DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 1101
and it is very difficult to have one national dress. What applies to physical clothes applies equally to legal clothes—legal clothes which are sought to be tailored by Dr. Ambedkar. When a similar attempt was made before, considering the inadvisability of such a thing, it was given up. The Punjab Laws Act has almost been a Bible for us, incorporating the principle of customary laws : the present form of the law which rules and holds the field is section 5 of the Act. Mind you, for so long a time as from 1872 we had had this law in operation and now suddenly at the fag end of the session, when we have not even comprehended the exact consequences of this not very revolutionary, but a completely novel and retrograde law, we are called upon to accept it. I for one have failed to comprehend it because my structure of society has been built upon pretty good customs which have held the field for so long, in regard to succession, property of females, marriage, divorce, dowry and so on. It contains every conceivable item of legislation. It says:
“Any custom applicable to the parties concerned, which is not contrary to justice, equity or good conscience and has not been by this or any other enactment altered or abolished, and has not been declared to be void by any competent authority shall be the customary law.”
When on that occasion such an attempt was being made, another person as intelligent as Dr. Ambedkar, Sir George Campbell, who was then in charge of Law, made these observations which are applicable even today. The bill sought to lay down that Hindu Law and Muslim Law should be applicable to the parties concerned. The amendment was successfully introduced and hence the present law, that is section 5 of the 1872, Act based on that amendment, namely that the Hindu Law or the Muslim Law will be applied only in the absence of customs. Sir George Campbell said:
“If the Council would accept the amendment of which he had given notice, it was his impression that a great part of the objections to the Bill would be removed............ If enacted ......... that the Muhammadan Law in cases, where the parties were Muhammadans and the Hindu Law in cases where the parties were Hindus, should form the rule of decision, except where the law had been altered, or abolished by legislative enactment, or was opposed to the provisions of the Act. He was quite willing to admit that certain simple rules, excepted from the Hindu and Muhammadan Law had