DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 861
the other principles are concerned, we are still being governed by them and as I submitted they are principles which would be a better basis for a Civil Code rather than for a Hindu Code. This is not discrimination on grounds of sex at all but due to certain conditions of life. Suppose you pass a law to-day that all males should cook food and that females should not; will that be right ? That will be entirely wrong.
Pandit Krishna Chandra Sharma (Uttar Prades) : What is the clause on which the hon. Member is speaking ? Is all this relevant to the clause under discussion ?
Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava : You have maternity legislations referred to in the Factories Act. Should all that legislation apply to males also ?
Shrimati Renuka Ray : How is all this relevant to clause 2 ?
Mr. Chairman : Too many Members speaking at the same time leads to nothing but confusion. I think the hon. Member now speaking may be allowed to go on.
Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava : Those who raise the question of relevancy, I submit, do not seem to know what is relevant and what is not. They have all heard my friend Mr. Naziruddin Ahmad and he covered a very wide ground and in the reply also one has to deal with all those points touched upon. You cannot say that, that was relevant and this is not. If what he said then was relevant, what I say now is also relevant. Moreover, so far as clause 2 is concerned, it is a very wide one and so the question of relevancy cannot arise in connection with this clause. The question whether the Hindu Code applies to Muslims or not was dealt with by Mr. Naziruddin Ahmad, and in views of that, I find it impossible to understand how my friend Shri Krishna Chandra Sharma—the able lawyer that he is,—can say that what I now say is not relevant.
Shri Raj Bahadur (Rajasthan) : Sir, on a point of order, can an hon. Member of the House take the seat of the Leader of the House ?
Mr. Chairman : The hon. Member may proceed to his own seat.
Shri Tyagi : What is the matter ? I would like to know why I am made the target of this laughter. These seats are, after all for being occupied by someone. I found that one was vacant and I occupied it.
Mr. Chairman : The hon. Member might have exercised his right of freedom of movement in this ; but there is no more to be said on this matter.