Vol. 14, Part II · pages 391–395

1171 DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL Shri Syamnanda Sahaya : If he goes on like that, the situation may become worse. Dr. Ambedkar : I am entitled to express my opinion. Mr. Chairman : Order, order. Shri R. K. Chaudhari : Why don’t you ask the Minister to sit down? Mr. Chairman : What is the meaning of this ? There is a regular uproar. Hon. Members must maintain order. Shri R. K. Chaudhari : If the Hon. Minister does not sit down, does that mean order ? You only want to control us; not others. Dr. Ambedkar : My point is this (Interruptions ). Sardar B. S. Man : I take his retort in a sporting spirit. His speech is equally repugnant to us today. Dr. Ambedkar : I am prepared to accept that. Mr. Chairman : All that I can say is that Hon. Members should have left it to the Hon. Members concerned to whom the Minister’s remark refers. Dr. Ambedkar : My point is very simple. There can be no dispute that Indians as such are excluding the Muslims ... Shri Sondhi (Punjab) : They are not Indinas. Is that so ? Dr. Ambedkar : Let me go on in that way, because I do not find exact qualifying words. We non-Muslims, so to say, are not a very united family. I do not think it is desirable to take an unrealistic view and say that we are all one. We are not. But I do say that we ought to make an attempt to come together as far as we possibly can, and we ought not to sow the seeds of discord all the time. When anything of a unifying nature comes before the House, if somebody gets up and says. “Well, we do not belong to this group and we do not want to be governed by this law” ... Sardar Hukam Singh (Punjab) : Why did you not appeal to the President when he was making a declaration as to who would be the Scheduled Castes ? He has made that distinction. Dr. Ambedkar : It may have been done because of his generous spirit, if you will remember what happened. Now, that is what I do no like. In my judgement, we ought all of us to make a very sincere attempt to come together, at any rate. Each one of us may have our religious beliefs. One may believe in a God and one may believe in a soul. Those are spiritual matters. But is it not desirable that notwithstanding the differences that we

1172 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES may have so far as our beliefs are concerned, we should try to evolve one single system of law by which we may be bound in our interrelations ? Sardar Hukam Singh : Should this not start from you ? Dr. Ambedkar : Why should you all the time keep on saying. “I am different. I am not governed by this and I am not governed by that. Therefore, do not make your law binding upon me”. That is the point of my protest. Shri A. C. Shukla : Natures differ. Dr. Ambedkar : The gravamen of my hon. Friend Sardar Man’s charge was this that the Sikhs have not been consulted in this matter. My answer to his point is two-fold. If the Sikhs, have not been consulted as Sikhs my contention is that there was no necessity to consult them ... Sardar B. S. Man : Oh ! Dr. Ambedkar : Please let me continue. …..because all along the law has assumed that the Sikhs for the purposes of law are Hindus. I have examined Mulla’s Hindu Law which is a very handy volume and if my hon. Friend were to refer to the index to that volume he will find certain Acts passed by the Legislative Assemblies of this country to amend the Hindu Law, he will find any number of them. But I would like my hon. Friend to point out to me whether in respect of any of those laws which have been enacted by this Parliament effecting a change in the Hindu Law—and made applicable to the Sikhs—they ever consulted the Sikhs or they ever omitted the Sikhs. Sardar Hukam Singh : Because custom prevails there. Dr. Ambedkar : I do not find any such instance of consultation at all. Whenever a law has been passed to amend the Hindu Law, it has been made applicable to all persons who have been by frequent judicial interpretation included in the term ‘Hindu’. Pandit Maitra : Then what is the necessity of putting it here ? Dr. Ambedkar : Because men like you might doubt. Now I come to the other part and wish to prove that the charge that the Sikhs were not consulted is not founded on facts. I have taken the trouble of going through the evidence taken by the Rau Committee when it toured and went to Lahore. I find that the following persons appeared or made statements before that Commitee. The first person to whom I wish to refer is Justice Teja Singh of the Lahore High

