Vol. 2 · pages 56–60

37 ON THE FINANCE ACT AMENDMENT BILL are now ? The position seems to be this, whether the amount due to the Bombay Municipal Corporation in respect of the urban property tax should be the first charge or not. You will recall one point of attack levelled against the Bill when it was first discussed in February was this, that the Government by taking the urban property as a basis for provincial taxation was really invading the domain which by tradition and by common consent had been reserved for the municipality for taxation. One of the points of criticism which was given expression to by many members on his side, and particularly by my honourable friend Mr. Jamnadas Mehta, was this, that by trespassing into the domain of their taxation Government had crippled the municipality. That is one point of criticism. Another point of criticism against this Bill was that it was very wrong on the part of this Government to use the Bombay Municipality as an agent for the collection of those taxes. One of the points made was, just as the Central Government use their own machinery for collecting such taxation as it levies—for instance, excise revenue, income-tax, salt duty, similarly the Government of Bombay should collect this levy by agencies belonging to itself. My honourable friend departed from that well established principle, from that most efficient practice, and utilised the services of the municipality for the purpose of collecting this revenue. Fortunately, he did not then add to the troubles of the municipality which he is now doing. He did not have the courage then to say that the tax collected by the municipality on behalf of the Government of Bombay under the urban property tax was to be the first charge. That he did not say. I have gone through the Bill. I do not find any provision to that effect at all. Therefore, I contend that this is a new ground we are travelling. What was the position before this Bill ? If one refers to section 212 of the City of Bombay Municipal Act, the position was this : according to that section, the land revenue was the first charge on the property situated in the City of Bombay and which is subject to the municipal tax leviable by the municipality. After the land revenue, the first thing that came in order of priority was the municipal claim. That was the position. What is going to be the position now ? The position is going to be this. Land revenue will be the first charge ; the urban property tax due to Government is the second charge ; and the municipality which has an integral interest in this property tax is to come last. Sir, is that an enviable position from the point of view, of the Bombay Municipality which is to carry on its shoulders the burden of the welfare of practically 13 lakhs of people ? Is it right and fair that we should consent to a Bill which places the municipality’s claim last ? My honourable friend is responsible for the levy of this urban tax. As he himself stated in the course of his opening remarks this measure is being opposed by the people— The Honourable Mr. A. B. Latthe: I said, by a section— Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: That is enough for me. (Laughter.) He said that there is opposition to this measure. If there is opposition to this measure, what kind of opposition is it ? We must realise it. I do not think I am making a false statement or one which is not within the knowledge of the Honourable the Revenue Minister. And the statement is this—and I think my honourable friend the Leader of the Opposition will bear me out that

38 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES apart from the small sections of landowners opposing the Bill, the whole of the Mahomedan community is opposing it. I think there is not the slightest exaggeration in that. They are : rightly or wrongly, I do not care to examine at this stage. Therefore, it is not the case of a single recalcitrant individual not being prepared to pay; it is a whole community which is opposed to it. Now, Sir, what is the position that we are going to have as a result of this Bill ? The position is this. The municipality is called upon to recover both its own tax levied on properties and the tax levied by the Government of Bombay and to be collected by the municipality on behalf of the Government of Bombay. Now, my honourable friend will not find it agreeable if I state that like a robber he comes forward and pounces upon the money collected by the municipality irrespective of the fact whether the amount collected by the municipality is collected on his behalf or whether it is collected on behalf of the municipality itself. The moment he sees with his open eyes that the bank balance of the municipality is inflated, without examining what the debit side of the municipality is, he issues a warrant to the bank quite at home. The municipality is left high and dry. What is the municipality to do ? The municipality, according to the scheme of the Bill, is to proceed against the whole community and to collect the tax. Now, the point I am putting to my honourable friend is this. If he has the courage, let him collect the tax himself. How can the municipality collect this tax, if it has to come against organised resistance—resistance, let us all be aware of it, coming from the Muslim community, who observe purdah ? Who will have the courage to enter their houses and find out what trinkets they have and what jewels they have ? What is the municipality to do in this case ? It has not an army of police ? It has no material and no means of forcing people. After all, as he has to levy the tax, then let him come but and as a courageous man employ his own agency and hook it from those who do not want to pay Why put the municipality to any difficulty ? That is my point. The rest of the thing I do not care to discuss; I do not mind. But the point really is this : Should the Government of Bombay be allowed to put the municipality of Bombay in so difficult a position, for reasons for which the municipality is not responsible ? Why should you shirk your responsibility ? It is no exaggeration to say, and I have no hesitation in saying, that this is a most cowardly Bill. If you say your tax is popular, why are you shirking the responsibility of collecting it ? Why are you throwing the burden on the municipality ? Why are you employing their resources ? From that point of view, I certainly think this is a cowardly Bill which ought not to be supported. zz

