Vol. 15 · pages 931–935

912 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES work either to the Bombay city or to the Bombay State. It was open to them to do any kind of social work in any other part of India. The only thing was that its centre and head office would be in Bombay. Mr. Datar rejected my suggestion and put this matter in the report. All that I want to say is this. If Mr. Datar had communicated to me that he did not accept my suggestion, I am sure within myself that I would have changed my mind and accepted the offer in the name of the Federation because beggars cannot be choosers if for no other reason, and I even now say that if he insists that the Federation is the only body which the Government of India would entrust the money with, well, I have no hesitation, but I still maintain my view that this work outhgt not to be entrusted to political bodies. Now, Sir, I come to the question of the economic emancipation of the Scheduled Castes. This, I think along with education and services is the most important thing for the raising of the status of the Scheduled Castes. Now what are the means of raising the economic status of the Scheduled Castes ? Obviously the economic emancipation of the Scheduled castes will depend upon the opportunity that they get for what might be called entry into gainful occupation. Unless and until doors are open to them where they can find gainful occupation, their economic emancipation is not going to take place. They are going to remain slaves, if not slaves, serfs of the land-owning classes in the villages. There can be no doubt on that point at all. Now, Sir, out of these gainful occupations I personally feel no doubt that the most important thing on which Government ought to concentrate is the giving of land to the Scheduled Castes. They must be settled on land so that they might obtain independent means of livelihood, cease to be afraid of anybody, walk with their heads erect and live fearlessly and courageously. I think this is a thing which all the Ministers are agreed upon. I take it that the one thing that Government ought to do is to provide land for the Scheduled Castes. Let us take that question. Firstly, is there land available to be given to the Scheduled Castes ? Has Government any power to sequester land from those who are owning land now, take it away and give it to the Scheduled

913PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES Castes ? Is it possible for the Scheduled Castes to be financed by the Government in the matter of purchasing lands if land was to be sought ? These are the three ways by which land could be given to the Scheduled Castes. Government should by law limit the holding of those who hold land and take away the excess and hand it over to the Scheduled Castes. Secondly the Government may finance the purchase of land if any is to be sold. Sir, it is clear to everybody that land-holding in India is not merely a matter of economic livelihood. It is a matter of social status. A person holding land has a higher status than a person not holding land. Now it is quite clear that in the villages this matter of economic status is of the utmost importance to everybody. And no Hindu wishes that an untouchable should possess a piece of land so that he may reach a higher status than his community is entitled to under the social system. Sir, the question of a scheduled caste man getting a bit of land in the village seems to me to be utterly impossible. I do not know to what extent the Government will be able to make a law limiting the holdings. There might easily be a revolution. If the Government had, in passing land legislation, instead of giving the title of the property to the peasant, kept the title to themselves as paramount owners of land, they might have been able to pass a law that as the land belonged to the Government nobody would be allowed to hold more than a certain number of acres. But the Government has committed one of the greatest acts of folly in creating these peasant proprietors. Sir, once Talleyrand told Napolean. “Why do you want all this bother with Europe ? Why do you want to create all this enmity ? Why should you not be content with becoming the King of France with me as your Prime Minister?” There were a certain number of soldiers standing outside the palace of Napolean holding their guns with bayonets shining in the light of the sun. Napolean was a very abusive person. He told Talleyrand : “You were so much done in a silk stocking. Do you see my battalions ?” He said, “Yes, I see them”. Then Napolean asked, “Why should I not be an Emperor ?” To that Talleyrand replied and my friends will remember that reply : “ You can do anything

914 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES with these bayonets except sit on them. “Now, you have created these peasant proprietors. You can’t sit on them : they will sit on you. You have bungled and bungled most wrongly notwithstanding the advice of many people not to do it. But just to win political elections, you did it and you are bearing the fruits of it now. However, this limitation of holdings therefore is an impossible thing. I happened to study the report of the United Provinces Tenancy Committee appointed by my friend Mr. Govind Vallabh Pant. I know every line of it and I wonder whether the people who raised the cry that holdings ought to be limited know anything about the facts of it. What is the average holding in Uttar Pradesh ? The lowest is about 1 acre and the highest is about four or five acres. That is all that there is and the further fact is that every inch of land in the U. P. has been under cultivation and in occupation. You can do nothing there and that I am sure, is the case in most of the other States. Therefore my submission to the Hon. the Home Minister is this that unless you want to go on fooling the Scheduled Castes by telling them, ‘Oh, keep quiet, we are going to give you a peice of land. Either we will have a ceiling ot we will finance your purchase. We will do this or do that, unless you want to go on fooling them like this, you ought to think of some other method of doing that. This is a problem which you must solve and if you do not solve it, you know what consequences there might be—most evil consequences. The fire is burning outside; it may easily come in and the Scheduled Castes may carry the banner and you and your Constitution will go under. Nothing will remain. Now, Sir, I am going to make one suggestion to my hon. friend and it is this. I find from the Planning Commission’s Report that a very large amount of what might be called cultivable waste is to be found in this country. According to the Planning Commission it is 98 million acres. Now, my suggestion to my friends is this. The Government is going, I understand, to amend the Constitution. They are fond of amending the Constitution. Why have a Constitution at all, I do not understand, if you are amending it every Saturday ? However, as you are amending it, I suggest that you amend

915PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES it and put the cultivation of waste land in List No. 1 so that it will come within the purview of the Central Government. The State Governments have not got the means of developing that land. They are living like dog in the manger, neither developing it themselves nor allowing anybody else to do it. Therefore there can be nothing wrong in taking over the waste land by amending the Constitution in List No. 1. The second thing which I am going to suggest is one which many people may not find pleasant but I think there is no harm in suggesting. It is this, you again levy the salt tax. The salt tax was the lightest tax that we had in our country. At the time it was abolished, the revenue was about Rs. 10 crores and it might easily go up to Rs. 20 crores now. No doubt, the abolition of salt tax was done in the memory of Mr. Gandhi. I respect him and I suggest to you that you levy the tax and create a Trust Fund in the name of Mr. Gandhi—Gandhi Trust Fund for the development or settlement of the untouchables. After all, the untouchables, according to all of us, were the nearest and dearest to him and there is no reason why Mr. Gandhi may not bless this project from Heaven, namely, levying the tax and using it for the development of waste land and settling the Scheduled Castes on this waste land. There is promise but a scope for performance. You know in the game of poker there is a difference between promise and performance. I give you a scheme where there is not only promise but there is also performance. I do not understand why the people of this country should not contribute through the means of the salt tax for the elevation of the Scheduled Castes. You may keep it quite outside the Budget just as a sort of a Gandhi Welfare Scheme which will perpetuate the name of Mr. Gandhi and which will give relief to the people whom he wanted to protect and whom he wanted to elevate. This is my suggestion to the Hon. the Home Minister and I hope he will give this matter his most serious consideration. Sir, I have done and I do not want to say anything more. The only thing that I would like to say is this that in all this effort which is being made by the Government, by the various social workers and the social agencies, there is one thing which 11-00 A.M.

916 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES gives me a very sad thought and it is this that our Prime Minister has taken no interest in this matter at all. In fact, he seems to be not only apathetic but anti-untouchable. I happen to have read his biography and I find that he castigated Mr. Gandhi because Mr. Gandhi was prepared to die for the purpose of doing away with separate electorates which was given to the Scheduled Castes. He has said in his biography, ‘Why on earth Mr. Gandhi is bothering with this trifling problem ? Sir, I was shocked and surprised to hear the Prime Minister—rather Mr. Nehru then in 1934—uttering these words. I thought that since the responsibility of Government had fallen on his shoulder he may have changed his view and thought that he must now take the responsibility which Mr. Gandhi was prepared to take on his shoulder, but I do not find any kind of a change in his mind. Sir, in the year 1952 a conference was held at Nagpur under the Presidentship of my hon. friend Babu Jagjivan Ram. I understood that there was a very big shamiana. Two silver chairs were placed on the dais, one for Mr. Jagjivan Ram and one for Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. There was an audience of two hundred to three hundred and one thousand police. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was supposed to inaugurate that conference. I have got his speech here, but I do not wish to trouble the House by reading it, but this is the gist of it. He was, I am told, in great anger against Babu Jagjivan Ram for having organised the conference. He said loudly “I do not recognize that there is such a problem as that of the untouchables. There is a general problem of the economically poor and the problem of the untouchables is a part of that problem. It will take its place and receive its attention along with the other problems. There is no occasion, no purpose in bestowing any special thought upon it.” Sir, if the Prime Minister is prepared to throw such cold water—not cold, water from the refrigerator, so to say—what enthusiasm can we expect from the rest of the workers who have taken upon themselves the duty or the responsibility or the interest in carrying on with this particular problem : I do not think that untouchabality will vanish. They believe ‘yes’. I think ‘no’, as I said, because it has a mental twist. It will take years