442 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
This difference in salary continued upto 1920. Thereafter it was abolished. One difference still remains and that is the AngloIndian gets a basic pay of Rs. 55 per month. He gets this even if he is employed as a peon in a State Railway, while an Indian chaprasi gets only Rs. 13-15. The cost of this favoured treatment to the Anglo-Indians which the Indian Exchequer has to bear annually is Rs. 10,000 in the Posts and Telegraph Department, Rs. 75,000 to the State Managed Railways and Rs. 75,000 to Company Managed Railways, in all Rs. 1,50,000.
(2) The reduction in the pass marks for the examination in the telegraph Department from 50 per cent to 40 per cent in each subject and from 66 per cent to 60 per cent in the aggregate especially made to enable Anglo-Indians to compete successfully.
- There are many other recommendations made by the Stewart Committee on the Anglo-Indians intended to give them special advantages over Indians. But I do not wish to burden this memorandum with them. I am only interested in showing the marked contrast between the treatment accorded to the AngloIndians and the Scheduled Castes. The care of the former and the neglect of the latter stand out in a marked contrast. What is it that can justify this contrast ? In my opinion nothing, and the sooner the Central Government proceeds to assist the Scheduled Castes the better the Government will rank as a Government based on justice. A Government which cheerfully bears the cost of Rs. 1,50,000 annually for the uplift of the Anglo-Indians, can, if it has the will, spend a few lakhs on the Scheduled Castes.
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