380 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
stop harassing the Scheduled Castes and recognise their rights, the Scheduled Castes would take the matter to the UN?
Answer : There was no agenda for the meeting and no resolutions were passed.
It is always, however, open to any section of the people in any country to go to the Human Rights Commission, if it feels oppressed.
Untouchability
The problem of Untouchability in India is assuming an economic aspect now which formerly it did not.
I suppose that the lot the Untouchables in the country is better now than was the case five or six years ago, but they might have progressed better and quicker if certain impediments were not in their way.
On Having A Common Civil Code For All Communities
Question : Is it not possible to have a common civil code for all communities inhabiting India, like the Hindus, Muslims, Christains, Parsis etc?
Answer: It is not so easy to produce a civil code applicable to all in this country irrespective of caste or religion. Obviously it is quite clear we cannot import principles of justice from some country outside India denovo. We do not have a clean slate. We should take the Hindu Law, the Muslim Law, the laws governing the Christians and other communities and other acts and find out a common denominator. We can go to every community and try to tell them to accept the common denominator in the interests of uniformity of law.
But first of all, we should know our own law and what it is. For instance, the Hindu Law is a ‘Jungle’. It must be codified so that people may have an idea about laws governing them before they can consider having a common code.
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