324 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
from the Government Treasury. The first and the last are not to be found in each district. There are many districts in which the Mahars have no Inam land and no cash allowance. It is only the second, namely, the Baluta which is found all over the Presidency and forms the principal mode of remuneration to the Mahars. The number of such villages is by no means small. In Belgaum District there are 317, in Bijapur District there are 543, in Dharwar District there are 572 and in Sholapur there are 463 villages in which there are no lands and in which the main source of income is Baluta to be collected from the villagers. The same is the condition in the Thana, Kolaba and Ratnagiri Districts. This list of villages wherein Baluta is the only source of remuneration to the Mahars is not a complete list. But from the data available it is clear that while in some villages the Mahars are mainly dependent upon Baluta, in other villages they are entirely dependent upon it for their remuneration.
With regard to the Baluta as a mode of remunerating the Mahars, I would like in the first place to draw Your Excellency’s attention to the vicious character of this mode of remuneration. The Mahars are Government servants, Government takes service from them; but for their remuneration Government refers them to the villagers. Such a system of treating Government servants will be deemed to be very strange, if not disgraceful. The practice is certainly unbecoming to any Government which calls itself civilised.
This vicious system of Baluta results in stark injustice to the Mahars in the matter of their remuneration. Government takes into its calculation the payment of Baluta by the villagers to the Mahars in fixing the total remuneration of the Mahars. But it is the universal experience that the Mahars never get the Baluta. The reason is obvious. The relations between the Mahars and the villagers are never cordial. There is no village where there is no conflict between the Mahars and the villagers. Often it happens that the relation between the Mahars and the villagers remain friendly and the Mahars work for the whole year for the villagers as well as for Government in the hope that they will get their Baluta from the villagers. But something happens just at the