960 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
knows because he was the Chairman of the Committee on Land Tenures in U. P. which I have studied—that the maximum holding in U. P. is about two acres for a ryot and I do not know that there is any part of India where tyotwari prevails where the holding is larger than two acres. What maximum can you fix I do not understand. Therefore this seems to me quite a futile thing.
The other thing about which I wish to make some reference is this. It says that the surplus land shall be transferred to the State or otherwise. I do not know what is meant by “otherwise”, whether it means that it may be given to other tenants; that might be the meaning. If so, I would like to utter a word of caution. I am of opinion that peasant proprietorship in this country is going to bring about complete ruination of the country. What we want is—although I am not a Communist—the Russain system of collective farming. That is the only way by which we can solve our agricultural problem. To create peasant proprietorship and to hand overland to peasants who have not got means of production is in my judgement……
Shri Tajamul Husain: Have they done it in Russia ?
Mr. Chairman: Don’t bother, he takes it as an illustration.
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: I am prepared to pick and choose from everyone, Socialist, Communist or other. I do not claim infallibility and as Buddha says there is nothing infallible; there is nothing final and everything is liable to examination.
Shri Tajamul Husain: That is why we are amending the Constitution framed by Dr. Ambedkar.
Shri S. Mahanty (Orissa) : And voted by you.
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: Now with regard to vacant and waste land. That proposition is of course a welcome proposition and I support it. But I have yet to see if you take vacant land without compensation, whether the municipality which would have to exercise this right would do so because I fear a large majority of municipal councillors are friends of the slum-owners and therefore probably they will not exercise this right unless some ting more is done.