Which of the following Acts gave the government enormous powers to repress political activities, and allowed detention of political prisoners without trial for two years?

Correct — A. The stem's marker is detention of political prisoners without trial for two years, and that is the Rowlatt Act, 1919.

Formally the Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act, 1919, it came out of the Sedition Committee chaired by Justice Sidney Rowlatt. It let political cases be tried by a special bench without a jury and without appeal, and let suspects be held without trial.

Indian members of the Imperial Legislative Council opposed it and it was passed over them in March 1919 — the law popularly summed up as 'no dalil, no vakil, no appeal', option (a).

Why the others are wrong

• (b)
  Indian Slavery Act, 1843 — The Indian Slavery Act, 1843 worked in the opposite direction. It withdrew legal recognition from slavery in Company territory and barred officials from dealing in slaves, and it creates no power of detention.
• (c)
  India Contract Act, 1872 — The paper's 'India Contract Act, 1872' is the Indian Contract Act, 1872, the ordinary civil law of agreements, consideration and breach. It has no bearing on political prisoners.
• (d)
  Criminal Tribes Act, 1871 — The Criminal Tribes Act, 1871 was severe, but it targeted notified communities branded hereditary criminals, restricting their movement and settlement. It is not a two-year detention power aimed at political activity.

Wartime India was governed under the Defence of India Act, and as the First World War ended the government wanted to keep its emergency powers.

The Sedition Committee under Justice Rowlatt recommended exactly that, and the resulting Act allowed detention without trial and trial without jury or appeal for offences it classed as revolutionary.

The political consequence outweighed the legal one. Indians had expected reform in return for wartime cooperation and received a permanent emergency instead, and the anger at that reversal is what made the Rowlatt satyagraha Gandhi's first all-India campaign.

Key facts

• The Rowlatt Act's formal name is the Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act, 1919.
• It followed the report of the Sedition Committee headed by Justice Sidney Rowlatt.
• Gandhi answered it with a nationwide hartal in April 1919, his first all-India satyagraha.
• The Jallianwala Bagh massacre followed on 13 April 1919.

Common traps

• Picking the Criminal Tribes Act because it is also colonial repression, when the stem's marker is political detention for two years.
• Dating the Act to 1918 from the Rowlatt Committee's report instead of 1919 from the enactment.

No directly related past PYQ was found.