DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 435
Further, my honourable friend suggested that we are attempting to destroy Hindu Society. My own feeling is that, here are about 290 persons who are in close contact with Hindu Society ; here we can come together, ventilate our views and come to some agreement and adjustment and pass a legislation calculated to secure the further progress of Hindu Society. When Manu, Parashara and Yagnyavalkya wrote their smritis, they had not the benefit, I should say, of any legislature. They were undoubtedly great men ; but I do not think that the race of great men died with them. On my left, I find a person so great in scholarship and character that it would not be wrong on my part to compare him with some of the old Rishis and law givers. If today, in addition to his own wisdom and learning, he requisitions the help and co-operation of all the 290 persons, I think his hands are strengthened and his views ought to appeal to us.
The main point, as I said was, has the time come for certain reforms and has the time come for the codification of Hindu Law ? If the time has come, it makes no difference whether one man promulgates a Code and the country accepts it, or whether it is accepted by the process of discussion in a democratic manner and the country accepts it. The main point is to judge it without passion, without prejudice and without entering into any extremist considerations. We have in this House to judge it purely on merits and not on sentimental grounds.
After all, what is it that is in this Code ? Except for the question of inheritance, there is nothing to which we have not listened so often and to which we have not agreed substantially. My own view is that there are two important things on which the controversy is centered, One is marriage; the other is ending of the co-parcenary in Hindu Law. So far as marriage is concerned, there is nothing revolutionary in this. In these days, when everything is pointing towards State control more and more, and when we are talking of nationalization, I think the only sphere for private enterprise is marriage.
Mr. Naziruddin Ahmad : Let that also be nationalised !
The Honourable Shri N. V. Gadgil : Now in this Bill a golden mean is struck. The entry and exit in this sphere is so regulated that a modern man coming from the West would certainly laugh at our backwardness. He would say if marriage is a matter which is calculated to secure the highest happiness for both, then one of the grounds for divorce must be incompatibility of temperament. Have you gone up to that ? The grounds in the Bill are very narrow. In fact, I say that