DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 669
value to culture than to wealth. Wealth has taken a subordinate place. Now what are you going to do ? You allow a lawyer to amass ten lakhs of rupees. He is the supreme master. He has obtained all the wealth that his brothers could have given him in sending him to England and making him a Barrister-at-Law. But the gains of his learning are his own exclusive property under the law which has been brought into existence by the British—thanks to their ideals. Now, whereas the other people, the other brothers, the agriculturists as well as the traders who have gone through the same process of righteous labour, have to divide their property with the educated Barrister-at-Law, the Barrister-at-Law is exempt from sharing his properties with those two brothers. Is this justice ? It is outrageous nonsense compared to the noble standards which have been adopted in our society.
Now let us pause here for a moment and ask a question : Have you appointed a Commission to go into the social, political, economic and the moral implications of the structure and functions of this society ? Have you got a report based upon a study of the psychology that lies behind this structure which has endured the buffets of time and circumstance for a period easily and admittedly, of five thousand years and perhaps which has gone back to thirteen thousand years and may be, possibly to thirty thousand years, because there are all these three versions about the age of the Mahabharata and the Vedas, about the age of our society and ancient civilisation. How is it that you don’t do that. If you want to give tariff assistance to a little quantity of iron that is being imported from Antwerp, you appoint three people drawing Rs. 3000 each, constitute them into a Tariff Board, obtain a report from them based upon the evidence that has been led by all the capitalists in the country, then you consider it in the Finance Department, you place it before the Assembly and then you grant that tariff weightage. What have you done with regard to our society ? You snap your fingers at it—this ancient society, this relic of ancient barbarism, this vestige of antiquated stuff! No; you say “let us go the whole hog”.
We have cast our universities after the style of London ; we have adopted our legal system after the style of High Courts in London and we have carved out Legislative councils and legislatures after the manner of the Parliament in the West, and now it only remains for us to copy the Western society. Western manners, Western social institutions and Western civic laws. Please do not mistake me. I have