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*ON PROHIBITION

Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: Sir, I realise that the feelings of this House on the matter of prohibition run very high ; not that I do not share those feelings, but for other reasons I do not wish to be harsh to the Honourable the Minister for Excise. I realise that he is a new man for the office. I realise also that it is a very wrong place for a man to be in. I congratulate him on the courage he has shown in accepting the place which another honourable member of this House thought it better to leave.

I rise to speak on this subject simply because I feel that what has fallen from the Honourable the Minister for Excise during the last two or three days has left the impression on me that he will fall into the bad old ways, which are the established ways of this department. In course of the interpellation that we had the other day, to my mind, he made somewhat an extraordinary statement. He stated that he opened a shop somewhere near the borders of the Nizam’s Dominions because the Nizam had opened a shop in our territory. Sir, I do not think that is an argument which a Minister who has accepted the policy of prohibition ought to advance in this House. That argument amounts to something like this ; that because a dacoit has committed dacoity and carried away some booty which the Honourable the Minister for Excise could have done himself that he himself is entitled to commit the dacoity. Sir, a wrong committed by one does not justify another to commit a similar wrong. The best policy for my honourable friend the Minister for Excise to adopt was to remonstrate with His Exalted Highness the Nizam for having opened shops near our territories. Instead of doing that he has placed the interest of revenue over and above the interests of the people of this Presidency.

It seems to me that my honourable friend the Minister for Excise looks only to revenue exclusive of every other consideration. In the course of the debate on the budget he also made a statement which I think ought to be taken seriously into consideration. In reply to certain criticisms which I offered he said that in judging of the policy of the Excise Department we ought to take into consideration the amount of consumption of liquor in the presidency and not the amount of money that is raised by the Excise

*B.L.C. Debates, Vol. XIX, pp. 838-40, dated 10th March 1927.