1076 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Shri Tyagi: I am a widower and I have no interest either in marriage or divorce.
The Minister of States, Transport and Railways (Shri Gopalaswami) : Who knows ? You may yet improve !
Sardar B. S. Man : Many who are widowers here want the divorce system to be there because they hope to find their deliverance through it. However, Mr. Tyagi is an exception. In spite of the fact that he is a widower he is against divorce, rather an unusual phenomenon.
Sardar Sochet Singh (P.E.P.S.U.) : He may be interested in divorce in his neighbour’s house.
Sardar B. S. Man : So, as I said, we were not consulted. Although, political opinions are very divergent on the Sikh community, the present Government is not listening either to the Congress Sikh, the Akali Sikh or the independent Sikh, nor even the Ministerialist Sikh. It is surprising how the Government has come to the wonderful conclusion that the Sikh opinion has been sufficiently agitated and consulted. After my speech yesterday, certain friends came to me and told me “Mr. Man, it is all right. We admit that your customs are different and that you were not consulted sufficiently. But why can we not legislate for you ? Because all along you have been a Hindu and you were governed by Hindu law,” I shall come to that point of whether we have ever been governed by Hindu law, but as to the point whether we are Hindus, I should not like to repeat the argument here but I would like to mention something in that connection. I came across a pamphlet yesterday wherein it is said that if you go to a village and tell a Sikh, “ You are a Hindu”, the answer will be not in words but a slap on your face. I will not—I dare not— use that argument here.
Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava (Punjab) : How are the Sikh agriculturists differently placed from the Hindu agriculturists of Punjab ?
Sardar B. S. Man : I would have much liked to argue, and in fact I am actually basing all my arguments on that fact, that as an agriculturist I am in the company of Hindu agriculturists and the Musalman agriculturists. And my lawyer friend knows perfectly well that the Sikh agriculturist, along with the Hindu agriculturist and the Muslim agriculturist, is governed by a customary set of laws applicable uniformly to all. If I am using the word Sikh, it is due to the bane of this Bill. I would have liked to argue that the agriculturists of the Punjab