DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 927
should you have the age of 18 ? I cannot see why he is so much enamoured of this 18. A boy to be put to married life and conjugal bliss in his eighteenth year is a thing unimaginable. I cannot think of it. I would appeal to him to consult his advisers of public health and ask whether such a course is desirable. Extend it to twenty or twenty-one years. If you really claim to be progressive, extend it. If you want to restrict, let the restriction be on justifiable grounds which will be for the well-being of the greatest number. That is why I claim that in certain respects the Bill is not at all progressive. In fact in ordinary instance you will not find people taking to married life at eighteen. Very few people do it. Therefore, the age limits of
18 and 16 that you have fixed in the Bill to me look retrograde from the national point of view. (Interruption).
Mr. Speaker : I must be very clear on this point that interruptions not only prolong the speeches but they add to the irrelevancies of the debate. I was again going to remind the hon. Member who is on his legs that he is going into questions which do not form the subjectmatter of clause 2 or any of the amendments. He is now going into the age of marriage as if this is a general discussion on the Bill. I do not propose to allow any irrelevant discussion. We are taking the Bill clause by clause now; let us be strictly within the relevant scope of the clause. Otherwise we will never see the end of this legislation. I am not keen that it should be passed—it may be passed, it may not be passed—but at any rate I am keen to see that the debate on the clauses proceeds within the limits of relevancy and we go clause by clause to the end of the consideration. That is my point. I am not concerned one way or another. Therefore, the hon. Member will confine his remarks strictly to the provisions of clause 2 and the amendments thereto.
Shri Biswanath Das : Sir, I am very thankful to you but my reference was necessitated by the fact that my Hon. Friend the Law Minister claimed in the course of his speech that his legislation is a progressive one. Therefore, I was forced to say that it is not,
I have stated that the Code is intended for the “have-nots” and I have explained it. My objection to the clause is that the provisio to clause 2 is unnecessary and redundant. Unnecessary because it creates new complications and redundant because if anything is added without real necessity to the structure of the clause it creates further complications. Therefore, in any legislation such a redundancy is always given up.