If you want to retain Assam, if you want to have a peaceful India, if you want to protect the frontiers of India, then you must bestow more care and thought on that province and improve that province. After all, a large proportion of the people of that province are tribal people who for so long under British rule were never allowed to mix with the people of their own kith and kin : they were not allowed to mix with the indigenous people of the plains. Therefore, those people cannot have any sympathy for the rest of India because they were never allowed to mix with the rest of India. All sorts of restrictions were imposed and some still linger. You have now to convert those tribal people and educate them in the new nationalism of India. They are in India but they have not been able to feel that they are Indians and they have not been able to feel that we have any connection with that pan of India in the hills which they inhabit and that they have no connection with that which we see in Delhi, Bombay, Madras and other centres. What steps, then are you going to take to let them feel it? If you are going to take any steps then you must give more finance. What is the way of getting more finance? That province cannot tax itself any more. They have gone to the limit. Long before any province had an agricultural tax that province had it. In fact every form of taxation has been resorted to in order to follow in the path which was laid down, They have taxed all luxuries as far as possible. They have taxed land to the highest pitch. No more is possible. No more money can be collected within that province. India must give up a part of the loot of petrol and other excise duties. Even the British people living in Assam had considered that to be a loot. The kerosene duty has also been dubbed as a loot not only by the people of the province but also by Englishmen residing in that province. Speeches have been delivered in that way but the previous Government was impervious to this criticism, but under the present Government today we have to see that the needy are helped and not the rich and not the more educated, nor those who are clever enough to take care of themselves. The people who have to be benefited are those who have exhausted all their resources. They ought to get some kind of legitimate treatment from the Government of India. It is legitimate to expect a share of the export duty on tea which is taken entirely by the Government of India. Why could not Assam get a part of the tea duty? Tea is grown in the province. Whenever you think of taking tea, you ask your hotel-keeper or your house-keeper whether it is Assam tea or some other tea which you are getting and you taste it and if you find it is Assam tea you -smack your lips and say, here is a real cup of tea, which is a solace to life. You say all that and yet after that you take away the entire excise duty. Do you for a moment consider how much Assam has to pay for this production of tea?
