Vol. 10 · pages 141–145

124 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES no data as to the production, distribution and administration of electricity in India. I am, therefore, glad that the subject of electricity in India has come up again for serious consideration. So far as I am able to visualize, the questions which this Committee must concern itself with are :— (1) Whether electricity should be privately owned or whether it should be State-owned ? (2) If it is to be privately owned, are there any conditions which it is necessary to impose so as to safeguard the interests of the public ? (3) Whether the development responsibility for electricity should belong to the Central Government or to the Provincial Government ? (4) If the responsibility is to be of the Central Government, what is the most efficacious method of administering it so as to provide cheap and abundant supply of electricity and avoid waste of resources ? (5) If the responsibility is to be of the Provinces, whether the administration by the Provinces should be subordinate to an Intcr- Provincial Board with powers to advise and co-ordinate ? Three Considerations Every one of these questions has two sides. Each side has its protagonists. I do not wish to express my opinion at this stage. I have an open mind. But it is not an empty mind. All I wish to say is that in coming to our conclusions as to which is the better way of developing electricity we shall have to bear in mind three considerations :— (1) Which of the two will give us power not at a cheaper but at the cheapest price, (2) Which of the two will give us power which will not merely be sufficient but which will be abundant, (3) Which of the two will enable India to be equipped with electricity by treating it on the same basis as a strategic Railway, that is to say, as an undertaking which must be started without consideration of immediate profit. I emphasize these considerations because what India wants is an assured supply of power, cheap power and abundant power.

125 POST-WAR DEVELOPMENT OF ELECTRIC POWER IN INDIA These are primary questions. There may be some hesitation lurking in the minds of some of you to deal with them on the ground that most of them raise the question of changes in the Constitution. Speaking for myself I feel no such hesitation. There is a difference between deciding a constitutional issue and expressing an opinion on it. We shall not be deciding upon constitutional questions. We shall be only expressing our opinion as regards them. We are not debarred from considering them for the reason that they are of a constitutional nature. I feel quite certain that we cannot avoid them if we want to do justice to the subject which is placed in our charge. Power Supply Department Besides these primary questions there are others which are by no means secondary. If electrification is to be a success wc cannot leave them out of our consideration. They are :— (1) Whether it is necessary to establish a Power Supply Department at the Centre whose duty would be to make a systematic survey of the available sources of power, namely, coal, petrol, alchohol and running water, etc., and to suggest ways and means of increasing generating capacity. (2) Whether it is necessary to establish a Power Research Bureau at the Centre to study problems connected with the relation between the sources of power and the machinery in order to promote the most efficient use of available power. (3) Whether it is necessary to adopt some means to train Indians in electrical technology so that India will have a staff to plan and to carry out schemes of construction, maintenance and improvement in electrical plant and machinery. Before I conclude may I make a few observations pointing out the significance of and the ultimate objective that lies behind the need for electrical development in India ? It is necessary that those who are placed in charge of the subject should have the fullest realization of its significance and its objective. If you agree with me in this I will request you to ask yourselves the question, ‘Why do we want cheap and abundant electricity in India ?’ The answer is that without cheap an abundant electricity no effort for the industrialization of India can

126 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES succeed. This answer brings out only a part of the significance of the work this Committee has to undertake. Ask another question, ‘ Why is industrialization necessary ? ’ and you will have the full significance made clear to you at once ; for the answer to the question is, we want industrialization in India as the surest means to rescue the people from the eternal cycle of poverty in which they are caught. Industrialization of India must, therefore, be grappled with immediately. Industrialization Of India Industrialization of India has been in the air for many years. But one fails to notice any serious drive to bring about industrialization. There are still some who pay only lip service to it. Others look upon it as a fad, if not a craze. There are very many who are never tired of preaching that India is an agricultural country and therefore the best thing to do is to devote all energy to improve agriculture and not to run after industrialization. Nobody needs to be told that India is primarily an agricultural country. Everybody knows it. What is surprising is that very few people seem to realize what a great misfortune it is. I know this will not be readily admitted. What more evidence is wanted to prove that this is a misfortune than the famine which is stalking Bengal and other parts of India and where so many from the agricultural population are dying daily from want of food or from want of purchasing power ? To my mind there can be no greater proof necessary to show that India’s agriculture has failed and failed miserably when it is as plain as anything could be that India which is engaged in producing nothing but food does not even produce sufficient food to feed its people. What is this due to ? The poverty of India, to my mind, is due entirely to its being made dependent upon agriculture. Population in India grows decade by decade in geometrical progression. As against this unlimited growth of population what is available for cultivation is not merely a limited amount of land but a liimited amount of land whose fertility is diminishing year by year. India is caught between two sides of a pinccr, the one side of which is a progressive increase in population and the other is a progressive increase in the deterioration of the soil.

