Vol. 2 · pages 411–415

392 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES this end and should be welcomed particularly when its accomplishment can reduce the cost of administration and give the Provinces full liberty to manage its own affairs. This of course means that the position of the Secretary of State vis-a-vis the Provincial Governments in the matter of recruitment to the public service must be radically altered. The Secretary of State instead of being the general employer and the Provincial Government indenting upon him for the number of hands necessary for work in their provinces, the Secretary of State in those cases where the recruitment in England is necessary should merely act as the agent of particular provinces concerned, on the terms prescribed by the Provincial Government and not on the terms formulated by himself. The Provinces should henceforth cease as authorities utilising the service of persons lent to them or found for them, so to say, by the Secretary of State. So long such a system continues the Secretary of State is bound to claim the powers which he now enjoys under Section 96B of the Government of India Act. Much is said by the Ministers against the powers retained by the Secretary of State over the Civil Service on the ground that they make responsible government impossible. That criticism is perfectly valid. But those who urged this criticism do not seem to be aware of the fact that these powers can be taken away only when the Secretary of State ceases to be the recruiting officer. 124. If this reform of separation of services is carried into effect, I should like to suggest the following classification of the Provincial Civil Service : — Provincial Civil Service Superior Service Subordinate Service Clerical Service Menial Service Class I equivalent to the present I.C.S. and the Imperial Services. Class II equivalent to the present Provincial Services. 125. Recruitment Agency for the Provincial Civil Service. —The next question that arises for consideration relates to the agency that should be in charge of matters pertaining to the recruitment to the Provincial Civil Service when the Secretary of State has ceased to perform that function. I accept that the Civil Service in order that it may be free from the evil effects of political influence and jobbery should be recruited and controlled by an authority independent of the Ministers. I am not, however, prepared to say that a Provincial Civil Service Commission could be instituted to take charge of this kind of work. On financial considerations alone the proposal seems to be too big. However, I agree with the suggestion that in every province there should be a full-time officer specially charged with the

393PUBLIC SERVICES consideration of service matters. He should be a liaison officer between the Public Service Commission and the Local Government. II. Indianisation of the Services 126. (i) Recruitment of Indians. —The case for Indianisation was accepted by the Islington Commission in 1915. Its relation to the success of the Reforms was emphasised by the authors of the Joint Report and the Lee Commission gave effect to it by defining the proportion between the Indians and the Europeans in the different services. There is, therefore, no necessity to argue the case for Indianisation de novo. All that is necessary to say is that during the interval that elapsed between the appointment of the Islington Commission and the appointment of Lee Commission the angle of vision regarding this question had completely altered. In the days of the Islington Commission the question was, “How many Indians should be admitted into the Public Services ?” At the time of the Lee Commission it had become, “what is the minimum number of Englishmen which must still be recruited ?” I am glad to say that the Lee Commission gave full recognition to this altered angle of vision. What is now necessary is to determine the necessary changes in the principles which were taken by the Lee Commission for framing the proportions of Indians and Europeans so as to accelerate the pace of Indianisation. The consideration that should, in my opinion, govern the proportions is the requirement of a Department and the merits of qualified Indians to run them. If this consideration were adopted the proportions settled by the Lee Commission will have to be altered in favour of Indians in all departments except Law and Order, Forest and other Technical Departments. 127. (ii) Payment of Indians. —I press for Indianisation not only on its own merits but also because of its potential effects on the finances of the Province. For, I hope that Indianisation can be made to yield economy in administration. I have not been personally able to see why equality of pay to Indians and Europeans should be regarded as a necessary consequence of membership of an All-India Service. Looking to the question from the standpoint of merit I have been convinced that there is no logical justification for equal remuneration for both classes of public servants. One class consists of a body of public servants exiled from their own home and posted in a country thousands of miles away in which they do not think that they can properly educate their children or maintain their health. Conditions such as these which compel them to maintain dual establishments at a standard of living admittedly high are considerations which do not apply to those civil servants who have their domicile in India. In contrast to their European colleagues they are working in a country in which they are living free from the difficulties of dual establishments not exposed to ill-health owing to climatic considerations and accustomed to a comparatively low standard of living. The financial burden they are obliged to carry is obviously less pressing than is the case with their European colleagues. If this difference

394 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES between personal risk and sacrifices involved in the performance of their service is admitted, then in my opinion, there is no logical justification for paying them on the same basis. Indeed, if the total position of the two classes of public servants in India be compared then one thing is certain. That if the present salary of European officers is adequate then it is beyond dispute that the Indian officers are overpaid. If, however, the contention is that the Indian officers are not overpaid then it follows that the European officers are underpaid. Whichever view is taken the present practice of equal pay to Indians and Europeans gives rise to a position which is quite unsatisfactory. I have no hesitation in saying that under the present practice of equal payment whether or not the European is adequately paid his Indian colleagues is certainly overpaid. That being my view I am anxious to see that the scale of salary of public servants with Indian domicile is lower. This argument, I am sure, cannot fail to appeal to every Indian who examines the financial position of the different Provincial Governments and the serious embarrassments in which each is placed by reason of the high proportion of expenditure which is devoted to the payment of emoluments to public servants. There are some Indians I know who object to this principle of inequality in salaries. Be it noted that these objections come from those classes of Indians from which the Civil Service is largely recruited, and who claim to be the leaders of the country. Theirs is a contemptible little argument without any substance in it. It has no substance because inequality in status is not a necessary consequence of inequality in pay. It is contemptible because it is based on self-interest. I for myself am in favour of increasing Indianisation mainly because of the large promise of economy which it holds out. 128. (iii) Indianisation and the claims of the Backward Classes. —It is notorious that the Public Services of the country in so far as they are open to Indians have become by reason of various circumstances a close preserve for the Brahmins and allied castes. The Non-Brahmins, the Depressed Classes and the Mohamedans are virtually excluded from them. They are carrying on an intense agitation for securing to themselves what they regard as a due share of the Public Services. With that purpose in view they prefer the system of appointment by selection to the system of appointment by open competition This is vehemently opposed by the Brahmins and the allied castes on the ground that the interests of the State require that efficiency should be the only consideration in the matters of appointment to public offices and that caste and creed should count for nothing. Relying upon educational merit as the only test which can be taken to guarantee efficiency, they insist that public offices should be filled on the basis of competitive examinations. Such a system it is claimed serves the ends of efficiency without in any way prohibiting the entry of the Backward Classes in the Public Services. For the competitive examination being open to all castes and creeds it leaves the door open to a candidate from these communities if he satisfied the requisite test.

