870 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
like Musalmans etc. then do not bring in civil marriage here. If any Hindu wants to marry in that manner, he will marry according to the civil contract to which the Muslims, Christians and everybody has recourse. That is our joint Civil Code. Therefore, my humble opinion is that this affair of the civil marriage should not be included here.
I do not want to refer to all the provisions of this Bill. I have spoken because I thought that we should at this stage define our attitude and tell Dr. Ambedkar what we feel about this Bill and what is perhaps the general feeling in the country. This Bill is not bad, and since we have decided that we should proceed with it, we may pass such provisions of the Bill as are good. In regard to those provisions. I do not want to stand in the way or adopt an attitude which smacks of dilatory tactics or which shows that we do not want the Bill to be passed. I want to make this point clear because it may be in the minds of many people that those persons who make long speeches do not, as a matter of fact, want this Bill to be passed. That is entirely wrong. So far as I am concerned. I want the Bill to be passed but I want those who are very much in favour of it to kindly see that such provisions are not passed as are in very great conflict with the notions and customs of the people.
- Sardar Hukam Singh (Punjab) : Sir, I sympathise with the attitude of my hon. Friend Pandit Thakur Das Bhargava. What I understood him to say was that he wishes the Code to be passed but he does not wish that it should apply to him and the other people in his part of the country, Really, I have the same thing to say. I also wish that the Bill be passed, but that it should not be applied to me. I wish I could have made a similar motion and it should not have smacked of a particular community but what I found was that the application of the Code was not to certain territories but to certain communities. Therefore, I thought it fit to move this amendment that it should not apply to the Sikhs.
Sir, I am not one of those who wish the society to stagnate. I believe in progress and I want to move with the times. I can claim that the Sikhs are a progressive section of the society. But why I do submit to the House that the Sikhs should be excluded from the application of this Code is because it contains certain provisions which are offensive to the customs and usages that we have been following for so many centuries.
*P.D. Vol. VIII, Part II, 6th February 1951, pp. 2452-62.