656 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
and present-day demand. Although it is being opposed on religious, cultural and many other grounds and various kinds of things are heard against it in the course of hostile propaganda, yet my personal feeling is that this Bill will prove a sort of panacea for our women community and the progress of our Indian Society, and this will go a long way to benefit our women-folk who are even today being degraded to the lowest ebb. Moreover, our future women-folk shall also remain indebted to the hon. Minister and this House if this Bill is passed in this Assembly.
Those who oppose this Bill have expressed the opinion that this will prove harmful to our religion as well as culture. This thing does not appeal to me at all. This is another thing that the brain and heart of our countrymen have been framed in such a way that anything said in the name of religion highly appeals to the sentiments of the people. On the altar of this very religion—in what manner did we accentuate our communal feelings ? In the name of this very religion, we have seen the murder of Mahatma Gandhi—the father of the Nation.
So, in this way, I see that this Bill is also opposed by raising a hue and cry in the name of religion and Indian culture, and those of the persons and our sisters, who cannot even as yet understand what is law, how this Assembly has been constituted, who cannot even understand the right of franchise which has been granted to them in our Constitution, are being told like this, and it is acclaimed that a great majority of women in the country are opposed to this Bill. But so far as my humble intellect can conceive, this Bill does not appear to contain any such thing which might be against our religion and culture.
In one of the parts of this Bill, a provision has been made prohibiting the right of polygamy which is at present exercised by the religious minded Hindus. This is not permitted and a ban has thus been imposed upon it. With all the humility, I would submit that I apprehend that this Bill might be opposed by a majority of our brethren for the reason that some such ban is being imposed upon them that in the life time of their wives, they shall not be permitted to contract many marriages. But I do not find in it anything against the religion, because it so looks to me after going through our scriptures and ancient literature that never during any time, even in the olden days, the institution of polygamy was looked upon favourably. After scanning through the ancient literature, we do come across such instances where the ruling