636 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
claim to be in touch with village life in India. I am a villager myself, though I have spent about forty years in the City of Madras. Hardly
has there been any year in these forty years in which I did not spend at least a month in a village. I spend a good part of Christmas and the summer vacation in the villages and with the people of the villages. Therefore, I claim to know something of village life in India, at least
village life in Madras, though I know very little of village life in other parts of India excepting through the medium of books and village manuals. Therefore, I wholly disagree with the statement that so far at any rate the villages of India are concerned, the joint family life
is breaking up. At the same time, I certainly agree with my friend, Mr. Santhanam, in this, viz., that so far as what may be called collateral branches are concerned, after the first generation, there is a tendency for the joint family to break up. In the first generation there is no
breaking up, certainly not during the life-time of the father. If there is any breaking up, it generally is after the children of the father pass away and children’s children come into their own. Therefore, you must
take the existing state of things into consideration instead of proceeding merely on theory. I myself have been a member of a joint family till recently and I still believe in the ideals of a joint family life. I certainly think that in certain aspects of life in regard to education for example,
the joint family system has done a good turn. Many a poor brother has starved himself in order to educate his brothers ; many an uncle has starved himself in order to educate his nephews. A sort of qualified Socialism has existed in the joint family life. At the
same time, I agree that no institution can last for a long time. No institution must be allowed to come in the way of social progress. But the question is, has the time come for this question to be taken into consideration? I do not subscribe to the view that the joint family
system is breaking down so far as the villages are concerned and in any scheme of reform we must remember that India is a land of villages. The rural people are still following the joint family system
to a large extent. The recent inroads made into the joint family system by conceding rights to the widows and daughters-in-law have not materially effected the position. Even in regard to non-agricultural property, communities which have trade as their principal avocation
are still carrying on trade or business as a family adventure or business. It is so in my part of the country. I have had a good deal to do with the Natukottai Chettiars for the last forty years, and it is only within the last five or ten years that they are starting companies not with