127 POST-WAR DEVELOPMENT OF ELECTRIC POWER IN INDIA “A Rot Has Set In ” The result is that at the end of a decade we are left with a negative balance between population and production and a constant sqeezing of the standard of living. At every decade this negative balance between population and production is increasing in an alarming degree, leaving India with the inheritance of poverty, more poverty and chronic poverty. A rot has set in. This rot, I feel sure, is not going to be stopped by organizing agricultural exhibitions or animal shows or by propaganda in favour of better manuring. It can stop only when agriculture is made profitable. Nothing can open possibilities of making agriculture in India profitable except a serious drive in favour of industrialization. For it is industrialization alone which can drain away the excess of population which is exerting such enormous pressure on land into gainful occupations other than agriculture. To sum up, our Reconstruction Committees are no doubt modelled, so far as intention and purpose is concerned, on the Reconstruction Committees which have come into existence in most European countries whose industrial organization has been destroyed by the Germans. The problems of reconstruction differ, and must differ from country to country. In some countries the problem of reconstruction is a problem of reconditioning of rundown plant and machinery. Nature Of Problem In India In some countries the problem of reconstruction is a problem of replacement of tools and plants which have been destroyed in the war. The problem of reconstruction in India must include consideration of all the questions with which other countries engaged in war are concerned. At the same time we must not forget that the problem of reconstruction in India is essentially different from the problem of reconstruction in other countries. In other countries the problem of reconstruction is a problem of rehabilitation of Industry which has been in existence. The problem of reconstruction in India, as I see it, is a problem mainly of the industrialization of India as distinguished from the rehabilitation of industry and industrialization but in the ultimate sense the removal of chronic poverty.

128 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES I, therefore, hope that we shall tackle the problems connected with electricity in an earnest and in a statesmanlike manner thinking it terms of human life and not in terms of the competing claims of the Centre versus the Provincial Government. I do not like to end on a note of pessimism though the memory of the past efforts of reconstruction is nothing but sad. War seems to give birth to an urge for Reconstruction for the same reasons that necessity gives rise to invention or adversity to belief in God. The pity of it is that this urge which is born out of the war seems to the with peace. That did happen in India with the reconstruction scheme put forth by the Indian Industrial Commission and the Indian Board of Munitions after the last war. I have faith that this time the reconstruction plan will not be allowed to languish and fade away. We have in this war the compelling force of what William James called “the pungent sense of effective reality” of what poverty in India is, which the statesmen of the last War did not have. * * * * Help for Scheduled Castes Students and Indian Evacuees Proposals Approved by Standing Finance Committee Grant of scholarships to scheduled castes students pursuing education in scientific and technological subjects and expenditure on Indian evacuees from war zones and dependants of persons detained there, were the two important proposals approved by the Standing Finance Committee at its meeting held in New Delhi on November 20, 1943, with the Hon’ble Sir Jeremy Raisman, Finance Member to the Government of India, in the chair. The former proposal will involve an annual grant of Rs. 3 lakhs for 5 years and the latter is expected to entail an expenditure of Rs. 225 lakhs in 1944-45. Scholarships It was stated that in order to assist members of the scheduled castes, who had reached the high school stage, to obtain higher education, it was proposed to grant scholarships to the extent of 3 lakhs a year for five years. The scholarships would be awarded for scientific and technological studies both in India and abroad. The Committee approved the proposal. zz * Indian Information, December 15, 1943, p. 337.