Vol. 14, Part II · pages 96–100

876 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Mr. Speaker : Order, order. Dr. Ambedkar : I have been asked to introduce the Gandharva marriage. It was that which I was discussing. Sardar Hukam Singh : I have no objection if our Chief Whip wants it. Then, Sir, I was submitting another interesting thing about adoption which the other parts of the country perhaps do not know altogether. I know of instances where girls have been adopted. They have been made heir to the property and they have succeeded. Custom has allowed them and recognized them. I humbly request you Sir, to say whether with the introduction of this Code, all these traditions, all these customs and usages are going to be thrown away to the winds. Is the society that has been built going to chaos now ? I believe that the laws should reflect the stage of advancement of society, the progress that it has made, not that a target be fixed and then the society be pulled up to reach that target. It was tried in Turkey but it failed there also. I request this Government to go slow. There must be cases on the extremes on both sides and I believe there are hardships now in certain cases, but you cannot avoid this. There would be such cases even if this Code is passed. I again stress that ‘adoption’ is a very old institution which is so dear to us and we cannot afford to lose it even though this Code may be passed. Then the third thing to which we have serious objection is about inheritance. As I observed a few minutes ago I am not opposed to give a share to the girls. I rather believe that this discrimination is only on account of the sex, that she should not get an equal share. It was remarked that it is not only on sex, but I think it is only on sex that she is not being given an equal share with her brother. Otherwise, there is no reason if they are off-springs of the same parents. I ask, why she should not have an equal share. I say on that ground alone, she must have an equal share. My objection is not on that account. What I submitted last time as well—perhaps it was on the 14th December 1949—that I would prefer that she should have an equal share in her parent’s property so long as she is unmarried and she should have an equal share with her husband as soon as she is married, in her father-in-law’s property. She must have a share. This should not disturb the present society and structure. We have pecular circumstances. I believe this Code would not apply to lands but certain. . . . . .

877 DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL Pandit M. B. Bhargava (Ajmer) : It will now. The official amendment is there. Sardar Hukam Sing : Sir, Punjab is a State of small holdings. Already they are uneconomic. Another thing is that we have smaller number of females than males in the Punjab. Dr. Ambedkar : Therefore, their value is great. Sardar Hukam Singh : Yes, Sir; you are going to increase their value but not to look to other things. That value can be, I should say, adjusted. As I said the number is already fewer. It is well-known that some time back people did not like that they should have sons-in-law and there were female infanticides. I tell you honestly and not as an argument that you would encourage that again, if you give a share, because that land-holder feels that he has already got an uneconomic holding, a pair of bullocks and a cow. It is not possible for him to part with those animals which are so essential for his cultivation. It is no answer to say that if a father had another son, how could he have dealt with him, he must have got a share. We are insisting that there should be a definite list of prohibited degrees, and we want to give the daughter in marriage outside that list. That is to say, a stranger would be brought in. He would not live there; he cannot associate himself with the environments. What he would do is to part with his share as soon as he marries the daughter. There are dissensions in every village; there are parties in every village. The friends would not buy the property; but the share would be sold to the enemy. This would create quarrels, murders and affrays. Shri Tyagi : He is right. Sardar Hukam Singh : I pray, kindly, do not bring this into the Punjab. Otherwise, you would create confusion and disorder there. Shri Syamnandan Sahaya (Bihar) : What fault have the other provinces done ? Why not plead for them also ? Mr. Speaker : Order, order; let us proceed. Sardar Hukam Singh : I thought that if I advocated their cause, somebody might question my authority and representative character. Therefore, I confine myself to my own province, and particularly my own community. Otherwise, just as I said at the beginning, I wanted that I should represent the whole of my province; I feared that I might be questioned.

878 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES I was submitting that that would create confusion and disorder and the whole society would be upset. That is not what is intended by this Code. That would not be progress; that would not be advancement, but would be rather a retrograde step. Therefore, so far as we are concerned, do not pull us back. Let us go on. You should consider us to be in the vanguard and follow us as we go further. That would be better perhaps for us, for the whole country and for all concerned. There is another thing that I wanted to submit. Shrimati Durgabai (Madras) : Sir, may I ask a question ? Mr. Speaker : It would be better that the hon. Member is allowed to go on without these arguments and counter arguments, if we really want to progress with the matter. All that I would earnestly appeal to all the Members is to be very attentive to the arguments advanced instead of putting questions at each stage. It is better that hon. Members hear all what a gentleman has to say and then advance their arguments. I am going to give full chance to all people who want to speak. Shrimati Durgabai : I am just asking a question, Sir,.... Mr. Speaker : Whatever that may be, let us allow the members to have their say. Otherwise, there are these interferences, these attempts to draw replies—I am noticing it, there are constant interferences notwithstanding my appeals not to interrupt—with the result that not only is the link of the speaker’s argument broken, but more time is taken, and I do feel that even the seriousness of the debate is being lost. We are here legislating on very vital matters. Let us, therefore, seriously and anxiously hear whatever every member has to say, instead of passing remarks or putting questions, just by way of explanation or drawing explanation on particular words. Let us be patient with the speaker. Sardar Hukam Singh : Then, Sir, I come to my last point, and that is rather painful. I want to bring it to the notice of the House that the Sikhs have already certain apprehensions; some might say that they are unfounded. Whatever it may be, we have this apprehension that there is an attempt to absorb the Sikhs and efface their traditions and culture. . . . Several, Hon. Members : No. no Sardar Hukam Singh : . . .usage and custom. They have certain grounds. They have always complained that they have not been fairly treated. One instance that they have cited is that while it was being

