z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-04.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 230
230 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
is this. Sir, what we want is not equality, what we want is equity. What I want to urge before this House is this. Equality is not necessarily equity. (Interruption). I am going to prove it. In order that it may produce equity in society, in order that it may produce justice in society, different people have to be treated unequally. Why go far ? Take the case of income-tax. I am a student of finance and so this illustration comes to my mind readily. Why do we have progressive income-tax ? Why don’t we tax all people alike ? The reason why we tax the rich at a higher rate and the poor at a lower rate is because the taxable capacity of the two is different. In a case like that equality would produce the greatest inequity. Take an ordinary case. Suppose, in a household, there are several persons of whom one is sick. In order that the sick person may get out of sickness and in order that he may become better, we give chicken soup to him, but we do not give chicken soup to the others. No one would blame the mother of the household if she gave chicken soup to the sick member and denied it to the other adult members who are enjoying robust health. What we want is equity. This equity cannot be produced, if we propose to treat the strong and the weak, the rich and the poor, the ignorant and the intelligent on the same footing. If my honourable friend wishes to treat the two classes equitably, then this Bill will not suffice. He will have to introduce some other provisions into the Bill and I would like to ask whether he is prepared to introduce such provisions in the Bill.
What is happening today in this industry of ours ? I am sorry I have to make a plain breast of what I feel on this occasion. We have mills in Bombay City managed by Parsis. There are mills there managed by Gujaratis. There are mills in Bombay which are managed by Jews or by Europeans. I visited all these mills in my younger days when some members of my family were working there. I used to carry their bread to the mills where they were working. Recently also I visited some of the mills though not often times. The most surprising thing about all these mills is that they have been made the heaven for the cousins of the Managers. Hundreds of useless people are employed in higher grades simply because they are related to the managing agents in some way. You go to a Parsi mill, you will see hundreds of Parsis employed whether they are wanted or not. Go to a mill managed by Gujaratis. You will see hundreds of Gujaratis employed whether they are wanted or not. Go to a mill managed by Jews. You will see hundreds of Jews employed, whether they are wanted or not. The best part of the earning of the workers are taken away by the managers in order to feed these people who are employed in the mills, whether they are efficient or not, or whether they are wanted or not. All these people who are controlling the industry float the capital and bloat it up by all sorts of paper transactions. When the worker says that he gets less wages, the man controlling the industry says. “It is my capital”. All this is bogus capital, stock exchange capital, bolstered up by speculators. A good part of the earning of the industry is swallowed by these people. From the little