REPRESENTATION..........MANGS ETC. 311
the Register, although not one-tenth of the registered number was ever before required for service. The Taluka Officers sided with the Village Patil and demanded the whole number of Mahars, specified in the Register to be their duty for all time. This practically meant a conscription of the whole Mahar population of the village for Government service. The Mahars refused to submit to this extortionate and unjust demand, as it was impossible for the whole lot of the Mahars mentioned in the Register to be on duty for all time as the income of the Inam land assigned to them was not adequate for the maintenance of them all and a large majority were obliged to eke out their livelihood by doing odd jobs. The Watandar Mahars therefore carried on an agitation for the correction of the Watan Registers by a reduction in the number of Officiating Mahars. In this, they succeeded and the number of Mahars was reduced. But as I have said this is no reduction in the number of Officaiting Mahars. It is only a correction of a wrong Record. To call it a. reduction is either to forget facts or to misunderstand them. What has happened is the correction of an incorrect Watan Register. That being the case I cannot understand how Government can, on that account, justify their policy of making reduction in the remuneration of the Mahars by the levy of a Judi or an increase in the Judi.
Assuming, however, that there has been a reduction in the number of Officiating Mahars an assumption not justified by fact I respectfully submit that it is not easy to understand how Government can, on that account, proceed to reduce their remuneration by the levy of Judi or by an increase in the Judi. In adopting this course it appears to me that no or little consideration has been given to an important circumstance which has a great bearing on the question at issue, namely, that Watan property falls in a special class and although it may be called remuneration, the rule of “no work no salary” or “so much work, so much pay” has never been applied by Government in dealing with Watandars and their Watans.
In this connection I wish to draw Your Excellency’s attention to the following facts showing how other Watandars have been treated by Government under similar circumstances. When the British took possession of this part of the country they found