6 *ON GRANTS FOR EDUCATION Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: Mr. President, I do not wish to take much time because I know that the time that we have at our disposal is very short. All the same, I wish to present certain points for the consideration of the Honourable the Minister for Education. The first point that I wish to bring to his attention is the fact that we are making indeed a very very slow progress in the matter of the education of our children. The recent report issued by the Government of India on the progress of education makes a very sad reading. It says that if the progress of education goes on at the rate at which it is going on today it will take 40 years for boys and 300 years for girls of school-going age to be brought under education. I beg to submit, Sir, that that is a very dark-prospect for this House to contemplate. The Honourable the Finance Member on the day on which he presented his budget told us that from the year 1921-22 to the present day, the expenditure on education had increased by something like 39 lakhs. Sir, taking into consideration the amount of increase of expenditure on education and the increase in the number of pupils in the schools, I find that the increase in the number of pupils is certainly not commensurate with the increase of expenditure on education. If we take the statistics from 1916-17 to 1922-23, we find that the expenditure on education has increased by something like 100 per cent. while the increase in the number of pupils during the same period is only 29 per cent., Sir, I know that there is a great financial stringency in this presidency, and that we are not at present situated in a position to ask for a rapid increase in education, but we can certainly plead for one thing. We have in this presidency two departments, which if I may say so are working at cross purposes. We have the Department of Education, the purpose of which is to moralise and socialise the people. We have on the other hand the Department of Excise which is working, if I may say so, in the reverse direction. Sir, I think that it is not asking too much if I plead that we should at least spend on education the same amount that we take from the people in the form of excise revenue. The amount of expenditure that we incur per individual in this presidency on education is only 14 annas, but *B.L.C. Debates, Vol. XIX. pp. 971-76, dated 12th March 1927.

40 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES the amount of money that we recover in the form of excise revenue is Rs. 2-2-9 (Rs. 2.17), I think it is only fair that our educational expenditure should be so adjusted that we should spend on the education of the people as much as we take from them in the form of excise. Another matter which is more or less analogous and to which I want to draw the attention of my honourable friend the Minister for education is that, at present the amount of money which we are spending on primary education is to a large extent really wasted. The object of primary education is to see that every child that enters the portals of a primary school does leave it only at a stage when it becomes literate and continues to be literate throughout the rest of his life. But if we take the statistics, we find that out of every hundred children that enter a primary school only eighteen reach the fourth standard; the rest of them, that is to say, 82 out of every 100, relapse into the state of illiteracy. What is the remedy for this state of affairs ? Sir, the comments made by the Government of India in its report on the review of education, I think might, without much excuse be read to this House. The report says : — “The wastage in educational effort is immense and most educationalists are of opinion that there is no solution to this problem of wastage in educational effort in India, but compulsion. The total wastage of educational effort and its concurrent dissipation of educational funds in the primary classes is about fifty per cent of the total energy put forth.” I therefore request the Honourable the Education Minister to spend more money on primary education, if for nothing else at least for the purpose of seeing that what he spends bears some fruit ultimately. Sir, this argument is not very different from the argument that was urged from the official benches in the matter of Back Bay reclamation. We were urged to spend more money on Back Bay because we were told that if we do not spend more money on Back Bay what we have spent will be an utter loss. I think the same argument might be utilised in this case, as well, and we can say that unless we spend a sufficient amount of money, to see that every child that enters a school reaches the fourth standard, what we have already spent upon him is of no purpose whatsoever. Sir, the third matter to which I wish to draw the attention of the Honourable Minister for Education is this. Going over the figures which give us information as to the manner by which we finance education in this presidency I find that out of the total expenditure which we incur on arts colleges, something like 36 per cent is financed from fees; out of the expenditure that we incur on high schools, something like 31 per cent. is financed from fees ; out of the expenditure that we incur on middle schools, something like 26 per cent. is derived from fees. Now, Sir, I submit that this is commercialisation of education. Education is something which ought to be brought within the reach of every one. The Education Department is not a department which can be treated on the basis of quid pro quo. Education ought to be cheapened in all possible ways and to the greatest

41 ON GRANTS FOR EDUCATION possible extent. I urge this plea because I feel that we are arriving at a stage when the lower orders of society are just getting into the high schools, middle schools and colleges, and the policy of this department therefore ought to be to make higher education as cheap to the lower classes as it can possibly be made. I therefore wish to draw the attention of the Honourable Minister for Education to this rather glaring fact in the administration of education in this presidency. Sir, the fourth point that I wish to bring to the attention of my honourable friend the Minister for Education is the great disparity in the comparative advancement in education of the different classes in this presidency. But before I go to that, I wish to explain one fact, namely, that the census report of this presidency has, for the purpose of comparing the advancement of the different communities in the matter of education, divided the total population into four different classes. The first class is called “advanced Hindus”, the second class is called “intermediate Hindus” and it includes those people who for political purposes have now been designated as non-Brahmins i.e., Marathas and allied castes. There is a third class called the backward classes which includes the depressed classes, Hill Tribes and the Criminal Tribes. Then, we have the fourth class which covers the Mahomedans. Bearing these divisions in mind, one sees a great disparity in the comparative advancement of these different communities in the matter of Education. Comparing these classes of people, according to the order in which they stand on the basis of population and according to the order in which they stand on the educational progress, what do we find ? I find that the intermediate class, namely, non-Brahmins, who are first in order on the basis of population, are third in college education, third in secondary education and third in primary education. The Backward classes who are second in order of population are the fourth in the order of college education, fourth in order of secondary education and fourth in order of primary education. The Mahomedans who are third in order of population are second in the order of college education, second in the order of secondary education and second in order of primary education. The advanced Hindus who are fourth in order of population are the first in order of college education, first in order of secondary education and first in the order of primary education. Now, Sir, I have given an idea of the comparative disparity in the educational advancement of the different communities. But the figures do not give us the range of disparity in the advancement of the different communities in our presidency. I will, therefore, present the following figures to the Honourable the Minister for Education for his serious consideration. Taking first the primary education, we find there are— Advanced Hindus . . . 119 students per 1,000 of their population. Mahomedans . . . 92 students per 1,000 of their population. Intermediate Class . . . 38 students per 1,000 of their population. Backward Class . . . 18 students per 1,000 of their population.