DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 353
present position to the position that we want to see enacted is very great and very violent. I would ask of the House to so arrange matters that this conflict is avoided.
Now, Sir, I come from a place in the Punjab where there are villages upon villages having the same gotra and they believe that they are descended from the same common ancestor. You know this sapinda relationship which restricts the line of ascent and descent to three or five is not sufficient so far as those people are concerned. I do not want to say that you broaden it further. At the same time this will be unacceptable and a thing with which we could never reconcile ourselves, if you ask us to allow a marriage of sapindas. This is an impossible position so far as we are concerned, and if you allow this then you are really cutting at the very root of our social system as is enjoyed in the Punjab for a very long time. This is my feeling also for the whole of India. Of course, I do not speak for the rest of India because there are certain gentlemen who question it. My view is that in the whole of India the position should be the same. Well, I am not dogmatic about it, but this is a very wrong rule that we are enacting and that the requirements of section 7, that marrying couple should not be sapindas should be waived in so far as registered sacramental marriages are concerned. So far as the Sarda Act went, a marriage once celebrated according to the Hindu Law and our notions, was always indissoluble. We are making a break from this rule in so far as we are providing for disrupting marriage by codes or customs. Otherwise when rule 3 has been abrogated, you can convict a man and send him to jail. I have submitted to the House through a Bill that where a person not of proper age is married, instead of a fine he should be imprisoned and the law should not be vested with the discretion that he should be allowed to go free. The whole country was against the Sarda Act and the present provision shows that if Rule 3 is followed, then the marriage will become avoidable. This is going against principles which we have not accepted for more than 20 years.
So far as the main provisions in the Hindu Code are concerned, I have dealt with them in brief with a view to bring them to the notice of the House and since my feeling is that the Bill is not to going to be throttled out, I will deal with those matters when the clause to clause stage is reached.
To sum up, I want to say that so far as this House is concerned, it will be well advised in either sending this Bill out for circulation,