1173 DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL Court. He, as a member of the punjab High Court, wrote a statement for the Rau Committee. I have gone through the main part of it but I have not found any single statement by Justice Teja Singh that this law should not be applied to the Sikhs. I do not know whether my hon. friend accepts that Justice Teja Singh has some right to speak in the name of the Sikh community. The other gentleman whose name I find from the records is Sardar Varyam Singh. He came as a representative of the Akali Darbar and no doubt he said that this Bill should not be applied to the Sikhs, because the Sikhs, he contended, were a more liberal people. Sardar Hukam Singh : Who was this gentleman ? Is there any description given about him? Dr. Ambedkar : Secretary of the Akali Darbar—that is the description that has been given in the records. The other person who had given evidence before the Rau Committee was Sardar Iqbal Singh. He was a lawyer and he came in his individual capacity. (Mr. Deputy Speaker in the Chair ) Sardar B. S. Man : What did he say ? Dr. Ambedkar : He said nothing. Sardar Hukam Singh : Then he can be safely quoted ! An hon. Member : Let him read his statement. Dr. Ambedkar : Here is the record. You can have the whole information you want. He said nothing against this Act being applied to Sikhs. Then Sardar Harnam Singh, at present Judge of the Punjab High Court, came and gave evidence, not in his capacity as a Sikh but in his capacity as a represntative of the Bar Council. There again, he raised no such question at all that it should not be applied to the Sikhs. Sardar Hukam Singh : But what was his opinion about the Hindu Code Bill ? Dr. Ambedkar : He has not opposed it. Now, I come to an important circumstance to which I would like to make definite reference. The House will remember that after the Bill was introduced in the House by Mr. Mandal—and it was introduced after the Rau Committee’s investigation was complete—even then Government promised that they would issue an executive circular to the various provincial Governments and invite their opinion on the Bill as introduced. That circular was also sent to Punjab.

1174 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Shri Sondhi : In what year was that ? Dr. Ambedkar : 1947. Shri Sondhi : Before the partiton ? Dr. Ambedkar : No. After the partition, because the letter has been issued to the East Punjab Government. I will give the substance of the letter from the Home Secretary to the Government of East Punjab to the Secretary to the Government of India, Legislative Department, New Delhi, No. 211, dated the 3rd October 1947. In that the following statement is made: “I am directed to forward a copy of the letter so and so from the Registerar of the High Court of Judicature, Lahore, reporting the views of the Hon. Judges, etc. The Punjab Government also invited the views of the Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners, the High Court Bar Association, and five divisional headquarters, as well as of the nine selected non-official organisations believed to be representative of the Hindu and Sikh opinion. Only one of the latter Shri Sanathan Dharma Prathinidhi, Lahore, replied.” I do not think in the face of this my hon. friend can say that no attempt was made to canvass the opinion of the Sikh community. My Hon. friend also said that of the seven members consulted six opposed it. He may be knowing something more about it. I am however entitled to say that before my Hon. friend made his speech, I had one or two conversations with him. He told me that he was particular about the Anand marriage, or the customary ceremony and I told him that although we were passing this Bill, we are not abrogating the Anand Marriage Act which has been passed by the Assembly in order to regularise certain ceremonies which the Sikhs perform for the soleminisation of their marriage and I thought that he was perfectly satisfied with that. But it may be that some other reason has come to the surface which has made him to give rise to these hidden feelings which oherwise might have remained locked up in his breast. My. hon. Friend read out a judgement of Dr. Bakshi Tek Chand— it is reported in 10 Lahore. Kabul Singh’s case. I have examined the facts of this case and the rationale of the case. The only point of dispute was whether a marriage between a Jat Sikh and a Mazhabi woman was a legal marriage or not. It was contended on the other side that it was not a legal marriage because the Jat belonged to a superior class and the woman belonged to an inferior class and inter-caste marriages were not allowed. Mr. Justice Tek Chand held that the Jats were sudras and the rule that applied to thraivarani did not apply to sudras and the untouchables are treated by Shastras as sudras. It is a marriage between sudras. Therefore, it is valid.

1175 DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL Sardar B. S. Man : There is difference between an untouchable and a sudra. Dr. Ambedkar : But that is the decision of the court, my hon. friend. The courts have treated both as sudras and you know very well there is distinction on that point. The only point on which my hon. friend could rely was that the Sikhs are liberal and that they do not observe caste. Well, on that ground he ought to welcome this, because we are abrogating caste throughout. Therefore, it is in no sense in conflict with what is happening in the Sikh community. Sardar Hukam Singh : Our complaint is that we are far in advancer of the stage to which you say you are bringing us up. Please do not pull us down. Dr. Ambedkar : Different people have different notions about advancement and I have my notions about it. Advance may also mean no law—anarchy—that also may happen. I think I have dealt with all the points that have been raised by the various speakers on their amedments. Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava : Are you not perpetuating the caste system by accepting the proposal that caste panchayats should decide divorce cases? Dr. Ambedkar : Why talk about it when we have not reached it ? We have not reached that. We shall see it then. For the moment I have dealt with all the points and given reasons why it is not possible to accept any of the amendments proposed by hon. Members. The only amendment that I am prepared to accept is the amendment moved by Dr. Bakshi Tek Chand by which he proposes to substitute the word “followers” for “members”. Shri Naziruddin Ahmad : May I have your permission to correct; ; a ‘mistake which has crept into the debate in the speech of Dr. Ambedkar ? (Interruption ). Mr, Deputy Speaker : If he makes any particular mistake it is for him to correct it. The hon. Member will point it out to me. It is not necessary to speak on that. Exception of that kind can be taken to whatever he has said in his speech but it is not our business to go on correcting the speeches. There are a number of amendments that have been tabled. Hon. Members might have forgotten what the amendments are that have