LIFTING OF BAN ON EMPLOYMENT..... WORK IN COAL MINES 141
confess that I was rather surprised at a statement of that kind. Sir, I would like to point out to the House two considerations, and I would beg of the House to consider whether the two points that I am placing before them do not constitute what I regard as an emergency. Sir, the lifting of the ban on women working underground has a direct reference to coal. That is an indisputable fact. I would like the Honourable members of the House to consider whether coal could not be called a strategic material from every point of view. I ask the House to consider whether it is not a strategic material from the standpoint of the industry, I would ask the House to consider whether it is not a strategic material from the standpoint of transport, whether it is not a strategic material from the point of civil consumption. We are not dealing, I want to emphasise this fact, with an article the use of which we could avoid at our option. It is a thing which we must have, and I submit it is a thing which we must have before we have food or before we have anything else. That is one point I want the House to consider. The second point that I want the House to consider is this. Would it have been possible for the Government of India to wait until the situation had righted out itself. I know very well, as most Honourable Members know, that coal would have been produced in the ordinary course. It may not have been produced in 1943, it may not have been produced in 1944, but it may have been produced in 1945. But the question which I would like the House to consider is this : is it a case in which we could wait ? Is it a case in which we could allow the natural course of things to take its place ? Sir, I make bold to say that this is one of those cases which is of such urgent and immediate importance that steps may be taken and a Government which does not take the steps to right the situation immediately is not a Government worthy of its name. Therefore, let us not forget that we are dealing with an emergency and the lifting of the prohibition from allowing women to work underground is not an idle act or a wanton act on the part of the Government, but is an act which is amply justified by the facts and circumstances of the case. Therefore, Sir, the conduct of the Government must be judged in the light of the emergency. I would request Honourable Members to judge the conduct of the Government in the light of these two circumstances only. Has the Government failed to do something which it ought to have done ? Has the Government done something which it was needless for it to do ? My submission