DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 1287
about this Hindu Code Bill. In this house the majority of members come from the urban areas. Those who were born and brought up in the cities confine their thoughts to the rules and regulations and manners and customs of the cities. They think there is a vast difference between town life and village life, they have got no experience about it. I give a simple example. For instance, take the case of a city. If a woman there does not want to marry nobody would object. But if in a village a girl attains about the sixteen of age, not ony does distress befall her parent but that girl is persecuted too. Everybody comes to the father and says. “why do you not arrange for the mrriage of your girl ?” The girl might be bitterly opposed to marriage but she cannot avoid marrage. She is forced to do so; this theory might be good or bad but this is a fact. From this very example you can differentiate between the mode of life in a town and that of a village and see how much difference is there between them; and still you want to enact a common law for both. My friend Shir Jangde spoke so forcefully. He spoke for others but I suspect Shri Jangde has become a townsman or has gone to their side. He is coming to appreciate the urban way of life. He wants to tell his own tale and not that of the people of his own place. So I was submitting that when there is so much difference between the two modes of life, there is such a vast difference between their social conditions, and you want to enact a law which will be applicable to all irrespective of their customs and usages, it would be a great injustice to them.
There is another point I would like to touch upon in this connection and that is with regard to sagotra marriage. Unlike the customs obtaining among us in Punjab, here we find that most of the girls are usually married locally. Taking the case of Delhi itself, it will be seen that girls from one part of the city are married in the other part of the city. Even in the small towns having a population of say ten thousand they are married likewise. Under the circumstances, they are not conversant with the customs regarding marriage prevailing among us. In keeping with the custom obtaining among us, I cannot get my son married among my own subcaste which is spread over as many as 24 villages situated within a radius of no less than ten miles. It is not that he cannot be married in only those 24 villages, even the villages numbering about 30 to 40 where the families of his mother’s subcaste are settled are ruled out for the purpose of such matrimony. Things do not end here. I cannot get my son married to