Vol. 14, Part II · pages 326–330

1106 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES even those who are impatient of even the existing restrictions, who would rather liken our society to an aping of some other society somewhere else, irrespective of the suitability or otherwise of such application to our particular genius ; even to them this Bill cannot be acceptable. It is on that basis that I make the claim that by far the large majority of people in this country are opposed to it. The orthodox people, those who have their roots in the traditions of old, are upset over it. But those who have a certain amount of social liberty......... Dr. M. M. Das : On a point of order. The hon. Member is only repeating what has been said ad nauseam in this House. He has no new argument; he is only repeating what other Members have said. Pandit Malaviya : I had heard that in the case of a certain type of mankind, which is often under the influence of a certain intoxicating habit, even some of the best victuals placed before him bring him nausea ! I am not surprised at my hon. friend ! Shri Bharati : Will it not facilitate clarity of understanding if the hon. Member confines his remarks only to the subject under discussion, namely, marriage and divorce ? Pandit Malaviya : I have probably not the clarity and the ability of my hon. friend Mr. Bharati. Mr. Deputy Speaker : I myself wanted to suggest to the hon. Member that now that the scope is limited to marriage and divorce, his observations may be confined to those. The hon. Member may feel that the points made by him may not have been put as forcibly as he is doing at present. Anyhow some of them have been covered : he need not go into them at great length and may confine his observations to points which have not been touched. Shri R. K. Chaudhari: I would respectfully like to point out that even if there are repetitions, we should like to know the opinion of a distinguished person like Pandit Malaviya. Dr. M. M. Das : On a point of privilege—the hon. Member is making a distinction between one Member and another. Pandit Malaviya : I lay no claim to that distinction : I do not think any hon. Member need be frightened by it. Mr. Deputy Speaker : I expect this debate to conclude today ; let there not be any more interruptions. Pandit Malaviya : I am greatful to you for your guidance. What I submit is that the Bill may have one clause in it relating to the social

1107 DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL structure of the Hindus or may have a hundred clauses in it relating to the social structure. But if it is going to affect the social structure of the Hindus, nobody can proceed with the matter unless he discusses that social structure and the way that clause is going to affect it. Social structure cannot be taken piecemeal in watertight compartments. It is not practicable. After the discussion that has gone on before, I have a feeling that it will not be quite possible and correct to take a lop-sided attitude about one particular matter alone and leave the general aspect out. But I might assure you, Sir, that I shall throughout be guided by yourself and if at any stage you should think that I should not carry on with any particular argument that I may be making, I shall at once obey you. It has been said that this Bill will now be confined to the two items of marriage and divorce. As the Hindu society stands, its entire structure rests upon the foundation of marriage. There is nothing in Hindu society which can be separated as unconnected with the marriage system of the Hindus. It is, therefore, not possible to discuss the marriage section of the Hindu society-without referring to the general aspect of the society as a whole. Whatever I was saying applies directly to the item of marriage and divorce also. What I was saying was that it is therefore as much the orthodox section of the people who will be opposed to this measure as the others—about whom so much has been said by some hon. Members in this House yesterday and the day before, as forming nearly eighty per cent of the population, among whom it was said the very provisions which have been proposed in this Bill exist today. I have my own doubts if that is so. For the large majority of those people who have today facilities of divorce and easy marriage, the provisions of this Bill are going to make a world of difference. I am not expressing any opinion of my own on the merits of these proposals. I am merely mentioning that to the simple men living in the villages today, who have not had the opportunity and benefit of the same growth, intellectually, morally, emotionally and spiritually, as some other members of society, like my esteemed friend the Hon. the Law Minister, have had—to them the habit of restraint, the habit of a discrimination between the finer shades of the good and the better, the bad and the worse, does not come so normally and spontaneously in some matters at least as it does to the others. Hindu society has been divided into groups not with any inhuman or malicious object of injuring any section or doing any

1108 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES injustice to any section. I do not wish it to be misunderstood that I do not believe that injustice has been done to some sections of it. Injustice has been done, hardships have been inflicted, atrocious hardships have been inflicted, and there will be no reasonable man who will hold any brief for the same. But I am talking of the principles and the broad concept on which those divisions were based. They were not meant to injure, they were not meant to inflict any hardship. Shri Munavalli: But what has been the effect ? Pandit Malaviya : The effect will take me long to describe, because the effect has been varying from age to age and if my hon. friend will take the trouble of reading through the pages of history he will know them well enough for himself. Mr. Deputy Speaker : But is a discussion on that point necessary for marriage and divorce ? Pandit Malaviya : What I was wishing to point out was that in the very nature of things we can only expect one thing from one individual and another thing from another. If any abstruse point of law arises today, we can reasonably and legitimately request our learned Law Minister to put us wise on all aspects of it. You may not be able to get the same information and the same light from an ignoramus like myself. (An Hon. Member: No, no.) (Another Hon. Member : That is only humility.) There may be equally another thing about which another individual may be able to tell us many things but about which my esteemed and dear and learned friend Mr. Bharati might prove a complete ignoramus. In society there is a class of people to whom the real zest of life, the real zest of existence, the incidence of life from moment to moment, from hour to hour, from morning to evening and from evening to morning, is, if not the in-all and out-all, a very large portion of the totality of their existence. For them today’s marriage and divorce laws have been framed with a view to simplicity and easy availability. A man can today, or a woman can today discard a marriage relation and take up another almost in the twinkling of an eye. Such people will have to wait for months, they will have to go through law courts, they will have to go through the entire gamut of procedure before they can do the same under the provisions in this bill. I am not expressing any opinion on the merits of the matter. I should personally feel happy at, and I should like to congratulate the Law Minister for having conceived that improvement, but I am talking of the practical effects. In the practical effect there will be murders in the villages.

