Vol. 17, Part I · pages 346–350

321REPRESENTATION..........MANGS ETC. service no pay,” or the policy of “so much work, so much pay” there is no justification why it should be applied to the Maharki Watan. 34. Another reason advanced for the increase of Judi is the necessity of making better provision for the remuneration of another class of Inferior Village Servants. In his letter No. LA 26-F, Revenue Department, dated 11th November 1938,addressed to Mr. B.K. Gaikwad, M.L.A., Mr. M. J. Desai Esq., I.C.S., Deputy Secretary to the Government of Bombay, Revenue Department, in justification of increased Judi, states :- “3. The standard minimum remuneration of a Mahar in the Central Division is land of which the nuksan is Rs. 10/- to Rs. 20/-. according to the size of the village or cash allowance from Rs. 50/- to Rs. 100/-. There are still many inferior village servants who do not get even this remuneration. Provision of increased emoluments for badly paid inferior village servants has been proceeding steadily. One source from which it has been made has been the reduction of the emoluments of those whose remuneration is considerably in excess of the scale.” 35. From this extract it becomes clear that one reason and perhaps the real reason for reducing the remuneration of the Mahars by increasing the Judi is to make provision for the better remuneration of other Inferior Village Servants. There can be no doubt that all Inferior Village Servants are grossly ill-paid and the Mahars are no better paid than other Inferior Village Servants having regard to the duties they have to perform. But assuming that there is a case for increasing the remuneration of other Inferior Village Servants, I must respectfully submit that the policy adopted by Government for carrying it out is worse than that of robbing Peter to pay Paul and is contrary to the declared policy of Government and to the provisions of the Watan Act. 36. In the matter of increase of Judi there are several Government Resolutions which lay down the terms and conditions under which Government have reserved the right to increase the Judi all of which have been referred to, summarised

322 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES and explained by Col. W. C. Anderson, Survey and Settlement Commissioner N. D. in his letter to the Chief Secretary to Government, Revenue Department, dated 23rd July 1877 and which is printed as Appendix IV (c) in vol. II of the Bombay Survey Settlement Manual by R. G. Gordon, I.C.S., at pp. 496-505. 37. It appears that there was some doubt with regard to the principle underlying this Resolution of the Bombay Government No. 6141 of 1st November 1875 in which the position of the Government with regard to the increase in Judi was laid down. Colonel Anderson felt it necessary to explain the same. The Explanation given by him in para 4 of his letter is reproduced below :- “4. The principle of the Government Resolution No. 6141of the 1st November 1875 is clear - it was intended to hold the emoluments of the Watan applicable to the last rupee to the remuneration of the Officiator as fixed from time to time, but it was not desired to make money out of the surplus emoluments (of a Watan)………” (Italics mine). 38. So far as the Survey Settlement Manual goes there has been no subsequent Resolution by Government disputing this interpretation of the Resolution of 1875 as given by Col. Anderson. Nor has there been any Resolution modifying the terms of the Resolution of 1875, that being so the Resolution of 1875 and its interpretation by Col. Anderson stand as the last and final pronouncement by the Government on the question of increase of Judi. I, therfore, submit that I am justified in saying that the present increase in the Judi of the Maharki Watan lands to remunerate other Watandars is a direct violation of the Resolution referred to above. 39. The Resolution lays down two distinct limitations on the power to increase Judi, namely : (1) that Judi shall not be increased for making i.e., for general finance of the Government and (2) and that Judi will be increased only if it becomes necessary to increase the remuneration of the Officiator. The main question that arises is : - Is increase of Judi on the Maharki Watan for increasing the remuneration of the Mahar Officiators? If it was, I concede that no objection to its increase on Maharki lands could be taken. But it is not. Admittedly the increase of

