Vol. 15 · pages 976–980

957PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES that the case which my hon. friend Mr. Pant has very much in mind and which I also have in mind, is the case of the bus owners. The bus owners, under the Motor Vehicles Act, have to obtain a licence for running their buses on a certain route. My friend Mr. Pant is a very covetous person and he likes to get the monopoly of running the buses in his own hand and he, therefore, does not like the bus owners. How can he prevent them from running the buses ? He has got the power of cancelling their licences. He therefore, cancels their licences and sets on Government buses on the route on which they were plying and he does not want to pay them any compensation at the same time. The question that I would like to ask is this ; Is this a just and fair proposition ? I have no objection to the Government running their own buses. I do not know how cheap the fares in U. P. are whether they are cheaper than in the case of the private buses. Shri H. P. Saksena (Uttar Pradesh): Yes. Shri Tajamul Husain: And better. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : I am not saying anything; I do not know whether they give good service; probably they do. Shri Tajamul Husain: Yes, they do; the Government buses always do. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: But the point to be considered is this; here are a body of people engaged in this particular trade, who are earning their living by this trade. They have invested quite a lot of money in buying their stock-in-trade, namely the buses, the workshops and whatever other things are necessary. You suddenly come and say, “Stop your trade. We shall not allow you to carry on”. Even that I do not mind but the point that I would like to ask my friend is this; the least thing that my hon. friend could do is at least to buy their stock-in-trade because that very stock-in-trade would be useful to us running by the Government. If it did that and then said that it is not going to give them any more compensation because the stock-in-trade has been bought with which money they could go and practise any other trade they liked, that would be quite an equitable proposition from

958 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES my point of view. But the Government does not want to do that. In running the Government buses they prefer to buy new buses. The Minister has yet to give an answer as to why he would not take the old buses from the people whose licences he has cancelled. No answer has been given for this thing. Mr. Chairman : Dr. Ambedkar, you have taken nearly an hour. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: Yes, Sir, that is quite true. Mr. Chairman: Please wind up as early as possible. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: Yes, Sir. What I was saying was this, that in such cases it would be wrong to deprive a man of his means of livelihood and not to compensate him for the loss of his stock-in-trade. I would like to hear some argument on this subject which would justify this kind of conduct. Therefore,, my submission is that clause (2A) is a most inequitous piece of legislation. It has no relation to justice, equity and good conduct. Unless my friend is going to give some satisfactory explanation I mean to oppose that clause. Now I will proceed to clause 3 of the amending Bill. I would like to say at the outset that the provisions contained in clause 3 are in my judgement, most insignificant, trivial and jejune and I do not know what the Government is going to achieve by incorporating this clause in the Constitution. Now, with regard to sub-clauses (g), (h) and (i) of proposed clasue (1), in clause 3 of the amending Bill, I have not the least objection because I do not see that by taking action under these clauses, there is going to be any injury to anybody. The essence of acquisition is that it causes injury to the interests of anybody. I do not see that these sub-clauses will cause any injury to anybody and, therefore, I support the proposition that there need be no compensation in these cases. But there is one thing that I would like to say with regard to these clauses and it is this that if any action is taken under these clauses (g), (h) and (i), it must only be on the ground that public purpose justifies it. It must not be merely an arbitary act on the part of the Government. It must not be a whim that Government wants to amalgamate one company

959PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES with another or transfer the management of one to another. These clauses must be subject to the rule of public purpose. If that, is so, then there is no objection to them. Now going back to the other clauses, to (a) I have no objection; it may stand as it is. With regard to (b) I do not know whether the first part of (b) is very different from (a). It seems to me that both are alike, but I would like to have some explanation as to what is meant by “modification of any rights in agricultural holdings”. What does that mean ? There is no explanation. As far as I understand, an agriculturist requires four rights. First is security of tenure; he must not be liable to ejection by the landlord without proper cause. Secondly he would be liable to pay only what is called fair rent, as may be determined by a court if it is necessary. Thirdly he must have transferability of tenure. If he wants to sell his holding he should be free to sell it and the landlord should not stand in his way. And fourthly it must be hereditable, that is to say, if he dies, his descendants should have a right to claim the holding. Now these are the four things which I think a holder of an agricultural holding is interested in. Now Government would take power to modify these things. I do not know what is the nature of the modification and what are the rights which they propose to modify. I think some explanation is necessary. Then comes (c), the fixation of the maximum extent of agricultural land, etc. Well, all that I can say is this that whether this particular clause will have positive results depends upon what is the maximum that you are going to fix. This is the pet idea of the Socialist Party. They want that land should be distributed after fixing the maximum holding of a tenant. Mr. Chairman: Are not these matters to be taken up in the Joint Committee when it comes to discuss the thing? Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: It may be but the point is this that it is necessary to know whether these things are really good to be incorporated in the Constitution. My Friend Mr. Pant

960 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES knows because he was the Chairman of the Committee on Land Tenures in U. P. which I have studied—that the maximum holding in U. P. is about two acres for a ryot and I do not know that there is any part of India where tyotwari prevails where the holding is larger than two acres. What maximum can you fix I do not understand. Therefore this seems to me quite a futile thing. The other thing about which I wish to make some reference is this. It says that the surplus land shall be transferred to the State or otherwise. I do not know what is meant by “otherwise”, whether it means that it may be given to other tenants; that might be the meaning. If so, I would like to utter a word of caution. I am of opinion that peasant proprietorship in this country is going to bring about complete ruination of the country. What we want is—although I am not a Communist—the Russain system of collective farming. That is the only way by which we can solve our agricultural problem. To create peasant proprietorship and to hand overland to peasants who have not got means of production is in my judgement…… Shri Tajamul Husain: Have they done it in Russia ? Mr. Chairman: Don’t bother, he takes it as an illustration. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: I am prepared to pick and choose from everyone, Socialist, Communist or other. I do not claim infallibility and as Buddha says there is nothing infallible; there is nothing final and everything is liable to examination. Shri Tajamul Husain: That is why we are amending the Constitution framed by Dr. Ambedkar. Shri S. Mahanty (Orissa): And voted by you. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: Now with regard to vacant and waste land. That proposition is of course a welcome proposition and I support it. But I have yet to see if you take vacant land without compensation, whether the municipality which would have to exercise this right would do so because I fear a large majority of municipal councillors are friends of the slum-owners and therefore probably they will not exercise this right unless some ting more is done.

961PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES Now with regard to management, all that I want to say is this. Most people do not realise what is involved in this. If the Government wants to take up the management of a mill because it is badly managed, there is no harm in doing that. But the question is this. Suppose the Government management turns out to be worse than the previous management and losses are created, who is going to be responsible for those losses ? I think some provision must be made. Nationalised industries so far as India is concerned do not appear to be very profitable. Our Airways Corporation, as I see from papers, has brought to us a loss of one crore of rupees within one year. Shri S. Mahanty: And about Rs. 50 lakhs. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: What other corporations would do I do not know. But if you take the property of a man because it is mismanaged and because there is a social purpose in it, you must also make some provision that the losses that might be incurred are made good by somebody and are not put on the head of the old man who was the owner of the property. Now, Sir, one word with regard to clause 5. It seems to me very obnoxious. What are we asked to do by clause 5 ? By clause 5 we are asked to give constitutional validity to laws passed by State Letislatures. We have not seen those laws; they have not been circulated; they have not been debated here. And yet we are asked here to exercise the constituent powers of Parliament not only to validate them but to give them constitutional immunity from the other clauses of the Act. Sir, I think it is very derogatory to the dignity of the House that it should be called upon to validate laws passed by some other State which laws it has not seen, it has not considered. The proper thing for the Government to do is to put these subjects in the concurrent field so that Parliament may at least give them validity by the powers vested in it. But it is a very wrong thing. Because we did it in the case of the first amendment where we added the Ninth Schedule to the Constitution, that is no reason why we should widen this anomaly and this ugliness in the Constitution. That is all that I want to say.