672 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
and get the consent of the nation for it. I can assure you that wherever I go, I always state the pros and cons of every proposition on this Bill. This Bill may be good in parts as the Parson’s egg and it may also be bad in parts. If you say that you must do this for women because women have come to their own, yes, do it by all means, but why be in such a huffy ? I want them to come to their own, they have come to their own, and in the next Assembly I feel sure my sisters can fill half of the seats; out of five hundred, there can be easily two hundred and fifty women if they only make up their minds.
Shri L. Krishnaswami Bharathi : Will you allow them ?
Dr. B. Pattabhai Sitaramayya : I admired Rajkumariji when she said before the Provincial Model Constitution Committee that women did not require any reservations. I thought it was rather an audacious statement for her to make and a great responsibility to shoulder but I know now that they are quite able to take care of themselves. If half a dozen lady members of this House can drag us by heels and make us take up this Bill, I wonder what our position will be when there are two hundred and fifty of them here. I am not joking. If I have a voice at all at the time of selection, I may assure you that I will do it, notwithstanding Mr. Rohini Kumar Chaudhuri.
[At this stage Mr. Deputy Speaker vacated the Chair which was then occupied by Shri S. V. Krishnamoorthy Rao (one of the Panel of Chairmen)]
In this connection, I tempted to read a little statement that I have here from Picture Post of March 12, 1949.
“From woman comes an incessant call for equality. What does she mean by equality? From the material point of view at least, she has the lion’s share. Probably ninety per cent, of all advertisements cater solely for her. Film producers say eighty per cent, of films are made for her. Fiction publishers appear to think entirely in terms of woman. As for clothes, woman has a wide choice and range at reasonable prices, while shabby, thread-bars man can only gaze for long at a few miserable suitings in some sombre shop window and think of the fantastic prices charged. With our prophetic eye, let us gaze into the future. Woman has got more than equality and man has become a spinster’s spaniel existing on woman’s scraps and everything is beautifully lukewarm.”
I may assure my sisters that nothing will be lost by their exercising patience. I was the other day questioned for having appeared on an orthodox platform with a Swamiji from Benaras and when I saw