Sins of the Press-Note
The Government Press Note[1] on the Kaira trouble is remarkable for the sins both of omission and commission. As to the paragraph devoted to Messrs Parikh and Patels' investigations, I wish only to say that, at the interview with His Excellency the Governor, the Commissioner challenged the accuracy of their statements. I immediately suggested the appointment of a committee of inquiry. Surely, it was the most proper thing that the Government could have done, and the whole of the unseemly executions, the removal of the cultivators' milch cattle and their ornaments, the confiscation orders etc., could have been avoided. Instead, as the Press Note says, they posted a Collector "of long experience." What could he do? The best of officials have to move in the vicious circle. They have to carry out the traditions of a service which has made of prestige a fetish and which considers itself to be almost infallible, and rarely admits its mistakes.
With reference to the investigation by Mr. Devdhar and his co-workers, the Press Note leaves on the reader the impression that the Commissioner had responded to their suggestions. At the interview at which I was present, he challenged the report they had submitted to him and said distinctly that whatever relief he granted would not be granted because of the report, which, he said in substance, was not true in so far as it contained any new things, and was not new in so far as it contained any true statements.
I cannot weary the public with the tragedy in the Matar Taluqa. In certain villages of the Taluqa which are affected by the irrigation canals, they have a double grievance :
- The ordinary failure of crops by reason of the excessive rainfall, and
- The total destruction of crops by reason of overflooding. In the second case, they are entitled to full remission. So far as I am aware, in many cases it has not been granted.
It is not correct to say that the Servants of India Society stopped investigation in the Thasra Taluqa because there was no case for enquiry, but because they deemed it unnecessary, so their report says, as I had decided to inquire into the crops of almost every village.
Crop Estimate
The press Note is less than fair in calling my method of inquiry "utopian". I do adhere to my contention that, if the cultivators' statements may be relied upon, my method cannot but yield absolutely reliable results. Who should know better than the cultivator himself the yield of his crops? I refuse to believe that lakhs of men could conspire to tell an untruth when there was no great gain in view and suffering a certainty. It is impossible for thousands of men to learn by heart figures as to the yield-actual and probable-of even ten crops so that the total in each case would give less than a four-anna crop. I contend that my method contains automatic safeguards against deception. Moreover, I had challenged the official annawari alike of kharif and rabi crops. When I did so, the rabi crops were still standing. I had, therefore, suggested that they could cut the rabi crops and test the yield and thus find the true annawari. I had suggested this specially of Vadthal. My argument was that if the cultivators' annawari of such rabi crops was found to be correct and the officials' wrong, it was not improper to infer that the cultivators' valuations regarding the kharif crops were also right. My offer was not accepted. I may add that I had asked to be allowed to be present when the Collector visited Vadthal, which was taken as a test village. This request was also not accepted.
The Note is misleading inasmuch as it states that, in arriving at my annawari, I have not taken into account the rabi crops or the cotton crop. I have taken these crops into account. I have simply questioned the logic of the official system. The reason is obvious. If out of a population of one thousand men, only two hundred men grew rabi crops, it would be highly unjust to the eight hundred men to force up their annawari if without the rabi crops their crops showed only four annas or under.
Grave Errors
I am surprised at the gross inaccuracies in the paragraph devoted to the crops in Limbasi. In the first instance, I was not present when the official inquiry was made, and in the second instance the wheat, which is valued at Rs.13,445, included wheat also from two neighbouring villages, so that out of the crops estimated at Rs.13,445 three assessments had to be paid. And what are Rs.13,445 in a population of eighteen hundred men? For the matter of that, I am prepared to admit that the Limbasi people had a rice crop which too gave them as many rupees. At the rate of forty rupees per head per year to feed a man, the Limbasi people would require Rs.72,000 for their food alone. It may interest the public to know that, according to the official annawari, the Limbasi wheat alone should have been worth Rs.83,021. This figure has been supplied to me by the Collector. To demonstrate the recklessness with which the Press Note has been prepared, I may add that if the Limbasi people are to be believed, the whole of the wheat crop was on the threshing floor. According to their statements, nearly one-third was foreign wheat. The Limbasi wheat, therefore, would be under Rs.9,000. The official annawari is ten annas. Now, according to the actual yield, the wheat annawari of Limbasi was eleven annas against the official ten annas. Moreover, a maund of wheat per bigha is required as seed and the Limbasi cultivators had 3,000 maunds (Rs.3 per maund equals Rs.9,000) of wheat on 1965 bighas; i.e., the wheat crop was a trifle over the seed. Lastly, whilst the crop was under distraint, I had offered to the Collector to go over to Limbasi myself and to have it weighed so that there might be no question of the accuracy or otherwise of the cultivators' statement. But the Collector did not accept my offer. Therefore, I hold that the cultivators' figures must be accepted as true.
