DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 1151
Speaking three days ago on the floor of this House, Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee described in very moving terms the immemorial beauty and wisdom of the teachings of Hinduism. He spoke of its comparable flexibility—I think he used the word adaptability—that had enabled Hindu philosophy to survive through centuries of foreign invasion and alien domination resisting wave after wave of the fiercest political and religious and economic onslaught. Surely, for all time to come Dr. Mookerjee has given the final answer to the futile and foolish argument that any social legislation intended to render justice to the under-privileged can imperil an ancient religion based on the loftiest conceptions of the sanctity and indivisible unity of all life.
Another serious charge which is sought to be levelled against this Bill is that by making legal provisions for divorce it will open wide the flood gates of immorality. It has been proved conclusively by speaker after speaker that there was provision for divorce even in ancient times. We are all aware that more than 75 per cent, of the Hindus in this country have always had the benefit of an easy and simple and effective system of divorce. So, this argument seems to lack any real validity and I think it has been employed merely to indulge in what is fast becoming a national pastime in this country that of disparaging the West and western ways. May I be permitted to express my regret at the growing 325 PSD. tendency in this country to make sweeping generalisations about the morals and manners of other races in other countries ? This tendency is all the more deplorable because only too often hasty judgement is founded on insufficient knowledge, usually gleaned from the sensational publicity given to the doings of a handful of neurotics and decadents such as are to be found in every country of the world. Certainly, they are to be found in every big city of India. Dr. Mookerjee rightly drew our attention to a grave problem that is today troubling the psychologists of the West and that is the growing prevalence of psychoses corresponding to rise in the rate of divorce. But may I respectfully suggest to Dr. Mookerjee that if he would pause and ponder over this problem and analyse it carefully he will find that the psychoses are not the result but the root cause of much of the divorce in the West. In many western countries, particularly those that have been ravaged by the last two great World Wars, the entire equilibrium of life has been seriously disturbed. Acute economic distress, and a morbid obsession with the atom bomb and the imminence of another World War—all these cause