1109 DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL Dr. Ambedkar: We have enough police. Pandit Malaviya : For a man who is still in a large measure in the animal stage......... Shrimati Renuka Ray : Question. Pandit Malaviya : I do not say this in any sense of disrespect. I am only talking as a sociologist. If those men find new impediments put in their way, impediments to which they have not been used, to which they are not accustomed, and they find themselves thwarted in a tiresome manner, they may not have in themselves that much of restraint, they may not have in themselves that much of development and control that they should wait for the law, and society may be faced—among the eighty per cent of whom so much has been talked about—with an upheaval which is probably not even imagined today. Therefore, I said that this Bill is not only not welcome to those who, like me, would rather that the traditions which have come down from ages past should be respected and upheld, but even to those who are going to be affected by it in a much larger and more immediate measure. I may submit respectfully that some of the Members of this House who have been so loud and enthusiastic with regard to the provisions of the Bill have little in common with those people. Dr. Ambedkar : Not even me. Pandit Malaviya : Certainly not the Hon. Law Minister ! The Hon. Law Minister has been likened, even profanely, to no less a sage than Manu himself and I am reminded of a shloka. (Interruption ) Somebody asks me why I am jealous. Unfortunately or fortunately I am not so built that I should have the privilege of being jealous towards the Hon. Law Minister. Dr. Ambedkar: How can a Brahman be jealous of an untouchable ? Pandit Malaviya: Better tell them ! I am reminded of a shloka where Kumbhakarna asks Ravana ( Interruption ). If hon. Members will just bear what that shloka says, probably they will feel slightly better human beings than before. Kumbhakarna asks Ravana why in his attempt to win over Sita’s mind, with all his demoniac powers of changing his appearance, he does not take the shape of Rama when going to her, and Ravana says : “The trouble is, the moment I take the shape of Rama or think of him, the mere association with the thought of Rama makes it impossible for any evil thought to come

1110 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES into my mind ! ( Hear, hear). (Hon. Members : Repeat the shloka. ) I will repeat many shlokas if my hon. friends will get me the time for it. Similarly, about Manu. I was saying that if we can expect a certain thing from members of this House—of course, there can be no possibility of their needing to go through divorce in matter of minutes—we may not hope that the same thing will be done by those 80 per cent of people also. Therefore, we should be cautious in our approach to this matter. If anybody can controvert that aspect of things. I would like to hear him do so. I, therefore, repeat that this Bill is not only disapproved by the orthodox sections of the people but also by far the largest majority of the inhabitants of this land. ( Some hon. Members : No. No.) Somebody says, “For other reasons than what you have stated”. May be, but the fact remains, that whatever the reasons it is not approved by the large majority of the people. I shall come to the Bill itself. It has been said that as only Part II of the Bill is now to be proceeded with, it is not necessary now that this Bill should be called the Hindu Code Bill. Indeed, irrespective of the fact whether the other Parts were excluded from it or not, personally, I should have had a little less objection to the Bill if it had not been called the Hindu Code Bill. In our Constitution we have given the name “India, that is Bharat” to our country. Why was this Bill not called the Indian Code” ? I am not going into that question that it should apply to everybody. I am not concerning myself with that. I am not saying this on that basis. But this country being named “India”, if this code, had been called the “Indian Code”, it would have had a different meaning and import. Once we say the “Hindu Code” the entire picture of what that word denotes comes to the mind. We must, therefore, know and keep into view what the word “Hindu” means. It is a difficult word to explain in a sentence. But if there is one feature in Hinduism which one might mention as of outstanding preeminence, it is the practically limitless tolerence and catholicity of that system. Our Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, has himself talked of Hinduism and has said that it is probably best described by saying that it rests on the principle of live and let live. We have among the Hindus the most diametrically opposed viewpoints. We have in the highest caterie of sacred literature and philosophical schools the six Darshanas, one of which sparkles with the brilliance of the razor-sharp incision and acumen of the intellect