612 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
The second is the question of culture. The question is whether a house
belongs to A or B, it may belong to Ramkumar and Krishnakumar, and
if you just include Vimalkumari also, that is not going to affect
4 P.M. Hindu culture. I want my friends before interrupting me, to
understand the basis of culture. No culture is culture unless it has any
function with a view to the development and evolution of society. If culture
is merely static, then it cannot last, and if Hindu culture had been static,
it would never have been stable, and it would not have lasted so long. Culture must have some function connected with evolution, it must have something
to do with a society as it is evolving. Let us understand this before crying
that culture is in danger. Culture and religion and the present Hindu society
or Hindu law and even the Hindu religion are not the same as they were
in the Vedic times. Do you want us to believe that the Greeks came here and the Romans came here, their penetrations were there and yet we
remained blindly static ? Had we no heart, no mind and no receptivity
whatsoever ? Because of the receptivity and ability to evolve, the greatness
has been preserved; if we had not this receptivity, we would not have existed
so long. That is my reply. So I say, let us take a rational course, take an intelligent view of the thing, a scientific view of the thing. Hindu law as
it was in the Smriti was only a codification of the customs and usages
prevailing before the Smriti writers came. There are lots of Smritis and
they differ on various points and on the same point different writers have
different views. And the Privy Council has said that even if they differ from each other, their commentary is to be accepted, not because it is based on
the Smriti, not because it is based on truth, not because it has come down
from the Vedas, but because if it is recorded in the Smriti, it must have
been the usage or custom of the time before the Smriti. According to the
view of Hindu law, a custom overrides the written law, the written text of law. Now, taking this view, I ask you seriously whether this is any question
of religion, whether it is a question of culture, whether Hindu society will
fall down by including Vimala along with Ramkumar and Krishnakumar ?
Therefore, do not bring in religion in this question. Do not bring in culture,
do not bring in other things and say that Hindu society will fall down. I say Hindu society has never been so weak, Hindu culture has never been
so weak, nor Hindu religion, that it will fall down, if this Act or that Act
is passed. It is too strong for that.
And then again, it is not our claim alone that we have come from
God. There have been six great civilisations and every great civilisation
claims that it has come from God. The Muslims say it, the Christians