Vol. 1 · pages 491–495

476 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES of consolidated holdings cannot be expected to bring real relief. Instead it will only serve to be a legal eyewash. This becomes easy of comprehension if we realize at the start what the one man rule of succession means in actual practice. For this we shall have to note the changes it will introduce in the survey records. At present according to the Bombay Land Revenue Code Chapter I, Section 3, clause (6). “Survey Number” means a portion of land of which the area and other particulars are separately entered, under an indicative number in the survey records of the village, town or city in which it is situated, and includes a recognized share of a survey number. Again by clause (7). “Recognized share of a survey number” means a sub-division of a survey number separately assessed and registered. After the adoption of the one man rule of succession a survey number will be made to cover a piece of land which will be of the size fixed for an ideal economic holding. Secondly, it will be necessary to refuse separate registration to any sub-division of such a survey number ; i.e., in order that a piece of land should be registered with a separate and a distinct survey number it must not be below the economic limit. Then too this survey number covering a piece of land large enough to be styled economic will be registered in the name of one person. This is precisely what will happen if we put into practice the project of the Baroda Committee. Mr. Keatinge instead of having one survey number covering a large and compact holding will have in the name of one person many survey numbers covering a unit of land composed of small and scattered fields. Abandoning Mr. Keatinge’s scheme as serving no practical purpose the one man rule of succession to a consolidated holding means in practice refusal to recognize legally a piece of land if it were below a certain size. Now this refusal to recognize smaller pieces of land, it is claimed, will prevent the sub-division of a consolidated holding. Sub-division of land may be due to many causes the operation of which is rendered economic or uneconomic by the nature of the occasion which evokes it. Not to allow sub-division on any ground, as does Mr. Keatinge, is to cause a serious depreciation of the value of land. But if sub-division is needed as when the stock has depleted, not to grant it is to create an uneconomic situation—a result just opposite of what is intended to be achieved, apart from this to prevent sub-division legally is not to prevent it actually, if necessitated by the weight of economic circumstances. Granting the pressure of population on land and the scanty agricultural equipment—evils to which the authors of consolidation and enlargement have paid no attention—we must look forward to the sub-division of holdings. If we legislate in the face of this inevitable tendency and refuse to record on our survey roll holdings below a certain limit required for a separate survey number we will not only fail to cure what we must know

SMALL HOLDINGS IN INDIA AND THEIR REMEDIES 477 we cannot, atleast by this means, but will help to create a register that will be false to the true situation. This being our criticism of the means for preventing sub-division and fragmentation it will not take us long to state our view as regards the project of consolidation. Consolidation and its conservation are so intimately connected that the one cannot be thought of without the other. Now if we cannot conserve a consolidated holding, is it worth our while to consolidate, however feasible the project may be ? This work of Sysiphus will not fail to fall to our lot unless we make effective changes in our social economy. As the evils of this surplus and idle labour which will be added on to by the consolidation and enlargement of holdings are likely to outweigh their advantages’, the proposals do not find much favour at the hands of Prof. Gilbert Slater. 26 As against Prof. Slater we hold that the evils are avoidable and it is because we are anxious to avoid them that we wish to advocate different remedies for bringing about the enlargement of holdings. Consequently, we maintain that our efforts should be primarily directed towards this idle labour. 27 If we succeed in sponging off this labour in non-agricultural channels of production we will at one stroke lessen the pressure and destroy the premium that at present weighs heavily on land in India. Besides, this labour when productively employed will cease to live by predation as it does to-day, and will not only earn its keep but will give us surplus; and more surplus is more capital. In short, strange though it may seem, industrialization of India is the soundest remedy for the agricultural problems of India. The cumulative effects of industralization, namely, a lessening pressure and an increasing amount of capital and capital goods will forcibly create the economic necessity of enlarging the holding. Not only this, but industralization by destroying the premium on land will give rise to few occasions for its sub-division and fragmentation. Industrialization is a natural and powerful remedy and is to be preferred to such ill-conceived projects as we have considered above. By legislation we will get a sham economic holding at the cost of many social ills. But by industrialization a large economic holding will force itself upon us as a pure gain. 26. “The village in the Melting Pot” Journal of the Indian Economic Society. Vol. 1, No. 1, p. 10. 27. Prof. Jevons does speak of removing the surplus agricultural population to towns. The author is happy to note that Prof. Jevons had recognised that there is the evil of surplus population. What he has failed to recognize is that this evil is the faithful parent of all other evils that affect our agriculture. When it is recalled that industrialization of India is the one theme against which Prof. Jevons never fails to argue with all the aid of his knowledge and influence, his remedy of removing the surplus population to towns sounds starnge; for migration to towns is simply euphemism for the industrialization of India. On the other hand Prof. Jevons has forgotten that there are few towns in India. If we believe, as does Prof. Jevons, that there is the evil of surplus population the only logical and inevitable conclusion, however unplatable it be, is the creations of more towns i.e,, industrialization.

