DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 697
So I was telling how sister Renuka had laid a claim for the support of all the enthusiastic young men in case of a referendum. In the Report submitted by Shri Rau in 1947, he said, ‘ Opinion is sharply divided some to the left, some to the right. Also that those in favour of the Bill were persons of brain and quality whereas the others opposing it were mere idiots, devoid of any brain, possessing no status in life and without any sense to understand the society and its complexities.’ May I know who then are those who understand the society and its problems? Does Shri Rau understand it? And does the Dwarka Nath Mitter really not understand it? I have nothing to say about those people. But there is no one who could lay a claim to more work in this field than Malaviyaji, whose birth anniversary we have celebrated only yesterday and acknowledged him as an unequalled cultured man. He, though an orthodox, was always in the fore-front in the matters of reformation of the society and rights of the people. But that very venerable Malaviyaji had not thought it to be a proper way in which the Hindu Code Bill was being ushered in. We may not heed him. You all know Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru quite well. He too was second to none in wisdom or intellect. He had declared himself to be in favour of the Bill, but had agreed that it was not a suitable time to frame a Bill of this type. I go further. Sir Chiman Lall Setalwad enjoyed a status in life not less than any other man and had always taken a leading part towards reformation of the society. He never agreed to codification on principle but expressed himself in favour of giving a share to the widows and daughters without any codification. Surely it is not right to consider all persons to be wise who talk in the same vein as you do and denounced all others as mere fools who cannot share your opinions. I will request my brothers and sisters through this House and Sir, through you, not to consider the Bill in this manner. And, to my Hon. Leader, the Prime Minister, Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, who is not present in the House. I would like to say that I should certainly have joined with him—and I am in fact with him—in his efforts to evolve a uniform set of rules for the Hindu society and his desire to assemble the scattered provisions of Law and to form them into a system—a code—but I ask, have the public been, allowed an opportunity of expressing their views. Take the case of the small sized Parsi Community. They kept all their component parts with them, ascertained the opinion of each one of them separately and it was then only that the Bill was brought forward. Then only did they succeed for otherwise they could not have achieved