Book Description

Excerpt from Laws Affecting the Rights and Liberties of the Indian People: From Early British Rule This publication appears at an opportune moment. The constitution of India is in the crucible. A new legislature, the first born of the Reform Scheme of which Mr. Montagu and Lord Chelmsfordare thejoint sponsors, has held its initial meeting at Delhi and the two branches of the legislature, the Council ofState and the Legislative Assembly, have been blooded in their first taste of Parliamentary education and Parliamentary procedure. The experiment augurs well for the future. Two committees have been appointed to scrutinise and report upon laws which for some years have imposed severe and to some minds unwarrantable restrictions upon the liberty of the subject. The repressive laws which have aroused bitter resentment, it is hoped, will now disappear, while the revision of the fetters imposed upon the Press of this country will either be sensibly modified or removed. A new spirit of freedom as of nationality is awake throughout the land. The first step is a call for more breathing space and the Government, it may be inferred from their approval of the nomination of the two committees, are not indisposed to answer to that call. If the investigation is to be thorough, those responsible for it will find plenty of food for thought in the leaves of this compilation. Here are gathered together much of the legislation which had evoked the major portion of the mistrust convulsing the peoples of India. I do not suppose that its Author pretends that this offering of his industry and brain is exhaustive. He has none the less collected into a handy space information from sources worthy of respect which will shed light upon the legitimate use and function of Martial law and the lamentable misuse of both in the Punjab during 1919. It fell to my lot to appear in the year 1915 in Colombo where ordinary rioters, free of all political taint, were tried summarily by drum head Courts Martial while the ordinary Municipal Courts of law were open and sitting. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.