Rowlatt Act
- Formally:
- Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act
- Date:
- February 1919
Rowlatt Act, set of legislative measures enacted in 1919 by the British colonial government to clamp down on nationalist movements in India. It allowed certain political cases to be tried without juries and suspects to be detained without a trial. The act was met with widespread opposition across India, and Mahatma Gandhi’s leading role in the ensuing protests became a defining moment in his rise as the torchbearer of the Indian Independence Movement.
Background
As World War I drew to a close, the British government grew increasingly concerned about the threat of extremist nationalists and armed militancy directed against colonial rule in India, which it commonly termed sedition. A commission, headed by Justice Sidney Rowlatt, was set up in December 1917 to examine unlawful conspiracies linked to rebellious, anti-colonial movements in India and recommend legislation to crack down on such activity.
The committee’s report, presented in April 1918, strung together a number of isolated incidents of violence since 1893 to build a narrative of a widespread movement to overthrow British rule. To combat this, it recommended that emergency wartime laws introduced under the Defence of India Act (1915)—set to expire six months after the end of the war—be made permanent. These laws had been used to curb press freedom and crush nationalist politics by allowing colonial authorities to indefinitely detain anyone suspected of radical political activity.
Provisions of the Rowlatt Act
On March 18, 1919, the Imperial Legislative Council, the legislature of British India, hastily passed a bill based on the commission’s recommendations, putting the Rowlatt Act into law, despite all Indian members of the council voting against it. Indian nationalist leaders Madan Mohan Malviya, Mazharul Haque, and Muhammad Ali Jinnah stepped down from the council as a show of dissent.
The Rowlatt Act infringed on the fundamental rights of citizens and placed harsh restrictions on freedom of expression and the press, virtually allowing the government to suppress any opposition, real or perceived, to the colonial rule. Its major provisions included:
- Those accused would be tried out of public view by special tribunals without a jury. They were not allowed legal representation, nor could they appeal the outcome of the trial.
- Any person found publishing, distributing, or even in possession of material deemed to be seditious could be imprisoned for up to two years.
- The government could order a person merely suspected of seditious activities to sign a bond promising “good conduct” and attend regular check-ins with the police for a year.
Reaction and aftermath
“If a measure alienates popular sympathies, sets up the people in arms against you, gives rise to the fiercest agitation, it is doomed, foredoomed to failure.…The agitation has already commenced; it is growing, and it will grow, day by day.”
—nationalist leader Surendranath Banerjee, on the proposed Rowlatt bills during a legislative council debate, 1919
The Rowlatt Act was much resented by an aroused Indian public and labeled the “Black Act.” Indian nationalist leaders were incensed by the Rowlatt Act’s assault on civil liberties—a stark contrast to the liberal reforms proposed by the Montagu-Chelmsford Report, which had only a year earlier recommended a degree of self-government for Indians. Gandhi, who was not yet well known as a major figure at the national level, called for a countrywide hartal (strike) on April 6. Heeding the call, Indians voluntarily closed shops and offices, observed a day of fasting, and held public meetings demanding the scrapping of the act. This marked the beginning of what came to be known as the Rowlatt Satyagraha, or nonviolent resistance against the act.
The unprecedented groundswell of protest across India alarmed the British administration, which sought to contain the spread of the uprising, often by force. In some parts of India, owing to ambiguity in Gandhi’s phrasing of the call, protesters observed a hartal a full week earlier than the intended date. On March 30, following a brawl over the closure of shops, police opened fire on a crowd of protesters in Delhi. In Amritsar, in the Punjab province (now Punjab state), violence broke out after the arrest and deportation of two local leaders, Saifuddin Kitchlew and Satyapal, and public gatherings were subsequently banned. The escalating tensions between protesters and the administration eventually led to the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, in which hundreds of unarmed Indians were gunned down by British troops on the orders of Brig. Gen. Reginald Dyer. The Rowlatt Act was never actually implemented amid the large-scale protests and was repealed in March 1922.
Significance
In an essay published in 2019, Justin Rowlatt, the great-grandson of Sidney Rowlatt, expressed regret over his great-grandfather’s role in drafting the act. Recounting his meeting with Tushar Gandhi, the great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, Justin Rowlatt wrote that he was initially apprehensive about the meeting, but Tushar Gandhi broke the ice with a playful remark: “I appreciate your great-grandfather’s role to provide the first nail in the coffin of the Empire.”
The protests against the Rowlatt Act catapulted Gandhi to the forefront of India’s freedom struggle, and under his leadership, nonviolent civil disobedience became a cornerstone of the Indian National Congress’s strategy. The Rowlatt Satyagraha invigorated the nationalist movement and brought about a strong sense of fraternity among Hindus and Muslims. It also served as a precursor to Gandhi’s noncooperation movement (1920–22), a national-level movement against British rule.