DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 37
that is different, but there is no agricultural property among them. And there is no question of big inheritance and therefore, the poor man’s daughter, however beautiful and accomplished she may be has no chance. I think this measure requires very serious consideration, so far as customs and usage and other points are concerned and it is not proper to pass this legislation in such hurry. I should have said something more also, Sir, but in this House there are persons who are still unmarried; so it would not be fair on my part to disclose
all my objections to this Bill.
*** The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar** : Mr. Speaker, my task is considerably lightened by the fact that the Bill has received such an ample measure of support from this House. I shall, therefore, confine myself to replying to some of the points which have been made by the speakers who have participated in this debate.
I would begin with the observations made by my honourable friend, Mr. Naziruddin Ahmad. Sir, I thought that the Legislature was not a court and that a Member of this House who is a lawyer certainly does not come here either to practise or to plead. But somehow my friend either for fee or out of pure generosity, undertook the task of representing the views of some of his clients who probably had not the courage to say what they had in their mind. I shall, however, not raise any technical objections but deal with the points that he has made.
Sir, his complaint was that the Bill had no sufficient publicity and that the public was not given as ample an opportunity as the importance of the measure required. I should have thought that the clients of my honourable friend had rather misinformed him on this point. This Bill had its origin in a legislation which took effect in the year 1937. Ever since that year the provisions of this Bill have been bandied from one side to the other, from committee to committee. For instance in the year 1941, the Home Department appointed a Committee to consider some of the difficulties that arose out of the Women’s Rights to Property Act of 1937, to report upon the difficulties and to suggest remedies. This Committee which is known as the Rau Committee made its report on the 19th June 1941. My Honourable friend, if he had referred to this report would have seen the immense amount of publicity
*C.A. (Leg.) D., Vol. IV, 9th April 1948, pp. 3650-53.