DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 837
Liabilities incurred should not be allowed to vanish, all because of a later conversion. The conversion should not affect past transactions, past rights and past liabilities.
Then, my next amendment is that sub-clause (2) of clause 2 should be omitted. This sub-clause is to this effect :
“This Code also applies to any other person, who is not a Muslim, Christian, Parsi or Jew by religion.”
This sub-clause, I submit, is based on erroneous considerations, and on erroneous analogies. In part (a) we have said that this Code applies :
“to all Hindus, that is to say, to all persons professing the Hindu religion in any of its forms or developments, ...”
And we also say that it applies:
“ to any person who is a Buddhist, Jaina or Sikh by religion.”
But the Sikhs, I feel, do not very much appreciate the conferring of the so-called benefits of this Code on them. My friend Sardar Hukam Singh is ready to give up the so-called benefits of the Hindu Code now being conferred upon the Sikhs. So long as he remains a Sikh, I do not think he would very much appreciate the Hindu Code being applied to him and………
Shri Tyagi : He can become a Hindu.
Shri Naziruddin Ahmad : But let Sardar Hukam Singh speak for his own community. I am only…………..
Shri Khurshed Lal : Yes, you are speaking for yours.
Shri Naziruddin Ahmad : Then we come to part (c)(1) which says that the Code applies to any child, legitimate or illegitimate etc. A Hindu is a Hindu and the child of a Hindu should also be a Hindu. But what I say is this. Sub-clause (2) seems to be somewhat misplaced, because it states that the Code applies also to any other person who is not a Muslim, Christian, Parsi or Jew by religion. Looking at it from the drafting point of view, this is a circuitous way of drafting the thing, and it shows the piecemeal introduction of an idea. If this is the idea, why not say straight away that all persons who are not Muslims, Christians, Parsis or Jews are Hindus ? Instead of doing that, you first of all say that Hindus are first of all Hindus. Then you say that Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs are Hindus and then you say that the