DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 377
conference took place—it has been the tradition in this country to have conferences of all sorts and religious conferences were not an exception— an all-India religious conference took place in the prehistoric age and another in the post-Buddhistic age. They had been summoned not for mere academic debate but for the establishment of principles that should govern the spiritual life of the nation. The former was championed by the sage Yagnavalkya, the same as our law-giver and the latter by the great Shankaraeharya. The first conference, Yagnavalkya’s conference, was convened by King Janaka, the great Janaka, the karma yogi, when the sages assembled from all quarters of India, from Kashmir to Kanya Kumari and I suppose from Kliyber to Chcrapunji, are silenced, Gargi boldly rises on behalf of the women, championing the cause of the humiliated. That, Sir, is the ideal towards which our women ought to be progressing and which they will, I hope, attain. Ere long, Gargi is defeated, but only after putting up a tough fight.
In a second Conference, Sankara Acharya’s conference, the task of presiding over this momentous meeting falls upon Mandanamishra’s wife, Ubhayabharati. Now, it is very important—and I would like my women friends to mark this— that in the history of the world there is not a single instance of a woman being chosen as a judge of an important meeting and making such an exceptional demand on her intellectual ability as well as integrity. She gives—Ubhaya Bharathi— gives the verdict in favour of Shankaracharya. ( Honourable Members: Hear, hear,.) With the result that
her husband becomes a monk and a disciplie of his opponent, whose view henceforward becomes acknowledged as the paramount creed of the country. “In fact”, the author says—I am reading from the” Cultural Heritage of India “published by the Ramakrishna Mission—”It is not the original authors”— mark these words ‘it is not the original authors’—“with the emancipated mind of creative thinkers but the mechanically minded commentators”— Tikakars, not the smritikars, but those who wrote tikas —”who worked for the suppression of the rights of women, whom they bluntly assumed to be in league with ignorance and illusion.”
Now, Sir, many of our friends who are opposing this measure,— I do not mean in the House but those who are outside-they take their stand on Dharma. The other day I posed this question, “What is Dharma?”. One of the pamphlets issued by the Anti-Hindu Code Committee presumes to give us some advice, and what is that ? They