, there is an independent like Sardar Sochet Singh, people who are diametrically opposed to Congress party like Sardar Hukam Singh, who is an Akali leader and there is the Congressman Sardar Gurmukh Singh Musafir. I ask the Government on whose opinion you have derived the impression that the Sikhs want the Bill. I challenge that we are unanimously opposed to it. Do not force it on us just as you have not forced it down the throats of Christains. The Christians numerically are almost the same number as we in the Punjab. You have made an exception of the Christains but you are not prepared to make an exception of the Sikhs, As representatives in this House we do not want it. If you say that people outside want it, I ask the Law Minister and the Minister of State Mr. Tyagi, who is now a Government supporter, to produce a single opinion to show that we want it. ( Interruptions) The Minister of State for Finance (Shri Tyagi): Indicated dissent. Sardar B. S. Man : I am sorry I reffered to Mr. Tyagi, as I thought that the interruption came from him, since I was opposing the Government and he was supporting it now.