1172 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
may have so far as our beliefs are concerned, we should try to evolve one single system of law by which we may be bound in our interrelations ?
Sardar Hukam Singh : Should this not start from you ?
Dr. Ambedkar : Why should you all the time keep on saying. “I am different. I am not governed by this and I am not governed by that. Therefore, do not make your law binding upon me”. That is the point of my protest.
Shri A. C. Shukla : Natures differ.
Dr. Ambedkar : The gravamen of my hon. Friend Sardar Man’s charge was this that the Sikhs have not been consulted in this matter. My answer to his point is two-fold. If the Sikhs, have not been consulted as Sikhs my contention is that there was no necessity to consult them ...
Sardar B. S. Man : Oh !
Dr. Ambedkar : Please let me continue.
…..because all along the law has assumed that the Sikhs for the purposes of law are Hindus. I have examined Mulla’s Hindu Law which is a very handy volume and if my hon. Friend were to refer to the index to that volume he will find certain Acts passed by the Legislative Assemblies of this country to amend the Hindu Law, he will find any number of them. But I would like my hon. Friend to point out to me whether in respect of any of those laws which have been enacted by this Parliament effecting a change in the Hindu Law—and made applicable to the Sikhs—they ever consulted the Sikhs or they ever omitted the Sikhs.
Sardar Hukam Singh : Because custom prevails there.
Dr. Ambedkar : I do not find any such instance of consultation at all. Whenever a law has been passed to amend the Hindu Law, it has been made applicable to all persons who have been by frequent judicial interpretation included in the term ‘Hindu’.
Pandit Maitra : Then what is the necessity of putting it here ?
Dr. Ambedkar : Because men like you might doubt.
Now I come to the other part and wish to prove that the charge that the Sikhs were not consulted is not founded on facts. I have taken the trouble of going through the evidence taken by the Rau Committee when it toured and went to Lahore. I find that the following persons appeared or made statements before that Commitee. The first person to whom I wish to refer is Justice Teja Singh of the Lahore High