696 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
of a thing. Being gifted with a powerful faculty of argumentation, they are competent to impress other in the way of their liking. But the Report
in question was circulated even among those who possessed no such faculty. Opinions were invited from groups irrespective of their being in a minority and a majority. Thus when everyone was consulted in 1936
the Bill was sent in an amended form. So the issue embodied in this Bill continued to engage their attention from 1923 to 1936 and the same was ultimately passed in an amended form.
I have much respect for Shri Rau. He has laboured very hard and has been of great help in the framing of the Constitution. But I will
submit that he has mentioned this fact about consulting only a very few persons in the Report itself and thinks no harm in that. He however, did agree that the society was divided on the issue. Sister Renuka is
not present here just now, but I have to say no different thing about her as well. She was speaking on the Marriage Bill in 1943-44. On that occasion she had laid a claim that if a referendum were to be held and
all votes to be counted then all the young men of high spirits (Joshila jawans) will be found to have supported that Bill. She had not used the phrase ‘joshila jawans’. I am merely elucidating the original phrase viz.
‘the youth’ used by her. I wish to submit it to my sister along with the other six or eight in this House that if they really think the Bill a very necessary one in the interests of women like our Acharya Kripalani who
has come round to see in it the liberation of our women then, please, do not give it a title like the Hindu Code Bill. Name it the Post Independence Civil Rights of Hindu Women Bill or something like that.
Thereafter you may proceed to give them as many rights as you please. After all we have always shown reverence and done honour to our women. Our ladies accept their husband’s house as their own after marriage.
Sister Sucheta has set up a house likewise. Once a woman goes to her husband’s house, that house becomes her’s also, she can claim her father’s house as her own no more. It becomes merely her father’s
place from the time of her marriage. Her house is the one into which she is married. I need not go into further detail. But our sisters are wrong to think that it is a Bill of theirs only and for them only. Men have a
right to it as much as the women do. I don’t want to discriminate anyway between them on this score. So no man or woman should take it that the Bill concerns a particular section of the society exclusively. I shall be excused
if I take rather a longer time.