658 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
no other suffering is more tormenting than the distress of having a co-wife.
Now when the age of renaissance began and the eminent persons of our country began to realize their abject misery then, as a result of their kind efforts, the condition of the women folk was carefully considered over and hence from time to time such revolutionary Bills were passed in this House. At that time our country was in turmoil and then Mahatma Gandhi forced an entry into the social structure of our society. He elevated the women folk to such an extent that they could stand on their own legs. Today a keen desire for securing her due rights has awakened in her heart. The woman of the future will not tolerate this sort of oppression and tyranny lying down as she has been doing till today. She will never tolerate this sort of neglect and disrespect. Therefore, I think this time to be most favourable. The Bill that is before us should be passed in this House with great applause.
This Bill is being opposed on many grounds. I have had opportunities to hear such thing here. Obscene and dirty things are said against the women community, they are being stigmatised. Thus a propaganda is made here by giving publicity to such scandalous slurs against the women folk. The people here have come to believe that the right to divorce provided in the Bill would result in the destruction of the structure of our society and our culture would go to dogs. I do not understand how people give rise to such apprehensions and how they resort to such talks. But as far as I have studied this Bill I have not come across anything concerning the dissolution of marriages that can be called an innovation, or anything that has not been allowed and permitted by our sacred texts and holy scriptures. All the conditions that have been laid down for the dissolution of marriages, or in what manner the marriages can be dissolved, or for what seasons divorce can be granted. I think all these conditions do exist in our Shastras. I myself believe in Hindu religion and culture. I am a Hindu woman. Wherein lies the glory and importance of the woman I know that also. For centuries our sages and preceptors, poets and writers have sung songs about the greatness of the Indian woman and have mentioned her in the most glorious terms. I know that all this greatness has not been attributed to female form only, they have sung songs about her noble spirit of renunciation instead. I think that this high ideal is very good for us. Not from today but from ages the Indian woman has been maintaining these ideals and the glorious history of