384 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Mr. Chairman : No harm in sending a fresh slip.
Shri H. V. Kamath : Sir, before I resume the thread of my little speech,
I may assure you that I shall take much less lime than my honourable friend, Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava did.
Mr. Chairman : You have already taken an hour.
Shri H. V. Kamath : I said less lime than my honourable friend Pandit
Thakur Das Bhargava.
I was speaking about property: me basis for the allotment of property,
was the principle which was expressed by Kanwa after he bade farewell to Shakuntala. Kanwa said:
“ Artho hi kanya parakiya eva tamadya sampreshya parigrahituh jato mamayam visliadah prakamam pratyarpiiaryasa ivantaratmo.”
The first line, “Artho hi kanya” does not mean, as has been literally
translated, that a girl is somebody else’s property. It means that a girl separates herself from the father’s home when she gets married. It was on this basis that she goes into another household that in olden times. Vedic and later times, that a daughter was given no interest in the property, but ample dowry was given. Again, in the Vedic and later Smriti times, only when a father had no son, he appointed his daughter as the Putrika and such a daughter was equal to the son. This principle can very well be considered by our new law makers. They may try to incorporate the gist of this principle in the Code.
I wish agricultural property were completely excluded as it has been already excluded so far as the Governors’ provinces are concerned. I refer to Part VII Chapter I. Section 94 says: “This Part shall not apply to agricultural land in Governors’ Provinces;” Already, there is a cry against the fragmentation of land. We may hasten slowly in this regard so that this may not lead to further aggravation of this evil. As a matter of fact, if the entire land is nationalised, then no difficulty will arise; so long as this question is hanging fire and is not finally settled, we may decide to exclude agricultural land not merely in the Governors’ provinces, but also in the Centrally administered areas from the operation of this Part.
Now, I come to the great question which has agitated humanity from the dawn of time: I mean that of marriage and divorce. On this question, the principle that we should go by, that should be accepted in legislating on this subject must be, to my mind, “Marriage should be easy, but divorce difficult.” I think if this sound rule were adopted for law making, it would solve many of our troubles.