Vol. 15 · pages 911–915

892 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Let my friend deny it or let him correct me. He knows something about this bank evidently. The capital of this bank is somewhere near Rs. 33 crores. Now, according to the classification that has been adopted by the Sen Award, the Sastry Award and of the Appellate Tribunal, this bank ought to be placed under A class banks, because A class banks are banks whose working capital is Rs. 25 crores or above. Certainly this bank as I said, ought to be in the A class and the scale prescribed by Government ought to be applied to this bank. Apparently there seems to be no ground. Evidently this bank for some reason which I am unable to understand, was in troubled waters. It applied to the Sastry Committee and asked for some exemption. The Sastry Committee gave it exemption up to 31st December 1954. They said “After that date the Award will apply to you.” When the matter went to the Appellate Tribunal, this bank which was not satisfied with the concession given to it by the Sastry Committee, again applied for further exemption, and the Tribunal was pleased to extend the period of exemption up to December 1955, and the Government in its notification specifying the modifications which they wanted to make said : “This Award shall not apply to this bank at all.” I hope that my friend does not say that it shall never apply to them. I hope it will apply to them some day. It requires some justification as to why the Government was so biased in favour of this particular bank as to set aside the limited concession that was given by the two previous tribunals and exempted it altogether. There is no justification whatsoever. Now, there are other points to which I wish to draw the attention of the house. I find that in certain respects the Government ought to have modified the Award but has not modified, and the first point which, I think the Government ought to have taken into consideration as a point requiring modification is the system of classification that was adopted from the very beginning, from the Sen Committee down to the labour Appellate Tribunnal. Now, Sir, I should like to give just one illustration to show how absurd has been the classification. Take Class A banks. Class A banks are banks with a working capital of Rs. 25 crores or more. It does not

893PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES set any upper limit. It just says Rs. 25 crores. That is to say, all other banks who have—may be—Rs. 100 crores as working capital or Rs. 200 crores as working capital, are to be on a par with a bank who has got just Rs. 25 crores as its working capital. As a flagrant illustration of this wrong classifiaction, I find that the case of the Imperial Bank is the most apposite. My friend there has given figures, but I would like to give the figures that I have for what they are worth. Its capital, I understand is somewhere about Rs. 218 crores, and it has deposits totalling 41 per cent, of the total deposits of all the Indian scheduled banks. Now, Sir, I should like to ask whether it is right to place a bank with Rs. 25 crores as working capital on the same footing, on the same par with a bank which has got Rs. 218 crores as working capital and whether it was not desirable and necessary for the government to create a special class of the Imperial Bank. Prof. G. Ranga (Andhara): Let them nationalise it. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: I have not got all the figures but there are many groups between Rs. 25 crores and Rs. 218 crores, and I am sure that, if there had been many classifications, many employees would have got larger benefits by way of wages and other emoluments, because they will all be related to profits, but the Finance Minister has very quietly accepted the classification proposed by these three bodies without proper investigation. Mr. Chairman : You must wind up. Dr. Ambedkar. There are other speakers. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: Yes, Sir, I would not take more than a minute or two. I do not know why my hon. friend, who made an exemption in the case of the United Bank, which was really an exemption which worked adversely to the working classes, did not make a different category of the Imperial Bank, so that it would have been a discrimination in favour of the working classes. Surely, one would have been on a par with the other. Then, there is another thing arising out of this point of classification. None of these three bodies, the Sen Committee,

894 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES the Sastry Committee and the Appellate Tribunal, had felt it necessary to make a distinction between Indian banks and foreign banks in this country. By foreign banks I mean the exchange banks. I find from the Sastry Award that there were twelve of these exchange banks which were a party to the dispute before the. Sen Committee, the Sastry Committee and the Appellate Tribunal. Now, Sir, each of these banks according to the Sastry Award, has more than Rs. 50 crores by way of deposits which are mostly gathered from the depositors in this country. Now, everyone knows that these foreign or exchange banks mainly engage themselves in supporting foreign investors or foreign commerce. They render, I suppose, very little help to the indigenous industry or to the indigenous trade. That is one point. Secondly, they import a large volume of their personnel from outside and Indians whom they employ are employed on the lowest rung of the ladder. The Europeans whom they employ are paid fabulous salaries. Surely, I ask whether it is not justifiable to make a distinction between the Indian banks and the foreign banks and to enable Indians at least to get some advantage from these foreign banks which is all going to the foreign employees. Sir, I have done.

895PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES (50) REPORT OF COMMISSIONER FOR SCHEDULED CASTES AND TRIBES FOR 1953 *Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (Bombay): Mr. Deputy Chairman, this is the third Report which the Commissioner for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes has submitted to the President. At the outset, going through the Report, one notices that the Commissioner makes a complaint against the Members of Parliament blaming him for not taking action on the various matters discussed by him in his Report. He says that the Members of Parliament have forgotten that he is not an executive authority, that his duty is merely to report. The executive departments are supposed to give effect to whatever recommendations of suggestions that he makes, I think his observations are very sound. He is not an executive authority and for the purpose of criticising what action has been taken, the criticism must be levelled either against the Home Minister or against the other departments of the Government of India. But, Sir, while one must admit the legitimacy of the criticism made by the Commissioner, I think there is one criticism that one can legitimately make against the Commissioner himself in the matter of drafting and presenting his Report. I was referring to his chapter dealing with complaints, because I thought that would be one of the most interesting and instructive chapters in that book. We are all aware of the fact that the Scheduled Castes in particular are subjected to all sorts of tyrannies, oppressions and maltreatment at the hands of the villagers in the midst of whom they live. And it would undoubtedly be a matter of great interest to know what are the tyrannies, maltreatments and oppressions to which they are being subjected almost every day, I have no doubt that the Commissioner’s report would be the proper place where such complaints would be * P. D., Vol. 7A, (R. S.), 6th September 1954, pp. 1447-75.

896 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES recorded, but I find the Commissioner absolutely silent over this matter of the gravest importance for the Scheduled Castes. I find, for instance, that from the complaints which have come to me—and I am sure that many more complaints must have gone to the Commissioner; they could not be less than a thousand, or certainly five hundred, but I mention one or two which have come to my notice and are of very recent occurrence—I am told on very reliable authority that in Rajasthan thirty Scheduled Caste people have been shot down by the so-called dacoits. The real fact is that the Rajputs and the high caste Hindus do not like the Scheduled Castes in Rajasthan to enjoy what are called the fundamental rights which give them equality of status with the other Hindus. In order to terrorise them and to make them nervous, in the matter of exercising these fundamental rights, the high caste Hindus have organised themselves into a band of dacoits and they go on shooting the Chamars, who are trying to exercise and derive the benefit of the fundamental rights. Police parties have been sent there in order to give protection to them, but my information is that the police are in league with the dacoits. Half a number of guns possessed by the police were handed over to the dacoits and the report is made that the guns have been snatched away from them by the dacoits. Half the number of bullets are again handed over to these dacoits by the police. Only half are fired, probably in the air without causing any effect. The result is that the dacoits are getting on merrily. The dacoits are really nothing else but what existed in the southern States of America known as the Ku-Klux-Klan, a band of Whites who were bent upon shooting down the Negroes if they tried to exercise the right of equality which was given to them after the Civil War. I do not find any mention of this incident in the Report of the Commissioner. I mention another incident, and that has occurred in Bombay. One Bhangi who was living in a village was supposed by the Hindus to have brought about a certain disease in the village. They thought the malignant influence which he possessed was the cause of a certain disease which was prevalent in the village. They caught hold of him and asked him to take a burning fire on his head and walk around the