PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 895
(50)
REPORT OF COMMISSIONER FOR SCHEDULED CASTES AND TRIBES FOR 1953
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (Bombay) : Mr. Deputy Chairman, this is the third Report which the Commissioner for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes has submitted to the President. At the outset, going through the Report, one notices that the Commissioner makes a complaint against the Members of Parliament blaming him for not taking action on the various matters discussed by him in his Report. He says that the Members of Parliament have forgotten that he is not an executive authority, that his duty is merely to report. The executive departments are supposed to give effect to whatever recommendations of suggestions that he makes, I think his observations are very sound. He is not an executive authority and for the purpose of criticising what action has been taken, the criticism must be levelled either against the Home Minister or against the other departments of the Government of India. But, Sir, while one must admit the legitimacy of the criticism made by the Commissioner, I think there is one criticism that one can legitimately make against the Commissioner himself in the matter of drafting and presenting his Report. I was referring to his chapter dealing with complaints, because I thought that would be one of the most interesting and instructive chapters in that book. We are all aware of the fact that the Scheduled Castes in particular are subjected to all sorts of tyrannies, oppressions and maltreatment at the hands of the villagers in the midst of whom they live. And it would undoubtedly be a matter of great interest to know what are the tyrannies, maltreatments and oppressions to which they are being subjected almost every day, I have no doubt that the Commissioner’s report would be the proper place where such complaints would be
P. D., Vol. 7A, (R. S.), 6th September 1954, pp. 1447-75.