395PUBLIC SERVICES 129. The attitude of the Brahmin and allied castes towards this question has no doubt the appearance of fairness. The system of competitive examination relied upon may result in fairness to all castes and creeds under a given set of circumstances. But those circumstances presuppose that the educational system of the State is sufficiently democratic and is such that facilities for education are sufficiently widespread and sufficiently used to permit all classes from which good public servants are likely to be forthcoming to complete. Otherwise even with the system of open competition large classes are sure to be left out in the cold. This basic condition is conspicuous by its absence in India, so that to invite Backward Classes to rely upon the results of competitive examination as a means of entry into the Public Services is to practise a delusion upon them and very rightly the Backward Classes have refused to be deceived by it. 130. Assuming therefore that the entry of the Backward Classes in the Public Services cannot be secured by making it dependent upon open competition, the first question that arises for consideration is, have the Backward Classes a case for a favoured treatment ? Unless they can make good their case they cannot expect any modification of the accepted principles of recruitment by considerations other than those of efficiency pure and simple. In regard to this important question I have no hesitation in stating that the Backward Classes have a case which is overwhelming. 131. First of all those who lay exclusive stress upon efficiency as the basis for recruitment in public services do not seem to have adequate conception of what is covered by administration in modern times. To them administration appears to be nothing more than the process of applying law as enacted by the legislature. Beyond question that is a very incomplete understanding of its scope and significance. Administration in modern times involves far more than the scrutiny of statutes for the sake of knowing the regulations of the State. Often times under the pressure of time or from convenience a government department is now-a-days entrusted with wide powers of rulemaking for the purpose of administering a particular law. In such cases it is obvious that administration cannot merely consist in applying the law. It includes the making up of rules which have the force of law and of working them out. This system of legislation by delegation has become a very common feature of all modern governments and is likely to be on the increase in years to come. It must be accepted as beyond dispute that such wide powers of rule-making affecting the welfare of large classes of people cannot be safely left into the hands of the administrators drawn from one particular class which as a matter of fact is opposed to the rest of the population in its motives and interests, does not sympathise with the living forces operating in them, is not charged with their wants, pains, cravings and desires and is inimical to their aspirations, simply because it comes out best by the test of education. 132. But even assuming that administration involves nothing more than the process of applying the law as enacted by the legislature it does not in

396 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES the least weaken the case of the Backward Classes. For, officers who are drawn from a particular caste and in whose mind consciousness of caste sits closer than conscientious regard to public duty, may easily prostitute their offices to the aggrandizement of their community and to the detriment of the general public. Take the ordinary case of a Mamlatdar, administering the law relating to the letting of Government lands for cultivation. He is no doubt merely applying the law. But in applying he may pick and choose the lessees according to his predilection and very possibly may decide against lessees on grounds which may be communal in fact although they may be non-communal in appearance. Take another illustration of an officer placed in charge of the census department in which capacity he is called upon to decide questions of nomenclature of the various communities and of their social status. An officer in charge of this department by reason of his being a member of particular caste in the course of his administration may do injustice to a rival community by refusing to it the nomenclature or the status that belongs to it. Instances of favouritism, particularly on the grounds of caste and creed are of common occurrence though they are always excused on some other plausible ground. But I like to quote one which pertains to the Vishwakarmans of the Madras Presidency. It is related in their letter to the Reforms Enquiry Committee of 1924 in which they complained that “a Brahmin member of the Madras Executive Council Sir (then Mr.) P. Siwaswami Ayyar—when he was in charge of the portfolio of law, issued a Government Order objecting to the suffix ‘Acharya’ usually adopted by the Vishwakarmans in their names and seeking to enforce in its place the word ‘Asry’, which is weighed with common odium. Though there was neither necessity nor authority to justify the action taken by the law member, the Government Order was published by the law department as if on the recommendation of the Spelling Mistakes Committee. It happened to our misfortune that the non-official members of this Committee were drawn largely from the Brahmin community, who never knew how to respect the rights of their sister communities and never informed us of the line of action that they were decided upon. It was dealt more or less as the star in the dark.” 133. This is inevitable. Class rule must mean rule in terms of class interests and class prejudices. If such results are inevitable then it must raise a query in the minds of all honest people whether efficient government has also given us good government ? If not, what is the remedy ? My view is that the disadvantages arising from the class bias of the officers belonging to Brahmin and allied castes has outweighed all the advantages attending upon their efficiency and that on the total they have done more harm than good. As to me remedy, the one I see is a proper admixture of the different communities in the public service. This may perhaps import a small degree of inefficiency. But it will supply a most valuable corrective to the evils of class bias. This has become all the more necessary because of the social struggles that are now going on in the country. The struggles between the