DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 955
Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava : According to me she would be entitled to the rights of partnership in the property of the new husband.
Shri Hussain Imam : If she does not remarry ? I therefore think that another danger of the provision made by Dr. Ambedkar is that it might lead to immorality—the provision that on marriage a woman will lose half of her property and will be entitled only to a quarter of the father’s property. A rich girl would never marry a poor husband.
Dr. Ambedkar : Why bother about the rich ?
Shri Hussain Imam : As long as you have not changed the system and do not go to the Moscow-Peking axis of my hon. friend Brajeshwar Prasad, you have to care for wealth and capital. When you come to that day you will no longer bother about this.
I was rather surprised that Dr. Ambedkar who is a born democrat should have made disparaging remarks about the electorate. The ‘electorate with all its ignorance is the only touch-stone by means of which we can test democracy. If that is removed, democracy will become meaningless, lifeless and only an effigy of democracy. Because, what did Hitler do ? He had elections, but a system was evolved by means of which elections were made. ..(A N hon. Member : Easy)...not easy, but they were made only a cloak to cover the dictates of the dictator. The same thing will happen if we accept this dictum that the electorate has no right and the right is reserved to the Members of Parliament alone to decide whatever they like and in whatever manner they choose to do.
I would again mention one fact, not the competence of this House— I would be the last person, having been for twenty years in the Central Legislature, to question the competence of this Legislature—but would it not be better to leave a measure of this nature to the popularly elected representatives who would come to this House with the direct mandate of the electorate ? I am suggesting this as a method of finding out the will of the people. As long as we pay at least lip service to democracy our ultimate masters and the arbiters of our fate are the electors. This is going to affect all. I wish to warn the House that as against the Bill as reported by the Select Committee, as a result of the change of the Constitution, we are going to hit each and every individual property. Even a small farm of an acre of land is not free from the ambit of this new Bill, because land is now brought in under the purview of the Central Legislature, whereas what the Bill as reported by the Select Committee affected was only fifteen