879 DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL announced that they are an integral part of the Hindus, when the President had to make an order about Scheduled Castes they were kept at a respectable distance. Under a recent Order of the President 34 castes have been declared as Scheduled castes provided they profess the Hindu religion. Only four castes, and that at the expense of all the safeguards that we wanted were allowed to be classed as Scheduled castes if they profess the Hindu or the Sikh religion. We have that complaint that whenever there is a chance to confer some benefit, then, we are not included or brought near and we are kept at a distance. But when there is nothing to be given, but only these usages and customs and traditions are to be effaced, we are offered an embrace, an empty embrace that might, rather, I should say, not be pleasant to us, because we love these customs and these traditions. We have adhered to them for a very long time. Therefore, I pray in all earnestness that we might be excluded from the sphere of this Bill. Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava : With your permission, Sir, I want to put a question, in respect of the last point of my hon. Friend. Is it not a fact that the Sikhs themselves came to Sardar Patel and agreed that only these four castes should be included among the Scheduled Castes and no others ? If that is true, if that is according to agreement, my hon. Friend is not entitled to raise this grievance here. Sardar Hukam Singh : It is a long subject. The Revered Sardar himself put in these words that these four castes could only be acknowledged, if the Sikhs gave up all the safeguards that they wanted. It was at the sacrifice of those things that these four castes were acknowledged, and they too only in two provinces, the Punjab and the PEPSU. They are not Scheduled Castes in other provinces. Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava : That is according to the agreement. Sardar Hukam Singh : No. Mr. Speaker : Dr. Ambedkar. Shri T. N. Singh (Uttar Pradesh) : Is Hon. Minister’s speech going to be in reply ? Several Hon. Members : No, no. *Dr. Ambedkar : Sir, I propose first to deal with my own amendment before I deal with the other amendments that have been tabled to this clause. * P.D., Vol. VIII, Part II, 6th February 1951, pp. 2462-73.

880 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES It will be seen that in the amendment which I have moved there are three specific points. The first point is that I propose to omit the word professing which occurs in sub-clause (1). The reason for omitting this word is that it has been felt that probably today as the Hindu society is composed, there are people who are Hindus, but who do not profess the Hindu religion in the theological sense in which the word ‘profess’ is used. In former times one could give the illustration of the Brahmo Samajists in Calcutta or the Prarthana Samajists in Bombay, two sects which were formed from out of the Hindu community, which openly declared that they did not profess the Hindu religion. As my friend Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava observed in the course of his speech there are many Hindus to-day who, so far as religion is concerned, prefer to adopt an eclectic attitude. They like to have something from some religion which appeals to them, and to that extent they are prepared to abandon the religion of their ancestors. If, therefore, the word “profess”. remained in this context, it would be open for anybody to argue that unless it was proved that a particular individual was a professing Hindu this Code would not apply to him. That certainly is not the intention of the Code. The intention of the Code is that it should apply to every person who belongs to the Hindu faith. I prefer the use of that terminology and it is therefore, to do away with any such ground for an objection founded upon the word “profession” that I propose to delete it. My second amendment relates to clause (d). Clause (d) as it stands, says that this Code shall apply to a convert to the Hindu religion. Now, as the house knows, we are using the words “Hindu religion” in a very broad sense; not in the limited sense in which it would apply to a person who believed in the Vedas, who believed in the infallibility of the Vedas, who believed probably in the Chaturavarnas, and who also believed in the performance and the sanctity of the yagnas as a means of salvation. We are using the word in a large sense, to include also Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs etc. who do not believe in these dogmas. Consequently, if clause (d) remained that the convert who is referred to in sub-clause (d) is the convert only to the Hindu religion in the limited sense of the word. In order to do away with that contention. I propose to use the new phraseelogy—“convert to the Hindu religion, Buddhist……..” and so on and so forth. My third amendment deals with the deletion of sub-clause (4). As the House will realise, this sub-clause (4) did not exist in the original