DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 341
is a lawyer. He wants that this world may be peopled by lawyers alone like me and by nobody else. What would happen to these people ? Will they go to a district judge for dissolution of marriage or divorce ? ( An honourable Member, “Impossible”) And this is not sufficient. Even if he obtains a decree, it should be confirmed by a High Court, which so far as Punjab is concerned, to the High Court at Simla. Now, this procedure is unknown to people. It is a great tyranny upon those people. You are legislating for those who live in the Marine Drive in Bombay or in the palaces of Calcutta and Delhi and not for these poor people for whom you have such a soft corner in your heart.
Shri L. Krishnaswami Bharati : He wants to make it difficult. Do you want to make it easy ?
Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava : Another answer is that they want to make it difficult. I do not want to make divorce easy. Absolutely not. I am in favour of divorce on one condition only, that you enact laws in which it may be very difficult to bring about conditions in which divorce may take place. Chastity and continuity of family life are the very pivot of our culture. But if I agree to divorce, it is because I see so many deserted women. It is on account of that I agree. How can a poor man who is absolutely illiterate be able to engage a lawyer and go to a district or high court ? It is impossible to accept this. This old Act of 1869 was enacted, not for the poor people of the Punjab or any other part of India, it was enacted for Christians who were of the same caste as the then rulers. There is a world of difference between them and these people. If you go through the provisions from article 38 to 50 of the Bill, you will come to the conclusion that such a complicated and intricate procedure has been laid down that it is very difficult to follow it. If you think deeply, you will find that the whole Hindu society will rebel against you if you pass those provisions. According to your law, if a man marries his aunt’s (father’s sister) daughter, that marriage is good; if he marries the daughter of his maternal uncle— it is in vogue in certain parts of Bombay, I understand...........( An honourable Member: “And Madras.”). But so far as we are concerned it is regarded as highly incestuous. There is a very great difference. ( Shri Mahavir Tyagi: “ The man may be killed.”) Mr Tyagi is not very far being correct. It is a fact that in all the villages of East Punjab—and I speak with such feeling not because I want to speak with force but I regard it as true if you allow