DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 361
turned out of the joint family. Without having the training to earn their own living, turned out of their homes, these women have been forced to live a life of shame. That is a question which the Hindu society must face. I am sure those who propounded the Hindu laws would never have contemplated such a state of affairs.
Women are the mothers of the race. No race can advance till its women can be responsible mothers and conscious citizens. There has been a good deal of propaganda done about educated women. A handful of educated women, it is said, want this Hindu Code or want this very halting and mild measure of reform. Sir, so far as women are concerned, it must be a handful because after all the educated element of this country is 15 per cent and the women who are educated are about 3 or 4 per cent even now. So, so far as the women are concerned it must be a handful, but behind them are, not today only but from decades past, the large mass of enlightened and progressive men who stand behind them. It is not the women of this country who alone are responsible for the fact that there is no suffragette movement, no feminist movement in this country—it is because their champions have been enlightened men, for decades past. Today the same state of affairs exists and I am sure that the majority in this House are also behind us. It is not a demand from the educated women of this country but a demand from all those who want that India shall progress. For, without women becoming conscious citizens taking the rightful place in society, it is not possible for us to progress.
Sir, it is well-known that slaves have resisted when the Shackles of their slavery were removed. It is a fact serfs have objected to freedom. What is more, coming to our own country, it was held by the British that it was only the wretched Congress agitators who wanted freedom but that the mass of the people were quite willing to remain in the pathetic contentment of thraldom. If you speak today of pathetic contentment amongst the women, it is true, it is perfectly true that many women are not yet conscious. But is that a reason that you will not awaken them, that you will not make them conscious, that they should not become equal with men in the joint enterprise that is before us today of building a new India in an atmosphere of freedom ? I ask, is there anyone who feels that it is possible to go ahead without the women of this country ?
Before I conclude, I will say a word or two about what my honourable Friend Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava has said : I must say that I could not quite follow him. This morning he called into question