640 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
who are not so educated as myself? You may be more advanced, I may be less advanced, but I still claim that I am born of the Indian soil and my ideas are rooted in the Indian soil, and therefore, I plead for the retention of these great virtues which have characterized our Indian life ( Hear, hear ) . I do not want to go against the modern trends of thought or the modern ideas of progress, but at the same time while it is our duty to keep in touch with the currents of national life, with the social currents at present working, there is no use our imagining that we represent the whole of India. I may tell you, even among educated women, all of them do not think alike and even women who are in the legislatures do not think alike with some other educated ladies who are members of respectable households; they differ in some respects.
Shrimati Renuka Ray (West Bengal : General): Are our households not respectable ?
Shri Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar : They are very respectable. I am glad that you have interrupted. I am accustomed and I may tell you they are quite as respectable, though they might be a little conservative,—as some of those people who are very respectable and who have advanced ideas in these matters. I have given my views and I certainly refuse to believe I am not a respectable man; I am at least as respectable as others, but my ways of life, my way of thinking, my attitude to these questions is different from those equally respectable because I am cast in a different mould. For example, I have the greatest respect for our Prime Minister and on certain questions I yield to him, but at the same time, I do not look at questions with the same glasses as my hon. friend, my esteemed friend, if I may call the Prime Minister my very esteemed friend. It is merely a mode of approach.
The Honourable Shri K. Santhanam (Minister of State for Trnsport and Railways) : What is your actual proposal ?
Pandit Lakshmi Kanta Maitra : He is giving his proposals in an excellent way.
Shri Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar : I do not fight shy of that. The question I have been put is in regard to un-married daughters whether any kind of special provision may be made either for marriage or a special portion may be set apart so far as the marriage of girls is concerned. The law may provide that the daughters will take the heritage of the mothers and the sons will take the heritage of the fathers.