Therefore, there is absolutely no case for redistribution. Under these circumstances, if anybody tries to redistribute the land or expropriates ownership, the results that followed in Russia are likely to be met with here in India also in Russia the Communist Party tried to collectivise and they met with disastrous results. The peasantry opposed it, and opposed it tooth and nail. They resorted to the tactics of sabotage. They tried to kill all the live-stock and non-co-operated with the Government. The result was that 50 per cent of the horses, 55 per cent of the cattle, 66 per cent of the sheep and 43 per cent of the pigs were completely destroyed. Is it not a thing from which we can take a lesson? I think we should take a lesson from this. Even the leaders of the Communist Party in Russia took a lesson. Sir, I would here read a warning which the leader of the Communist Party gave to his own comrades.The leader whose quotation I am giving is no less a person than Lenin, the Father of Soviet Russia. He said ‘Nothing is more stupid’, — stupid is his word, not mine, — ‘than the very idea of applying coercion in economic relations with the middle-class peasant: If this warning has any significance, I think it should be accepted by those who claim to be Communists, and also by those who are their strange bed-fellows.
The case for redistribution of land has absolutely no ground in this Province. Even in those countries where redistribution was tried, the problem of fragmentation still, persisted. Therefore, redistribution of land is not a solution to the problem of fragmentation. Where there is inequity of distribution, redistribution may be a solution, but fragmentation of land is a problem by itself, which will require a solution of its own, namely consolidation. Even in those countries where redistribution was tried, for instance in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and all the Baltic countries, simultaneously they had to enact the type of legislation we are enacting to-day. Unfortunately, while quoting the history of agricultural reform in other countries, the members opposite never tried to see the real light in it. The principles on which those reforms have been based are, I think, three. One is to stabilise the cultivator on the land which he cultivates. The second is to discourage unprofitable small holdings; and the third is linking up the notion of absolute ownership with the interest of the community. These are the three principles on which all those reforms were based, and what is the programme this Government is following? I think the agrarian programme or the agrarian policy which this Government is following is based on these very three fundamental principles of agrarian reform. The Tenancy Act, the Money-lenders’ Act, the Debt Relief Act and the Bill that we are now considering are all aiming at the same objective.
Sir, I would like to bring one more fact to the notice of the hon. Members who tried to put forward the case for redistribution, and that is from the statistics for the year 1936-37. It will be seen that the land given out by the absentee landlords to the tenants is 30 per cent of the total land. Under the Tenancy Act all the tenants under these absentee landlords are secured of their tenancy. They are cultivating the land without any danger of being evicted. Is it not a sort of redistribution? If at all redistribution is to be there, this process of redistribution in a legitimate form is already there, and I think it will evolve itself out to such a state that there will be absolutely no cause for complaint. If all these things are taken into consideration, I think there will be wholehearted support to the Bill, not only from this side of the House, but even from those who have tried to find fault with the Bill only because they had to do so. Sir, with these words, I support the Bill.