954 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
election booth and have a register in which every voter will put in. his thumb impression to indicate that he is willing to come under this Code, you can get the mandate of the people. Then you can confront orthodoxy and come and say that a vast majority of the country wants this reform, orthodoxy must go back and the day has been won for the reformists. But you do not do it. If you do not seriously convert the people to your idea, why do you ask that this body should get the odium of thrusting something on the people which it is professed they do not want and which you are unable to prove they want.
I therefore suggest that if the Hon. the Law Minister is not prepared to accept the amendment of my hon. friend Mr. Jaspat Roy Kapoor in toto, he may at least follow the example set in the Shariat Act of ours where parts of it were made compulsorily applicable to all but parts of it were reserved for only those who would come and get themselves registered. This is the second suggestion which I wish to make to the Hon. Minister.
Shri J. R. Kapoor : Will the hon. Member please say which are those parts ?
Shri Hussain Imam : I wish to state that there are certain parts to which very serious objection has been taken, notably by you, Sir, about the distribution of property to the daughter. If you want that this portion should not apply to all, you can make it a provision of this nature, namely, that this part—Chapter IV—may apply only to those who wish to come into it.
I would also mention the possibility of the grave dangers which this amendment of Dr. Ambedkar on the question of property has brought in. My valued friend Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava suggested that the girls should get a share while they are unmarried and when they get married they should be entitled to the husband’s property in the father-in-laws’s house. But you must not forget the divorced women. How has the modern Manu provided for them ? Dr. Ambedkar has not provided for the divorced women who are deprived of the share. He has provided for the share to remain permanently for the girl—half a share for the unmarried girl and quarter of a share for the married girl. But Pandit Thakur Dasji has suggested no share for the divorced woman. Under Dr. Ambedkar’s rule she will continue to have a quarter of a share. But Pandit Thakur Dasji would deprive her even of that quarter share because as soon as she gets married she will have no share.