DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 853
of persons. It does apply to persons who do not call themselves Hindus. And so long they have never objected to it. So far as Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists are concerned, it is the Hindu Law which is applied to them. And it has been applied to them from times immemorial, from the time that the British Government was established. They have always been using it. Even Muslims have been using it. ( An hon. Member : You are excluding them). We are not going to exclude them. This Hindu Code, according to clause 2, shall apply to all persons who are not Muslims, Christians, Parsi or Jews. So far as Muslims are concerned and so far as their law is concerned we have not changed anything and we have not made any law for them. We do not want to say that their customs as altered by the Hindu Law do not exist.
For instance take the Punjab. We were not bound by the Hindu Law as such, I am speaking of the villages of the Punjab. So far as the cities are concerned, many Hindus and Muslims are governed by the Hindu and Muslim Law. But so far as the rest of the Punjab is concerned we were guided or dominated, or we were governed, by custom. Custom was the first rule of decision in the Punjab so far as Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs were concerned. Even today it is custom which governs us. May I with your permission, Madam, just read out the Preliminary Section of the Punjab Customary Law by Rattigan ? it says :
“Custom in this Province is the first rule of decision in all questions regarding succession, special property of females, betrothal, marriage, divorce, dower, adoption, guardianship, minority, bastardy, family relations, wills, legacies, gifts, partitions, any religious usage or institution, or alluvion and diluvion .”
In regard to the Customary Law of the Punjab, all the Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs in the village areas were bound by the Customary Law which practically was the same for all. And it has furnished a very good basis for the Civil Code because the customs were the same, the result was that we were wedded to the agnatic theory of succession and all the customs flowed from that. It is difficult for the Punjabis to accept the principle of inheritance of married daughters because the agnatic theory is there. In fact it prevailed in Assam also before Assam came into the domain of the Bengal High Court. If we find out what was the source of custom, all the principles and notions of Hindu Law which prevailed throughout the country were