Vol. 2 · pages 26–30

7ON BUDGET Reserved Department Transferred Department Increase, per cent. Decrease, per cent. Increase, per cent. Decrease, per cent. United Provinces* . . . . . . . . . 12.57 . . . Punjab . . . 10.40 . . . 29.41 . . . Burmah . . . 34.36 . . . 6.44 . . . Bihar and Orissa . . . 5.89 . . . 44.66 . . . Central Provinces . . . 6.24 . . . 18.15 . . . Assam . . . 8.24 . . . 12.75 . . . *Decrease of expenditure on Reserved Department Sir, if we look at these figures what do we find ? I am sorry to find, and I am sure every one in this House will be sorry to find, that such an important province as Bombay should occupy the very lowest place in the order of its relative expenditure on the reserved and transferred departments. Even the province of Burmah, which appears to have been so badly managed, stands higher than Bombay in this respect. I, therefore, submit, Sir, that that is a grave scandal. Surely this is not the way in which the finances of an important presidency like the Bombay Presidency should be managed. I wish the Honourable the Finance Member had paid more attention to the “transferred” departments than he seems to have actually paid to them. From the figures it is evident that the reserved departments are systematically over-fed and the transferred departments are systematically starved. Sir, what good is an Indian Finance member if he is not to respond to the wishes of his countrymen. There is a general clamour for progress on all hands. The Honourable, the Finance Member knows how very insistent the clamour is. But unfortunately he has so far done nothing to lead us to hope for anything at his hands in the future. Then, Sir, not only are the finances badly managed, but I submit, that the financial position of this presidency is indeed very serious. Sir, if you examine the financial position year by year from 1921-22 to the present day, you will find that every year there is a reduction of the surplus; so much so that instead of having surplus budgets we have exhausted our surpluses and we have now reached a period where the budget discloses a series of deficits. In 1922-23 there was a surplus of Rs. 64 lakhs. In 192324 the surplus came down to Rs. 29,38 lakhs. In the year 1925-26 the year was closed with a deficit of Rs. 91 lakhs; and we know what has been the state of affairs since then. You see, Sir, from these figures that the financial position of this presidency is deteriorating year by year, and I submit, Sir, that having regard to the commitments made by Government, the position in time to come is indeed going to be very serious. Sir, you know the loan arrangements will have soon to be paid off. Some arrangement shall have to be made for the repayment of that loan, that is bound to cast a heavy burden on the already exhausted finances of the presidency. Sir, this Council and the Government have been committed to universal compulsory

8 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES primary education. This Council and Government are also committed to the carrying out of the policy of prohibition. These three items, I do not think any honourable member of Government is going to deny, are going to make a very heavy call upon the finances of this presidency. And when our finances are deteriorating year by year even without these three items, I cannot quite imagine what will be the state of affairs when we begin to give these items a practical shape. Finding myself in this situation what surprises me most is that all this does not seem to trouble the Honourable the Finance Member at all. He does not disclose that he is aware of all these commitments. In the financial statement he has submitted he does not show that he is conscious of these obligations. He is merely, if I may say so, carrying through a hand-to-mouth policy, a policy for the day without any thought for the morrow. There is no outline of a general policy which will improve the future exigencies of the situation. After me the deluge seems to be his watchward. He is merely trying to meet the deficit of the budget He is calculating upon what he might be able to gain out of the reduction in the famine insurance grant, and in the Meston contribution. But I ask him in all seriousness whether these small, paltry gains, as I call them, are going to really take us a long way in the financial stabilization of the presidency ? I think, Sir, it would be a mistake to suppose that they can. Either the Honourable the Finance Member must assure us that there are sufficient possibilities of economy in the administration of this presidency which will carry us through, or he should tell us definitely that we shall not get what we want unless we have recourse to taxation. I respectfully refer to the speech made yesterday by His Excellency the Governor. In that speech His Excellency pointed out that the Legislative Council was entirely responsible for taxation, that it was within its powers to impose such taxation as was necessary I admit that the Legislative Council has the power of taxation. But I also submit that the initiation in the matter must come from Government It is the Government that must suggest what taxation it wants. Has the Government done so ? The Government on the contrary is absolutely sitting silent It does not propose to tell us what it is going to do. It cannot be said that Government has not got the data to work out a plan. We all know that the Taxation Enquiry Committee has submitted a most exhaustive report, with endless recommendations which ought to suffice for the initiation of a new and adequate financial policy. These, I am sure, are lying on the table of the Honourable the Finance Member, but nothing seems to have been done in the matter at all. I say, Sir, that the situation is indeed very serious and it is high time the Honourable the Finance Member make up his mind to deal with it in a statesmanlike manner. * * *

