1276 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Dr. C. D. Pande: Let not morality be governed by law ? If you have any illusion that you can govern people’s morality by law, you are mistaken.
Shri Lakshmanan (Tranvancore-Cochin) : He is not addressing the Chair. He is addressing individual Members as ‘you’.
Dr. C. D. Pande : I am sorry. It is a manner of address to say ‘you’. ‘You’ does not mean an individual Member. It means the Legislators here.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: No interruptions please.
Dr. C. D. Pande: I do not mind the interruptions, because the case that I am putting before you is sustained by the will of the people outside. I know the people. I know their difficulties. I know the prevalence of the customs. The difficulties that will be created will be enormous. You have not got the machinery to deal with the cases. The cases may be in far off places where there will be no Government machinery. People manage their affairs in an automatic manner. There is an automatic adjustment in social affairs. That automatic adjustment of the society will be disturbed. You wish to take upon yourself a responsibility for which you are not prepared. Moreover it is uncalled for. There is no justification for it. No case has been made out for the abrogation of customary law. A case has been made out for making divorce easier, not for restricting the scope of divorce. Why do you want to enact legislation which is not in consonance with the likings of the people and which goes against the very spirit of this Code ? This Code seeks to confer divorce and you want to restrict divorce. If this contention has any validity, then I submit the Law Minister will consider the matter carefully and sympathetically.
*Shri Oraon : ( English translation of the Hindi speech ) Sir, I had not to speak much about this Hindu Code Bill; but we are now confronted with a situation which compels me to speak something. I mean to say that Scheduled Tribes and Abroiginals are neither Hindu nor Muslim nor Christian. They are without any religion. First they were not included in this Bill nor did they want themselves to be dragged into it. But now I find that we too are being dragged into this Bill. I want to say that the divorces which take place amidst our Community, perhaps do not take place in any part of the world. We know that not less than 80 or 85 per cent divorces take place before
*P.D., Vol. XV, Part II, 22nd September 1951, pp. 3112-13.