126 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
succeed. This answer brings out only a part of the significance of the work this Committee has to undertake.
Ask another question, ‘ Why is industrialization necessary ? ’ and you will have the full significance made clear to you at once ; for the answer to the question is, we want industrialization in India as the surest means to rescue the people from the eternal cycle of poverty in which they are caught. Industrialization of India must, therefore, be grappled with immediately.
Industrialization Of India
Industrialization of India has been in the air for many years. But one fails to notice any serious drive to bring about industrialization. There are still some who pay only lip service to it. Others look upon it as a fad, if not a craze. There are very many who are never tired of preaching that India is an agricultural country and therefore the best thing to do is to devote all energy to improve agriculture and not to run after industrialization. Nobody needs to be told that India is primarily an agricultural country. Everybody knows it. What is surprising is that very few people seem to realize what a great misfortune it is. I know this will not be readily admitted. What more evidence is wanted to prove that this is a misfortune than the famine which is stalking Bengal and other parts of India and where so many from the agricultural population are dying daily from want of food or from want of purchasing power ?
To my mind there can be no greater proof necessary to show that India’s agriculture has failed and failed miserably when it is as plain as anything could be that India which is engaged in producing nothing but food does not even produce sufficient food to feed its people. What is this due to ? The poverty of India, to my mind, is due entirely to its being made dependent upon agriculture.
Population in India grows decade by decade in geometrical progression. As against this unlimited growth of population what is available for cultivation is not merely a limited amount of land but a liimited amount of land whose fertility is diminishing year by year. India is caught between two sides of a pinccr, the one side of which is a progressive increase in population and the other is a progressive increase in the deterioration of the soil.