310 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
It is for these reasons that I am submitting this Memorial to Your Excellency with fervent hopes that Your Excellency will be pleased to give this matter your most careful, kind and sympathetic consideration and grant the much-needed and long-awaited relief to the Inferior Village Servants.
I. Reduction of Remuneration
First, I propose to deal with the question of the levy of Judi. This policy is for the present made applicable to the Inam lands of the Mahars only. It may be extended to others in course of time. In the matter of the levy of Judi on the Inam lands of Mahars, I do not know the precise reasons which have led Government to embark upon the policy of reducing the remuneration of the Mahars. They are, however, understood to be two.
In the first place the increase in Judi is sought to be justified by Government on the ground that there has been a reduction in the number of Officiating Mahars. It is said that this policy of reduction in remuneration by an increase of Judi on the Inam lands held by the Mahars is only a consequence of the policy of reducing the number of Officiating Mahars.
At the outset I wish to draw Your Excellency’s attention to the fallacy underlying this reason. As a matter of fact there has been no reduction in the actual number of the Officiating Mahars at all either in general or in any particular village. The number of Officiating Mahars has remained the same. What has, however, happened is that the Watan Registers were corrected and brought in accord with facts. At one time in the Watan Register of every village the number of Officiating Mahars shown was very large. The Mahars did not object to it and that for two reasons. In the first place the number shown on the Register was a nominal one and the actual number on daily duty was much smaller. Secondly, it was in the interest of a Mahar to have his name shown in the Register in as much as it served as a proof to show that he was a Watandar, entitled to Watan office as well as to Watan property. When owing to the self-respect movement started by the Mahars, there grew up an antagonism in every village between the Mahars and the Villagers. The Village Officers started making misuse of the Watan Register and called for service the full quota of the Mahars mentioned in