DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 1067
Shri Bhatt: Only the next day that intoxication would go by itself and everything would be all right. You do not know that that becomes their habit. All of us have a number of habits good and bad, and so far as in toxication is concerned I have come across a number of people who take two or three bottles of whisky at a time and still do not subject themselves to intoxication. The Hon. Doctor might be remembering that there used to be a number of persons in the Bombay Bar Council who could not argue their case in the courts unless they had taken one or two pegs.
Mr. Chairman : May I know on which provision of clause 2 the hon. Member is speaking ?
Dr. Ambedkar : We are discussing Evacuee Property Bill.
Shri Bhatt: Sir, I should be excused, there has been a little digression. But I would like to remind you that some of my friends talked about it. What I was submitting was that nobody stated that you were only bringing any deterioration or improvement in the Bill by keeping or not keeping any provision of monogamy in it. What is the necessity of imposing legal restraints on it ? If you are bent upon imposing them we would have no objection, but then please impose it on all sections of the population of the country, because the Muslims too then would not feel about it. They too would agree that it is a good thing and that as such it should be applied to them as well. As Sarda Act has been applied to one and all, similarly its application too should be extended to all sections of the population. So far as divorce is concerned it is already prevalent in the Muslim community. Hence my request is that whatever legislation you like to make, it should be applied to one and all. Nobody should be excluded from its application, it should apply to Indians generally.
I admit that you have come up to appreciate us and to accommodate our viewpoint. You have become so much accommodating now that you have realized the position. And now if you do not want to do anything, at least please do one thing. Take out the marriage and divorce clauses from the original Bill, pass them as a separate law and make it applicable to all the Indians. If you would do that everybody would be happy over it, would praise you and would say that you have really done a brave deed. All opposition would go automatically ; it would vanish and people would say that the Government have taken the right step which gives them the maximum satisfaction. Although that would not be complete satisfaction, yet that would be the maximum under the