652 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
sources also. You have to take the conduct of the righteous and the pious,—those who know the way of life that leads unto self-realization—and it is those people who laid down the norms of conduct. You have to follow those. They are not Shastric. They are not necessarily to be ascribed to any particular Shruti or Smriti, but those are the ways of right living that have been laid down definitely for the purpose of regulating our conduct—individual as well as social. If that be so, if that is the way in which the law must evolve itself, then necessarily where we find that there is a strong public opinion, where the conscience of society or a particular section of society, the minority section, let us say, dictates that a particular way of life should be sanctioned by law, law comes forward to the rescue and lays down that it shall be so. If that be our standard, then can we possibly at this moment say that there shall be no change at all ? Can we possibly assert that our law, our Shastric law, has been stationary ? If it is inviolable and inviolate, if it is unalterable and inexorable, then there will be no progress and it will be a poor compliment to pay to our Indian law-givers to say that law has been stationary. On the contrary, it is time today to muster up courage and to say that the views of no particular section, whether minority or majority should be trampled upon, that if there are strong opinion held in regard to a particular point then the law must come forward to give permission for that.
I pass next, Sir, to the other fundamental points. What is the other main objection raised with regard to this Bill. It is on the question of property—the Mitakashara and the Dayabhaga. Is it possible at this moment, let us ask ourselves seriously, to raise this question? The joint family system had its virtues; it had its glories in the past. Nobody can deny that. But I have been under the impression that of late it is the tyranny of the joint family system which has appeared most obnoxious to a very large number of people. They feel that the earning people in the family are sucked dry by the indolent ones. There are people who do not want to go forth and earn at all because there is a family behind them, and they think, “What is the use of our taking any trouble for earning when there is the family to support us?” And those members of the family who by the sweat of their brow earn something, it is their income that is sucked dry by others who are indolent and who are also in every way extravagant.
Dr. P. S. Deshmukh (C. P. and Berar : General): Have they ever complained, Sir?