1074 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
*HINDU CODE— contd.
[9-30 A . M .]
Clause 2. — (Application of Code )— contd.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Before the discussion starts I might inform the House that this is the sixth day of the debate on clause 2. Practically all shades of opinion have been covered. ( Interruption ). It is not as if every hon. Member should be allowed to speak. The matter has been sufficiently placed before the House both for and against the Bill as a whole and also particular clauses. We must be able to see the end of the discussion so far as clause 2 is concerned. I would request hon. Members not to occupy the whole time but give opportunities to other hon. Members so that we might close the debate on the clause today. hon. Members will try to be brief and short, as all the points have been elaborately discussed already.
† Sardar B. S. Man (Punjab) : When the House adjourned yesterday I was advocating that the Sikhs be absolved from the operation of the Bill and I was basing my arguments on two counts. One was that we in the Punjab are predominantly agriculturists, who form 95 per cent. of the population and the Sikh community forms a predominent part among the agriculturists. We in company with other fellow agriculturists, both Hindus and Muslims, are governed not by a Brahmanical rule of law, but by an entirely secular set of laws. We are governed by customs, secular customs and they are different fundamentally from the proposed provisions of the Bill. Secondly, I said that Sikh opinion on this vital matter has not been consulted. I was dealing with the second point.
I have now looked into the matter and gone into the entire body of opinion circulated to us in the report of the Hindu Law Committee and I find to my dismay that not one authentic opinion on behalf of the Sikh community has agreed to this Bill. ( An hon. Member. How authentic ?) There is an interruption asking how it is authentic. Perhaps many hon. Members in this House may not be aware that we have a statutory body for the Sikhs set up by law which votes according to the law made by the Government of India. There are 151 members who represent the entire community for the management of the gurdwaras and the administration of their religious laws. This body is known as the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee. Incidentally it may be taken in this House that this body is dominated by certain very very
- P.D., Vol. XV, Part II, 19th September 1951, pp. 2841-98.
† Ibid., 19th September 1951, pp. 2841-48.