z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-02.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 32
32 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
This of course is not a permanent reduction. It is indicated in the budget that there will be a total permanent reduction of something like 40 lakhs. That means that the rural population will still have to bear 3 crores of land revenue. The question I would ask the Finance Minister is this : if he is raising this tax of 1.69 lakhs from the city dwellers, why is he not wiping out the land revenue altogether ? Personally, I would be very glad indeed ; I will withdraw all my opposition to these taxation measures if he spends all this money on wiping out the land revenue. Is he doing that ? Why is he not doing that ?
Now, Sir, there are just one or two points which I should like to touch upon. In this budget, the Honourable the Finance Minister seems to take credit for two things. One is, that after all he is levying all these taxes from the urban areas. The second is, that taking things by their total, there is no additional burden imposed, because what is levied by way of a new tax is remitted by prohibition and, therefore, on the total the sums are equal. Now, with regard to the first question, I should like to draw attention to some important figures. It has been my view, and that view is confirmed by such study as I have been able to make of the conditions of this province, that, so far as our province is concerned, agriculture is the most congested occupation. I am going to cite a few figures in support of that proposition. The first thing to be noticed is that Bombay is a small province in point of area. The total area of this province is 76,735 square miles ; which is really just one-half of the Madras Presidency, two-third of the Punjab, of the United Provinces and of the Central Provinces, and just a little less than Bihar and Orissa. Now, bearing this in mind, compare the area that is actually sown for purposes of cultivation, for raising food-crops. In Bombay, the total area that is sown is 32,801,971 acres. Now, as I said, although our province is small in area, the area actually sown in our province is just the same as that in Madras, a province which is twice as big as Bombay, and that in the United Provinces. It exceeds the areas sown in Bihar and Orissa and in the Central Provinces by about 8 million acres, and what is sown in the Punjab by about
6 million acres. My contention is that that shows that agriculture is the most congested industry in this presidency, that almost every inch of area which can be utilised has already been utilised, and that, therefore, there is no use driving people to agriculture. Take again a further comparison, that of the cultivable waste lands. In the United Provinces the cultivable waste land is 10 million acres ; in Madras, 13 million acres; in the Central Provinces,
14 million acres ; in the Punjab, 14 million acres ; and in Bombay it is only
6 million acres. Sir, that being the position, the view I take is—and I say this with full deliberation—that the salvation of this province and, if I may say so, the salvation of the whole of India lies in greater urbanisation : in reviving our towns, in building our industries, in removing as much population as we possibly can from our villages to the towns. What is there in villages ? After all, our village folks have no capital to run their agriculture in the