Who advised Satyagraha?
Merely to show how hopelessly misleading the Press Note is, I may state that the Gujarat Sabha did not pass a resolution advising passive resistance. Not that it would have shirked it, but I felt myself that passive resistance should not be the subject of a resolution in a Sabha whose constitution was governed by the rule of majority, and so that Gujarat Sabha resolution left it open to individual members to follow there own bent of mind. It is true that most of the active members of the Sabha are engaged in the Kaira trouble.
I must repudiate totally the insinuation that I dissuaded payment by people who wished to pay. The figures given in the Press Note showing the collection in the different Talukas, if they prove anything, prove that the hand of the law has hit them hard and that the fears of the ravanias and the talatis have proved too strong for them. When after confiscation and sales under execution the Government show a clean bill and no arrears will they contend that there was no case for relief or inquiry?
I admit that the suspension is granted as a matter of grace and not as a matter of right enforceable by law,[2] but the concession is not based on caprice, but is regulated by properly defined rules, and the Government do not contend that if the crops had been under four annas, they could have withheld suspension. The sole point throughout has been the difference as to annawari. If it is true that, in granting concessions, the Government take into account also other circumstances, e.g., in the words of the Press Note, "the general economic situation", suspension is doubly necessary this year because of the plague and high prices. The Collector told me definitely that he could not take this last into account. He could grant suspension only under the rules which had reference only to crops and nothing else.
I think I have shown enough here to warrant a committee of inquiry and I submit that, as a matter of principle, it would be worth-while granting the inquiry even if one cultivator remains with an arrear against him, because there is nothing found to attach and the Government might be reluctant to sell his lands. The people challenged the accuracy of talati figures. In some cases there are talatis themselves ready to come forward to show that they were asked to put up the annawari found by them. But if the inquiry is now held to be unnecessary, why do the Government not grant suspension, especially when, admittedly, there is only a small number left to collect from and more especially when, if suspension is granted, well- to-do cultivators are ready to pay.
It is evident now that Government have surrendered the question of principle for which the Commissioner has stood.
The Viceroy has appealed for the sinking of domestic differences. Is the appeal confined only to the ryots or may the officials also yield to the popular-will, when the popular demand is not immoral or unjust and thus produce contentment?
If distress means starvation, I admit that the Kaira people are not starving. But if sale of goods to pay assessment or to buy grain for food be an indication of distress, there is enough of it in the District. I am prepared to show that hundreds have paid their assessment either by incurring debts or by selling their trees, cattle or other valuables. The most grievous omission in the Press Note, however, is that of the fact that collections are being made in a vindictive spirit. The cultivators are being taught a lesson for their contumacy so called. They are under threat to lose their lands worth 3 crores of rupees for an assessment of 4 lakhs of rupees. In many cases a quarter of the assessment has been exacted as a penalty. Is there not, in the above narrative, room for a doubt that the officials may be in the wrong?
- ↑ This was issued on April 24, 1918.
- ↑ The Government-note said : "The Government regret their inability to accept the pressing request which Mr. Gandhi and others are making for an independent inquiry. The agriculturists really cannot claim to have the land revenue suspended or remitted. They can only ask for relief as a matter of concession; but even if we were to assume that the Government is prepared to appoint such a committee, it is clear that such an inquiry can be of little use, for final authority must vest in the Land Revenue Department."
