The topography of Assam, I always describe as that of a poor man’s hut. It is just like a ridge on the top with two sloping roofs on either side. From our western boundary, namely the district of Mymensing in Eastern Pakistan runs eastward a range of high hills through Assam right up to a point which is die tri-junction of Tibet, China and Burma. This range of hills has divided the province into two valleys which have been described in this pamphlet as the Brahmaputra Valley. On the northern side and the Surma valley on the southern side. Since the partition of the district of Sylhet, portions of which have now gone into Eastern Pakistan, that valley should be called the Barak Valley because the river that bisects this area is called Barak. Now, the division of the valley by the mighty Brahmaputra on the one side and the smaller Barak on the other has created problems for the province of Assam and has added to her increased expenditure and misery. If we are to have some utility services, say a trunk road on the southern bank of the Brahmaputra, there must necessarily be a trunk road on the northern side for the convenience of the inhabitants on the northern bank. Similarly with the conditions in the other valley. Then again, it will be news to many of you, including my friends the representatives from Assam who stated that after the partition, Assam has got only 50,000 sq. miles in area, but I say that-the very first sentence of this pamphlet issued under the aegis of the External Affairs Department runs as follows–“Assam and territories associated with it, have an area of roughly 100,000 sq. miles.” When you think of this vast area, with its population of only 73 lakhs, you will know that for every administrative purpose, from a magisterial court down to a police-station, our administration cannot but be very very costly, compared with densely populated provinces. I can place before you one fact, on the authority of the Finance Minister of Assam who while moving his budget estimates in March last before the Assam Assembly had to say that 72 per cent. of our total revenues goes to pay our salary bill. If as much as very nearly three-fourths of the provincial revenue goes towards the payment of salaries of its public servants, no wonder very little is left for any development or for any social service. No wonder, Sir, that Assam is so backward, in providing all the amenities that go with an efficient and full-fledged autonomous government. Assam now is the poorest province in the Dominion of India, poor not in resources, but poor in numbers, poor in its financial position and poor in the economic condition of her population. But this poverty has been forced upon her by man-made laws and the inequity of Central Governments. During the Minto-Morley Reforms of 1911, the financial conditions of India was that the Central Government functioned as a unitary government and appropriated all the revenues of India. The Provinces got only whatever they required from the Government of India. That was somehow tolerable, although the weak Assam could never impress upon the then Government to give her a little more to increase her social amenities and services. Then in the next period of the Montague-Chelmsford Reforms, the greatest injustice was done- to the poor province of Assam. Everyone remembers that in that Reform, the financial arrangement was that certain heads of revenue were allocated to the Provinces and certain others to the Centre; and Lord Meston, by a curious calculation, either through want of proper appreciation of the condition of Assam or through negligence of Assam’s representatives in placing their case before him, calculated that Assam was not merely solvent but will have such a surplus that it will be able to give the Centre a contribution of fifteen lakhs per year. But all these calculations were found to be entirely wrong divorced from facts. Assam was a deficit province, to the tune of Rs. 25 lakhs every year, and in spite of that, Assam had to pay this Rs. 16 lakhs contribution, increasing her deficit every year, till the year 1927, when through agitation in the Assam Council, this imposition was withdrawn from Assam.