323REPRESENTATION..........MANGS ETC. Judi on Maharki lands is intended to provide increase of remuneration to Bhills, Ramoshis and other Inferior Village Servants. Now by no stretch of imagination or by any far-fetched construction of the law relating to Watans can it be said that the Bhills, Ramoshis and other Inferior Village Servants Officiators who are officiating for the Mahar Watandars of a village. 40. In launching upon this policy of increasing Judi to provide better remuneration for Bhills, Ramoshis and other Inferior Village Servants, it seems to have been forgotten that under the Watan Act each Watan is a distinct and a separate Watan; that separate emoluments are attached to separate Watans; that the benefits of these separate emoluments are separately enjoyable only by families who are Watandars of that Watan and that a Watandar of a Watan cannot transfer his right to hold office and his right to the Watan property to any person who is not a Watandar of the same Watan. A Patilki Watan is separate from a Maharki Watan and both were separate from the Kulkarni Watan when it was in existence. A Patil could not transfer his right in the Patilki Watan to a Mahai ; nor a Mahar his to a Patil. That the Judi on the Watan land could be increased only to pay an increase in the remuneration of the Officiator officiating for the Watandars of the same Watan is a mere corollary of the rule of law that any transfer of a Watan property to a person who is not a Watandar of the same Watan is illegal. It could not have been possible for Government to levy an increase of Judi on Patilki Watan to pay the Mahars. It could not have been possible for Government to levy a Judi on Kulkarni Watan to pay the Patil. For the same reason I submit that that is not open to Government to tax the Maharki Watan lands to pay for Bhills, Ramoshis and other Inferior Village Servants. 41. On the grounds stated above I have no hesitation in saying that this levy of Judi is the most arbitrary and illegal act on the part of Government. 42. In this connection I would like to place before Your Excellency the state of affairs which exists in some parts of this Presidency in the matter of the remuneration of the Mahars. The remuneration of the Mahars comes from three sources : (1) Inam Land, (2) Baluta from the villagers which is an annual payment in kind made by the villager to the Mahar and (3) cash payment

324 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES from the Government Treasury. The first and the last are not to be found in each district. There are many districts in which the Mahars have no Inam land and no cash allowance. It is only the second, namely, the Baluta which is found all over the Presidency and forms the principal mode of remuneration to the Mahars. The number of such villages is by no means small. In Belgaum District there are 317, in Bijapur District there are 543, in Dharwar District there are 572 and in Sholapur there are 463 villages in which there are no lands and in which the main source of income is Baluta to be collected from the villagers. The same is the condition in the Thana, Kolaba and Ratnagiri Districts. This list of villages wherein Baluta is the only source of remuneration to the Mahars is not a complete list. But from the data available it is clear that while in some villages the Mahars are mainly dependent upon Baluta, in other villages they are entirely dependent upon it for their remuneration. 43. With regard to the Baluta as a mode of remunerating the Mahars, I would like in the first place to draw Your Excellency’s attention to the vicious character of this mode of remuneration. The Mahars are Government servants, Government takes service from them; but for their remuneration Government refers them to the villagers. Such a system of treating Government servants will be deemed to be very strange, if not disgraceful. The practice is certainly unbecoming to any Government which calls itself civilised. 44. This vicious system of Baluta results in stark injustice to the Mahars in the matter of their remuneration. Government takes into its calculation the payment of Baluta by the villagers to the Mahars in fixing the total remuneration of the Mahars. But it is the universal experience that the Mahars never get the Baluta. The reason is obvious. The relations between the Mahars and the villagers are never cordial. There is no village where there is no conflict between the Mahars and the villagers. Often it happens that the relation between the Mahars and the villagers remain friendly and the Mahars work for the whole year for the villagers as well as for Government in the hope that they will get their Baluta from the villagers. But something happens just at the

325REPRESENTATION..........MANGS ETC. harvest season which creates strained relations between the Mahars and the villagers, with the result that the villagers refuse to pay the Mahars their Baluta. Coupled with their natural desire to evade the payment of Baluta is this state of enmity between the Mahars and the villagers which is a feature common to all villagers in the Presidency and which is responsible for the failure of Baluta system. The result is that the Mahar works in the hope of getting the Baluta but never gets it. The Mahar has no power to compel payment of Baluta. He is a minority in the village and is entirely dependent upon the village. In this conflict it is he who has to suffer. What makes this injustice so unbearable is the conduct of the Government officers, who take service from the Mahars, but who never help them to recover the Baluta from villagers. There is provision in law whereby the Revenue authorities have power to convert the Baluta into cash payment and recover the same from the villagers along with the land revenue and pay it to the Mahars. But a large majority of the Government officers have consistently refused to use these powers to relieve Mahars from this injustice for the fear of annoying the villagers. 45. The Baluta system at one time applied to all the village -servants. It applied to the Patil and the Kulkarni as well as to the Mahars. But Government discontinued the Baluta system so far as the Patil and the Kulkarni were concerned from the year 1844 and substituted in its place the system of cash payment from Government Treasury. The reason given was that the Patil and Kulkarni might—by force of the authority they possessed—recover from the villagers more than their quota of Baluta. If this reason was a good reason for abolishing the system of payment through Baluta to the Patil and the Kulkarni the reason for not applying it to the Mahars is a better reason. If the Patil and Kulkarni were strong enough to recover more the Mahars are too weak to recover any. Government seems to have considered only the interests of the villagers. They have never considered the interests of the Mahars. If they had, they would have abolished so precarious a system of remuneration as Baluta for the Mahars as well or would have made some provision for securing prompt payment of the Baluta to the Mahars. It is wrong for Government to have left the Mahars to be paid by a third party