DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 1077
be absolved, but what shall I do when the Bill—in that respect a backward Bill, a communal Bill—legislates for Hindus, Sikhs, Jains etc. and talks in terms of communal groups and not in terms of secular groups ?
Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava : Is it not a fact that the Hindu non-agriculturists living in the villages follow the same customs as the Hindu agriculturists ?
Sardar B. S. Man : Yes. That is the beauty of our entire law in the Punjab. It is an advancement on other parts that we in the Punjab are governed by village communities and not by religious law. We are governed by land and we revolve round land laws, secular laws. Let me give a quotation to meet this interruption. I will quote from Rattigan’s Digest. My whole point is that, so far as this law is concerned in its application to Punjab, it is not reformative : it is not progressive because it is too conservative, because it is too orthodox ; it is retrograde because it is communal—our law in the Punjab has gone much farther at least so far as secularism is concerned. In our village communities we have been governed by the same set and same pattern of laws ; Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs, agriculturists and nonagriculturists, were attached to the land all these ages ; they imbibed the wisdom of the ages and the spirit of the times and throughout they were governed by one set of laws. But Dr. Ambedkar comes out one fine morning with this Hindu Code Bill—perhaps he is jealous of us—and says, “ I am going to cut across you and split you into two communal groups”. Either you be a Hindu or you be a Mussalman ! That is the effect of it.
Shri Naziruddin Ahmad (West Bengal) : Rather, “give up all religions”!
Sardar B. S. Man : Now what does Rattigan’s Digest say in this matter ? It says :
“ It had long been felt by those best acquired with the habits and customs of the rural population that neither the Shara nor the Shastras really exercised any direct influence among them.”
Then:
“ The Hindu law extravagantly exalts the Brahman; it gives sacerdotal reasons for secular rules. In the Punjab, Hindus and Mussalmans converted from Hinduism may fear or feed the Brahman; but in civil affairs Punjab Customary Law ranks him with other men. It is essentially unsacerdotal, unsacramental, secular.”