3 *ON BUDGET : 3 †Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (Bombay City): Mr. Speaker, Sir, this is the second financial statement which has been presented by my honourable friend the Finance Minister. It would therefore be natural to expect this Budget to be subjected to greater scrutiny and closer examination. Before stating what I think of this Budget, I cannot forget the fact that this budget has been commended by all those members of this House who have so far taken part in the discussion. The Honourable the Finance Minister must have felt a certain amount of satisfaction that his work has secured praise from all those who have spoken. But I must confess that I am very much surprised that this budget should have been really commended in the way in which it has been commended by speakers who have preceded me. I have devoted a certain amount of time for the consideration of the financial statement which he has presented, and I have no hesitation in saying that this is not only the most paltriest budget that I have ever seen, but it is a hollow and insubstantial Budget. It discloses no vision of the future and no recognition of the problems with which this presidency is faced. This may appear somewhat extravagant, but I am presently going to substantiate what I am saying. There is, Sir, one item for which, perhaps, I may praise the Government, but that praise, unfortunately for my honourable friend, cannot go to him. It must go to the Honourable the Home Minister. I refer to item No. 45 in the new scheme. This item No. 45 is an item which provides an additional expenditure of Rs. 36,217 for the augmentation of the police force. Sir, the relationship that existed between the members who are sitting on the other side and the police force before they took office and became part of the Government is a well known thing. I myself well remember having witnessed the scene of a number of people clad in white pursuing the police from place to place shouting “Pili topi, hai, hai”. That there should have been established this camaraderi between the police, who were at one time regarded as the instruments of tyranny and oppression upon the people, and the Congress *B.L.A. Debates, Vol. 3, pp. 168-79, dated 2nd March 1938. †Dr. Ambedkar was elected to the Bombay Legislative Assembly in 1937 and was sworn in on Monday, the 19th July 1937. as M.L.A.

10 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES party is certainly a matter, if one may say so, for congratulating the Honourable the Home Minister for demanding the money and the Honourable the Finance Minister for finding it. He certainly in my judgment needs the police force. He certainly needs their loyalty, for we all know now what he is engaged in doing with the police force, and we recently had an illustration of what use the police force is being made of. I refer to the firing that took place at Dharavi. I am sure that the present Government, which has, so far as I can see, shown very little sympathy for the advancement of the cause of labour, may have to indulge in greater use of the police force against the labouring classes. That the Congress Ministry should have come out in its true colour is a matter of congratulation. But with that I must stop, because in the rest of the budget there is nothing for which Government can take any credit. The first thing, Sir, to which I would like to draw the attention of this House is what I regard certain examples of financial impropriety. There are before me here—I have called out from the financial statement which the Honourable the Finance Minister has presented—some 5 items, namely, item No. 53 which provides 24 lakhs for education, item No. 46 which provides Rs. 25,000 for what is called voluntary police force, item No. 105 which provides 4 lakhs for village panchayats, item No. 100 which provides 1 lakh for labour amenities, and item No. 67 which provides Rs. 80,000 for what is called the training of Unani Hakims. Now, Sir, when one looks at the Blue Book which has been circulated, one notices an admission on the part of the Government that for none of these items which are included in the financial proposal is there any scheme in existence. All these heads on which this expenditure is intended to be incurred are still in incubation. They themselves do not know what are the purposes on which this money is to be spent. The second thing is that this House has not passed any of the legislative measures on which this expenditure is supposed to follow. Sir, this expenditure which practically asks for a blank cheque from this House with the fullest liberty for the members of the Government to spend it on anything they like so long as it falls under the main heads such as education, police etc. amounts altogether to 31 lakhs of rupees. Now, if one takes into consideration the fact that the total amount of the new items which have been added by the Honourable the Finance Minister to the existing budget comes to about 1.16 lakhs, one can very easily realise the amount of money which this Government proposes merely to lift from the hands of the House and spend in the way it wants to spend. Sir, I cannot help saying that this Government has been constantly encroaching upon the privileges of this House. My honourable friend the Home Minister is unfortunately not here and I regret it because I do want to refer to one or two things for which he principally is responsible. I have noticed ever since the Congress Government has taken office that the Honourable the Home Minister has insisted that this House has no right to pass upon any rules that the Government might make under any

11ON BUDGET particular law that this House may have passed. Sir, I say that this is an encroachment upon the authority of this House. I say that there are rules and rules. There are rules which merely carry out what is called the administrative policy. There are rules which are nothing else but a part of the law, and I claim and I insist that wherever a rule is a part of the law, then this House has not only the right to pass upon the original legislation but it has the right to pass upon the rule as well, and I do not understand how any executive Government can appropriate this field to itself. But the Congress Government has. Time in and time out it encroached upon this privilege of the House. This lifting of money, this asking for a blank cheque is, I regard, another in-road and an encroachment upon the privileges of this House. Sir, I do not know what the situation now is but I was quite familiar with what is known as the Devolution Rules which were prepared under the old Government of India Act and I think my honourable friend the Finance Minister will bear me out that one section of the Devolution Rules included what is called the constitution of the Finance Department. It was one of the cardinal principles then recognised under the old Government of India Act that the Finance Department ought not to be a transferred department. The reason given was a very substantial reason for not treating the Finance Department as a transferred department. The Finance Department was intended to be the watchdog. The Finance Department was intended to scrutinise all expenditure that was put forth by any particular Minister in charge of any particular portfolio. It was intended that one of the principal functions of the Finance Department was not only to see whether the sum asked for any particular purpose was necessary and could be granted, having regard to the financial position of the province, but whether the grant asked was properly itemised. I am sure that, although the old Government of India Act of 1919 has ceased and the Devolution Rules framed under that Act are probably no longer law, the principles enunciated in those Devolution Rules must be permanent, must be abiding for all time. Ever since finance came to be recognised as an important part of the machinery of control which the Legislature has forged over the Executive, it has always been accepted that no Minister shall place before the Legislature a demand for any lump sum without specifying the particular services, the particular items which are supposed to be included in that demand. The reason is two-fold. The House must know what are the details on which funds are being spent. Secondly, it is necessary for the Audit and Accounts Department to know how the money granted by the House has been spent. And I say, Sir, that it is something which is quite inexcusable, that this Government should have had the courage—I say, the audacity to come forward before this Legislature and merely say that they want Rs. 31 lakhs for spending on certain items, about the propriety of which the House has never decided and as to the details of which the Government itself has not made up its mind. I say it is audacity.