1058 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
And after that Mahatmaji replied in a few words which took only some minutes. Mr. Roy was surprised and asked if Mahatmaji felt that way. Mahatmaji said—“ You don’t know me well enough. I shall put forward my ideas, as our society makes progress. I know our society is backward and many ideas have not developed to the extent to which they should have. But I have to carry the people along with me.” That is why I say, however high the ideas and whatever happiness they might bring, what are you Dr. Ambedkar going to achieve with 15, 20 or 25 members of the Cabinet, if we are not with you. I see that many people belonging to the majority accept certain thing because Shri Nehru or Dr. Ambedkar has asked them to do so, but if I do it, who will follow me ? I repeat that I will be deceiving you if I did not tell you that people do not want it in this way. I don’t want to deceive you. As we are your followers so are our electorate with us. We have to see to their good and convenience. It has been said, as you know, “ Shastra rurhi baliyasi” i.e., custom overrides the Shastras. After all, laws are made by men, so were the Shastras. When our customs have claims of precedence over Shastras., why can’t our society override our laws ? I ask you to take this into consideration.
There is one more drawback which I would like to point out. Shri Kunzru is not in his seat, I would ask Dr. Ambedkar to excuse me. We have become so thoughtless that when the westerners say that our marriage laws and ceremonies are very good, we will agree with them. “When Max Muller says that our sastras, upanishads and vedas are the best in the world, we take that to be true and quote him. But our own commentators and authorities have said the same things in a better way, yet nobody cares to go through their writings.
I have been just now told the copies of ‘ Yagnavalkya Smriti ’ could not be available in the whole of Delhi city even on payment.
Dr. Ambedkar : I have got so many copies with me.
Shri Bhatt: If you have got the copies please lend them to us ; they are not to be found in the Library. Sanskar Kaustuba and Yagnavalkya Smriti could not be found in the Library. You have got all these things, you might have personally purchased them; you are thirsty after knowledge and a lover of learning ; not only that, you are a learned scholar and a Pandit as well. But please place those copies in the library for some time so that we too may have change to benefit ourselves by those books, and may be able to have the necessary information. I have never been impressed with the translation of Gitanjali done by