DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 613
say it, the Japanese said “I am the son of God”. The Chinese Emperor wrote in 1559 to George III a letter that the Chinese potentate comes from God and his territory shall have nothing to do with English commerce or be
tainted by foreigners. But forty-nine years later there was a war by the Englishman upon China and the former accepted the opium dealer. Where had the land of the son of God gone then ? Where was that son of God when there was the cannon mouth of the Englishman ? Even the Englishman claims such things, that it is the whiteman’s burden that he has been sent
to Africa and India to civilize other human beings; that he has been destined to do so. But such claims are false, as false as it is for us to claim that ours is the only monopoly of truth. I am a Hindu and I am a Brahmin, and I am proud of being a Hindu and Brahmin, but I do not like to claim that the truth is my own monopoly, that the truth came to my ancestors
and not to anybody else. If God gave the truth only to my ancestors and to nobody else, then it was unjust, and for the matter of that also foolish to have created other people on this earth. So my only request is—and I make it with all the humility and respect of a Hindu child for the elders— please do not bring in religion, do not count upon culture. Do not say Hindu
society will come down. But please accept it on the basis of an intelligent view, a common-sense view, a scientific view, of law as prevailing in the modern world. The law of every country is the outcome and result of the economic and social conditions of the country as well as the expression of its intellectual capacity for dealing with those conditions.
Now I come to the next point. We have been for a long time separated from the world as such. As I said there were six civilisations and the Chinese Potentate, the Japanese Emperor, the English King, the Czar of Russia,
Babar of India all of them claimed that they came from God, all because. . . .
Pandit Lakshmi Kanta Maitra : To what particular clause of the Hindu Code is my Hon. friend referring ?
Shri Krishna Chandra Sharma : I am referring to your remarks. Well, as I was saying, they all said they were supreme and they were the most mighty, and that was because they could not understand other
people and they had no knowledge of them. Therefore they said, theirs was the best religion. But now with the aeroplanes, through the ships, through literature and the printing press and publication, you have come into contact with all the people of the world. You know other