DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 909
If you pick out that community and do what you like with it, and the rest say, “Don’t touch our religious susceptibilities”, then that is where the real difficulty arises.
Then the Code already excludes customary laws which will operate in spite of the Hindu Code. Exclusion has also been permitted for those who were governed by separate customs although they may be belonging to the Hindu community : so that it will be found that these differences and these exclusions, these permissions to be able to be governed by another law are already found to the Code. I therefore submit that it is not really asking too much of the Hon. Law Minister and of this House to make this Code a permissive legislation.
There are other difficulties also which I would like to mention for the kind and sympathetic consideration of the Hon. Law Minister.
For instance, it is laid down mat all divorces henceforth will have to be registered. When I read this—not only this but other paragraphs and other sections of the Code—I felt like exclaiming that the Code was really a heaven for lawyers, and that if anyone was going to profit or benefit by this it would be the past colleagues in law courts of the Hon. Minister. You may pass this Code tomorrow. Supposing we all agree that we shall not discuss this legislation any more and we pass it tomorrow, even if we do so do we really and seriously think that the people living in the villages, whom the Hon. Law Minister refuses to consult by a referendum because they are ignorant, will from day after tomorrow start registering all their divorces and all their marriages?
Dr. Ambedkar : There is no provision for registering divorces.
Shri Syamnandan Sahaya : I am sorry if I take time but before the House rises I shall read out to the Hon. Minister this provision. I have already tabled an amendment on that clause.
Shri Bharati : Registration for marriages only. There is no registration for divorces. You make a mistake.
Mr. Deputy-Speaker : The hon. Member evidently means that there can be under the Code no divorce except by a decree of court.
Shri Syamnandan Sahaya : Yes. The hon. Member has again drawn a distinction between tweedledum and tweedledee though it was not expected that he of all persons would take recourse to these. Well, if it is not registration and if it is only through law courts, then it strengthens my argument all the more. Is it possible to imagine, when we have a vast majority of people—thirty-three crores—many