478 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Our remedy for the enlargement as for the consolidation of holdings as well as the preservation of consolidated holdings reduces itself to this: We prefer to cure agriculture by the reflex effects of industrialization. Lest this might be deemed visionary we proceed to give evidence in support of our view. How agriculture improves by the reflex effects of industrialization has been studied in the United States in the year 1883. We shall quote in extenso the summary given by the London Times: “The statistician of the Agricultural Department of the United States has shown in a recent report that the value of farm lands decreases in exact proportion as the ratio of agriculture to other industries increases. That is, where all the labour is devoted to agriculture, the land is worth less than where only half of the people are farm labourers ; and where only a quarter of them are so engaged the farms and their product are still more valuable. It is, in fact, proved by statistics that diversified industries are of the greatest value to a Stale, and that the presence of a manufactory near a farm increases the value of the farm and its crops. It is further established that, dividing the United States into four sections or classes, with reference to the ratio of agricultural workers to the whole population, and putting those States having less than 30 per cent of agriculture and of agricultural labourers in the first class, all having over 30 and less than 50 in the second, those between 50 and 70 in the third, and those having 70 or more in the fourth, the value of farms is in inverse ratio to the agricultural population, and that where as in the purely agricultural section, the fourth class, the value of farms per acre is only $ 5.28, in the next class it is $ 13.03, in the third $ 22.21, and in manufacturing districts $ 40.91. This shows an enormous advantage for a mixed district. Yet not only is the land more valuable the production per acre is greater, and the wages paid to farm hands larger. Manufactures and varied industries thus not only benefit the manufacturers, but are of equal benefit and advantage to the farmers as well.” This will show that ours is a proven remedy. It can be laid down without fear of challenge that industrialization will foster the enlargement of holdings and that it will be the most effective barrier against sub-division and fragmentation. Agreeing in this, it may be observed that industrialization will not be a sufficient remedy for consolidation. That it will require direct remedies may be true. But it is also true that industrialization, though it may not bring about consolidation, will facilitate consolidation. It is an incontrovertible truth that so long as there is the premium on land consolidation will not be easy, no matter on how equitable principles it is proposed to be carried out. Is it a small service if industrialization lessens the premium as it inevitably must ? Certainly not. Consideration of another aspect of consolidation as well points to the same conclusion : That

SMALL HOLDINGS IN INDIA AND THEIR REMEDIES 479 industrialization must precede consolidation. It should never be forgotten that unless we have constructed an effective barrier against the future subdivision and fragmentation of a consolidated holding it is idle to lay out plans for consolidation. Such a barrier can only be found in industrialization ; for it alone can reduce the extreme pressure which, as we have shown, causes subdivision of land. Thus, if small and scattered holdings are the ills from which our agriculture is suffering to cure it of them is undeniably to industrialize. But just where does India stand as an industrial country ? : England and Wales Germany U. S. A. France India Rural Urban Rural Urban Rural Urban Rural Urban Rural Urban 1790 .. .. .. .. 87.5 .. .. . . . . . . 1840 .. .. .. .. 77.5 .. 75.6 24.4 . . . . 1851 49.92 50.08 .. .. .. .. .. . . . . . . 1871 38.20 61.80 .. 36 47.6 .. .. . . . . . . 1881 32.1 67.9 .. 41 44.3 29.5 .. . . . . . . 1891 27.95 72.05 .. 47 39.2 36 1 .. . . 64.4 . . 1901 23.00 77.00 .. 54 35.7 40.5 .. . . 67.5 . . 1911 19.9 78.1 .. .. 33.3 46.3 57.9 42.1 71.5 . . (The figures for the various countries do not correspond with the years. The range of variation is 3 years), Sir Robert Giffen after a survey of the economic tendencies of various countries concludes that; “The wants of men increasing with their resources the proportion of people engaged in agiculture and mining and analogous pursuits, in every country is destined to decline, and that of people engaged in miscellaneous industry—in other words in manufactures using the latter phrase in a wide sense to increase.”28 Figures for India, however, run counter to this dictum illustrating a universal tendency observed by an expert. While other countries like the U.S.A. starting as agricultural are progressively becoming industrial, India has been gradually undergoing the woeful process of de-urbanization and swelling the volume of her rural population beyond all needs. The earlier we stem this ominous tide, the better. For notwithstanding what interested persons might say 29 no truer and more wholesome words of caution were ever uttered regarding our national economy than those by Sir Henry Cotton when he said “ There is danger of too much agriculture in India. ” zz 28. “Essays in Finance” 2nd Series, p. 240. 29. Prof. Jevons in his paper on the “Capitalistic Development of Agriculture” read before the Indian Industrial Conference, held at Bombay in December 1915 argues against industrialisation. It can however be maintained against Prof. Jevons that it is industrialisation only that can make capitalistic agriculture possible. As a needful corrective to his paper cf. Sir Robert Giffen’s Essay IV in his Essays in Finance, 1st Series.