614 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
people and you understand them. You are influenced by them. Look at the desk of your child and there you will find the works of Bernard Shaw and Shakespeare. You do not find ganga lehri there. But you don’t think the child is not a Hindu because he has only Bernard Shaw and Shakespeare and Pearl Buck on his table. So every thought and action affect and influence all the countries of the world. You cannot have any law whatsoever which is divorced from the influence of others, it has to be dynamic and then it will help the people to a great future. Divorced from that, separated from that, they are weak. So let us have the law on the scientific basis. In times past there might have been prejudices and there might have been different customs, and there might have been any other thing. But today religion is a matter of scientific study. You cannot say that everything you believe is religion. Nobody is going to accept it. Religion is that which takes man from human stage, from the comprehensive human life to the region of Godhood and in raising humanity from humanity to Divinity, there are certain accepted principles from which you cannot escape. So in this twentieth century, neither is everything religion nor is everything culture nor everything the basis of society. There are certain well accepted principles, accepted by the world at large, by the jurists, by the religious teachers and all the great men of the world as the basis of society, as the basis of culture and as the basis religion. Everything that you speak and believe is neither religion, nor culture nor the basis of society.
My friend asked me to what I was referring. In Mulla’s Hindu Law the first page deals with castes. It says there are four castes in Hindu Society. The second paragraph deals with whether Kayasthas are Sudras. The third paragraph deals with the question whether Marathas are Sudras or Rajputs. I put it to you in all humility : Is there anything of culture or religion in it ? Religion takes from the universal love to the Divine bliss and culture means light and sweetness. The division of a people into castes is no culture and much less has it anything to do with religion.
An Honourable Member : Only agriculture.
Shri Krishna Chandra Sharma : Agriculture will give you food; your view is a thing that will bring you down.
Now, I shall put to you the sources of Hindu Law. I think my hon. friend is a lawyer and he will appreciate it. The sources of Hindu Law are, the Shrutis, the Smritis, customs having the force of law,