DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 1167
Shri J. R. Kapoor : What does the proviso to clause 2 say ?
Dr. Ambedkar : I am afraid I cannot add any such proviso. Our law may be deformed in some way but it should not altogether be unaesthetic ; It must be good to look at.
I now come to the other aspect of the argument, namely of allowing other people to have the law apply to them. I should not have dealt with it but for that fact that Dr. Mookerjee referred to the fact that this law was not made applicable to Muslims. He charged the Government with either want of sincerity or want of courage that they can never bring such a legislation so far as the Muslim community is concerned. With regard to this matter, Members have said that we are enacting a piece of legislation which is discriminatory for the simple reason that the Hindus today have the right to marry more than one woman and the Muslims have a right to marry four but that we are taking away the right of the Hindu leaving the right of the Muslim unaffected. That they say, is discrimanatory. With all respect I would invite the attention of Members to article 25 of the Constitution, which says:
“Subject to public order, morality and health and to the other provisions of this Part, all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess practise and propagate religion.”
I want to draw the attention of Members to the words “the right freely to profess and practise their religion”. I am not concerned for the moment with propagation of religion.
Last time when I spoke on this Bill, I made it quite clear that in our country, fortunately or unfortunately, the profession of a particular religion carries with it the personal law of the person. You cannot get away from that position. Similarly, when you say to a Muslim that under the Constitution he is free to profess and practise his religion, we are practically giving him the right to practise his personal law. In view of the fact that the Constitution allows different communities to practise their religion and incidentally also to have their personal law, there is nothing discriminatory in allowing one community to have their own law or to modify it in the way they like and to treat the law of the other community in a different way or to modify it.
Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava (Punjab) : According to Hindu law a person can marry more than one wife, according to Mahommedan law also a person is entitled to have more than one wife, but there