Vol. 15 · pages 881–885

862 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES The second suggestion that I would like to make is from the English Constitution. My hon. Friend must be aware of the position of Scotland in the British Constitution and therefore I would not go into greater details. But he will remember two things. One is this that although Scotland and England are one—nobody can say that they are two separate countries—still there is a special Secretary of State for Scotland under the British Constitution to look after the interests of the Scottish people. He must have gone to London, I think, various times. (The Hon. Minister indicated by signs— three) Three times. Surely, he must have passed by the Parliament Street and just by the side of 10, Downing Street, there is a big brass board ‘Scottish Office’ which is the place where the Secretary of State for Scotland sits. That is the one provision which the British have made. They have not argued, as my friends have argued, that this is a recognition of communalism. Have they ? Scotland came and joined England some hundreds of years ago and yet the British people, in order to recognise the sentiments of the Scots, in order to respect their feelings, have created statutorily an office called the Secretary of State for Scotland. The second thing to which I would like to refer is this that in the British Parliament there are two Committees. One is a Committee for Wales and Monmouthshire and there is another Committee for Scotland consisting of Scottish members. All Bills referring to Scotland have to be sent to the Scottish Committee so that the Scottish members may have their full say in the matter. In the same way the members of Wales and Monmouthshire are also brought on committees connected with their affairs. It is by placating the sentiments of smaller communities and smaller people who are afraid that the majority may do wrong, that the British Parliament works. Sir, my friends tell me that I have made the Constitution. But I am quite prepared to say that I shall be the first person to burn it out. I do not want it. It does not suit anybody. But, whatever that may be, if our people want to carry on, they must not forget that there are majorities and there are minorities, and they simply cannot ignore the minorities by saying, “Oh, no. To recognise you is to harm democracy.”

863PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES I should say that the greatest harm will come by injuring the minorities. I fear sometimes that if the minorities are treated in the way in which they are being treated in our Bombay State—I do not want to be parochial, but my friends have been telling me, as I am not there and I do not take any interest in my State, as you know, and I do not even like to call myself a Maharashtrian—I do not know what will ultimately happen. I am fond of Hindi, but the only trouble is that the Hindi-speaking people are the greatest enemies of Hindi. Mr. Chairman: Dr. Ambedkar, it is an aside. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: It is an aside. Now, Sir, I am told that the Ministers are drawn from the two provinces. The clever members of the Ministry draw all the funds for developing the resources in that particular area, and the other area gets nothing. The same is being said about the Rayalaseema area, that the coastal people are generally able to get larger funds for their area and the Rayalaseema people get nothing. If my friend could make a provision in the Constitution that there shall be constituted lawfully under this very Bill a committee consisting of the members belonging to Rayalaseema, who will have the right to represent to the Governor and to the members of the Ministry that their part is to be included, I think a large part of the grievance would disappear. Similarly, Sir, I find that our Bengali Members are considerably agitated over the fact that part of Bihar—they say—is Bengal. I do not know; it may be, because originally Bengal spread over everywhere. The Governor General had a very large area, and wherever the Governor General went, the Bengalis also went with him. Mr. Chairman: Go on with the Andhra Bill. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: Yes. I am only giving an illustration. My illustration is this, that supposing such was the case that the Biharis were not treating the Bengalis well. Well, the only way open for solving this problem would be that there should be a committee of the Legislature consisting of the members who are Bengalis and who would have the right to represent

864 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES their grievances to the Ministry as well as to the Governor or to the President. When all these things fail, then I suppose we shall have to go to the naked proposition that we shall be linguists first and linguists last, and that we shall not recognise India. If that is to be our ultimate aim, well, God save us. But, Sir, my submission to my hon. Friend is this that he should examine carefully some of the points I have made, particularly in the last part of my speech, and see whether he can find any solution to the problem of linguistic provinces, based on the suggestions that I have made, in the new measure that he may have to bring—he may not be very willing to bring a new measure, but he may have to bring it.

865PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES (47) ESTATE DUTY BILL, 1953 *Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (Bombay): Mr. Chairman, I would just like to make a few observations on the measure that is placed by the Finance Minister before this House. I am supporting the measure; at the same time I think that there are certain points which require to be elucidated. I should have thought that the very first thing in the collection of an estate duty is to know what the amount of the estate is which a deceased person has left. So far as this measure is concerned, I have not as yet been able to find out how the authorities which have been created under this Act are going to find out what estate a deceased person has left. Referring to section 4 of the Bill, it merely lays down three authorities : the Board, the Controllers of Estate Duty, and the Valuers. Speaking for myself, I should think that it would be a matter of the greatest difficulty for the authorities who are created to administer this measure to know what a person has left. In the first place, it would be very difficult for them to know who is dead and when he is dead. In this country, it has been a long, long complaint that we have not yet a measure which would compulsorily require a person to report that a child is born to him either male or female or that a certain person in his family is dead, to the Municipal authorities or to the village authorities. He may, if he liked. In the villages, it is the village officer of lowest grade on whom the duty is placed of going and reporting to the village patel that a child is born to a certain person in the village. He may do so, or he may not do so, he may do so after a long time. In the municipality—I am speaking of the Bombay Municipality which is, I think, one of the biggest municipalities—every one knows that there is hardly any compulsion on anybody to go and report to the * P. D., Vol. 4B. (Council of States), 18th September 53, pp. 2805-15.

866 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES municipality that somebody is dead though an official permission is necessary for the purpose of either burying him or burning him. My own experience has been that we often carried the dead body to the graveyard, and there was some sort of insignificant clerk to whom we paid four annas and who gave us a counterfoil of a ticket saying: “All right, you have brought the dead body and you can either bury or burn it as may be the custom prevalent amongst you”. I do not know the party to whom this particular certificate—what may be called the death certificate—may be of any use, except to take it to the mill manager and say: “So-and-so is dead: I am his relative, and I want the balance of wages that are lying in your hand”. I have no idea whether the clerk who stays in the burial ground reports the matter to the municipality or not that so-and-so was dead, and his dead body was brought there, and was either cremated or buried. That is the condition of the register of births and deaths in this country. I submit, Sir, that it would be very difficult for the authorities who are created under this Act to go about hunting every nook and corner to find out who is dead. In England, the operation of the estate duty law becomes simple for the simple reason that there everybody dies after making a will and so far as that is concerned, some one has to take what is called a ‘probate’ so that all the Inland Revenue Officers— as they are called in England—who operate the internal tax system have only to go to the Registrar of the High Court in order to find out whether any application has been made for a probate. If so, from that they can find out who is dead, what is the total estate that has been disclosed in that application. But, unfortunately, in our country, we have not got the habit of obtaining a probate. No doubt, there is a rule that, so far as the Indian Succession Act goes, a probate shall be taken, if there is a will, under the Probate Act. If a party is not governed by the Indian Succession Act, all the same, a party can obtain a probate on a will, if any will is left, under what is called the Probate Administration Act. We have got no such system at all here. I have been wondering at myself, if my hon. Friend appointed me as Controller of the Estate Duty under this Bill, what I would do, where would I go to