DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 879
announced that they are an integral part of the Hindus, when the President had to make an order about Scheduled Castes they were kept at a respectable distance. Under a recent Order of the President 34 castes have been declared as Scheduled castes provided they profess the Hindu religion. Only four castes, and that at the expense of all the safeguards that we wanted were allowed to be classed as Scheduled castes if they profess the Hindu or the Sikh religion. We have that complaint that whenever there is a chance to confer some benefit, then, we are not included or brought near and we are kept at a distance. But when there is nothing to be given, but only these usages and customs and traditions are to be effaced, we are offered an embrace, an empty embrace that might, rather, I should say, not be pleasant to us, because we love these customs and these traditions. We have adhered to them for a very long time. Therefore, I pray in all earnestness that we might be excluded from the sphere of this Bill.
Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava : With your permission, Sir, I want to put a question, in respect of the last point of my hon. Friend. Is it not a fact that the Sikhs themselves came to Sardar Patel and agreed that only these four castes should be included among the Scheduled Castes and no others ? If that is true, if that is according to agreement, my hon. Friend is not entitled to raise this grievance here.
Sardar Hukam Singh : It is a long subject. The Revered Sardar himself put in these words that these four castes could only be acknowledged, if the Sikhs gave up all the safeguards that they wanted. It was at the sacrifice of those things that these four castes were acknowledged, and they too only in two provinces, the Punjab and the PEPSU. They are not Scheduled Castes in other provinces.
Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava : That is according to the agreement.
Sardar Hukam Singh : No.
Mr. Speaker : Dr. Ambedkar.
Shri T. N. Singh (Uttar Pradesh) : Is Hon. Minister’s speech going to be in reply ?
Several Hon. Members : No, no.
Dr. Ambedkar : Sir, I propose first to deal with my own amendment before I deal with the other amendments that have been tabled to this clause.
P.D., Vol. VIII, Part II, 6th February 1951, pp. 2462-73.