z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-03.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 177
ON MINISTERS’ SALARIES BILL 177
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: This reminds me of how at the Round Table Conference the Conservative Party was trying to strengthen its provision by introducing certain clauses in the Government of India Bill which could have no other purpose except to restrict the freedom of action of the Labour Party. Many of us used to question them as to why they wanted certain clauses to be introduced into the Government of India Act which apparently had no justification. They could give no reply, but everybody knew that what they were doing was really to forestall the Labour Government should it ever come into power, and prevent it from undoing what the Conservative Party wanted to do. If my learned friends want to adopt that policy, they are welcome to do so. We cannot prevent them. All I want to say is that this is a misuse of their power.
Let me at this stage make it clear, because I am likely to be misunderstood, that when I am protesting at the salary of Rs. 500 as being too low. I am not at all suggesting that the salary of Rs. 4,000 or Rs. 3,000 which was suggested by the Interim Ministry was a standard salary. Nobody need draw that conclusion, because I am not going to say that Rs. 4,000 or Rs. 3,000 is a proper salary. I bind myself to no figure. All I say is that Rs. 500 is not a proper salary for a Minister. The statement I have made will no doubt leave me open to the criticism that I am suggesting an extravagance. But I do not feel any embarrassment in making the suggestion that the salary ought to be more than that fixed in the Bill. I am certainly not a recipient of the salary, if it was increased ; and, so far as I can see the future, I do not think that I shall ever be a recipient of it.
The Honourable Mr. B. G. Kher: Do not despair.
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: Well, I need not answer my learned friend. But his policy is what it is ; he certainly has deliberately excluded members of the Scheduled Classes from his Cabinet.
The Honourable Mr. K. M. Munshi: They may not like Rs. 500 !
The Honourable the Speaker: Order, order.
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: I do not feel any embarrassment in making this proposal, because I am not going to be a recipient of this salary. My motives are motives purely of public policy. Dr. Johnson said that patriotism was the last refuge of scoundrels. He could very well have said that politics also was the last refuge of scoundrels. And it is because I do not want that politics in India should become the last refuge of the scoundrel that I have risen to speak.
†Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (Bombay City): Sir, I would just like to say a word to my honourable friend the Prime Minister, whether the whole of the difficulty could not be solved by putting in a lump sum rather than putting in all these different items. I am only suggesting it to him whether we could not then say that a consolidated salary of so much—Rs 750 per
†B.L.A. Debates, Vol. I, p. 279-80, dated 23rd August 1937.