1108 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
injustice to any section. I do not wish it to be misunderstood that I do not believe that injustice has been done to some sections of it. Injustice has been done, hardships have been inflicted, atrocious hardships have been inflicted, and there will be no reasonable man who will hold any brief for the same. But I am talking of the principles and the broad concept on which those divisions were based. They were not meant to injure, they were not meant to inflict any hardship.
Shri Munavalli: But what has been the effect ?
Pandit Malaviya : The effect will take me long to describe, because the effect has been varying from age to age and if my hon. friend will take the trouble of reading through the pages of history he will know them well enough for himself.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : But is a discussion on that point necessary for marriage and divorce ?
Pandit Malaviya : What I was wishing to point out was that in the very nature of things we can only expect one thing from one individual and another thing from another. If any abstruse point of law arises today, we can reasonably and legitimately request our learned Law Minister to put us wise on all aspects of it. You may not be able to get the same information and the same light from an ignoramus like myself. ( An Hon. Member: No, no.) ( Another Hon. Member : That is only humility.) There may be equally another thing about which another individual may be able to tell us many things but about which my esteemed and dear and learned friend Mr. Bharati might prove a complete ignoramus. In society there is a class of people to whom the real zest of life, the real zest of existence, the incidence of life from moment to moment, from hour to hour, from morning to evening and from evening to morning, is, if not the in-all and out-all, a very large portion of the totality of their existence. For them today’s marriage and divorce laws have been framed with a view to simplicity and easy availability. A man can today, or a woman can today discard a marriage relation and take up another almost in the twinkling of an eye. Such people will have to wait for months, they will have to go through law courts, they will have to go through the entire gamut of procedure before they can do the same under the provisions in this bill. I am not expressing any opinion on the merits of the matter. I should personally feel happy at, and I should like to congratulate the Law Minister for having conceived that improvement, but I am talking of the practical effects. In the practical effect there will be murders in the villages.