1324 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
than allow the whole of it to go to waste. It was a great wrentch to me. But I agreed, for, as the proverb says “it is better to save a part when the whole is likely to be lost”. The Prime Minister suggested that we should select the Marriage and Divorce part. The Bill in its truncated ‘form went on. After two or three days of discussion of the Bill the Prime Minister came up with another proposal. This time his proposal was to drop the whole Bill even the Marriage and Divorce portion. This came to me as a great shock—a bolt from the blue. I was stunned and could not say anything. I am not prepared to accept that the dropping of this truncated Bill was due to want of time. I am sure that the truncated Bill was dropped because other and more powerful members of the Cabinet wanted precedence for their Bills. I am unable to understand how the Benaras and Aligarh University Bills, how the Press Bill could have been given precedence over the Hindu Code even in its attenuated form ? It is not that there was no law on the Statute Book to govern the Aligarh University or the Benaras University. It is not that these Universities would have gone to wreck and ruins if the Bills had not been passed in this session. It is not that the Press Bill was urgent. There is already a law on the Statute Book and the Bill could have waited. I got the impression that the Prime Minister, although sincere, had not the earnestness and determination required to get the Hindu Code Bill through.
In regard to this Bill I have been made to go through the greatest mental torture. The aid of Party Machinery was denied to me. The Prime Minister gave freedom of Vote, an unusual thing in the history of the Party. I did not mind it. But I expected two things. I expected a party whip as to time limit on speeches and instruction to the Chief Whip to move closure when sufficient debate had taken place. A whip on time limit on speeches would have got the Bill through. When freedom of voting was given there could have been no objection to have given a whip for time limit on speeches. But such a whip was never issued. The conduct of the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, who is also the Chief Whip of the Party in connection with the Hindu Code, to say the least, has been most extraordinary. He has been the deadliest opponent of the Code and has never been present to aid me by moving a closure motion. For days and hours filibustering has gone on a single clause. But the Chief Whip, whose duty it is to economise Government time and push on Government Business, has been systematically absent when the Hindu Code has been under consideration in the House. I have never seen a case of a Chief Whip so disloyal to the Prime Minister and a Prime Minister so loyal to a disloyal Whip.