Previous Year Question

Option (b) is correct.

The official name of the Rowlatt Act was the Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act, 1919. It was based on the recommendations of the Sedition Committee chaired by Justice Sidney Rowlatt. It sought to continue in peacetime the repressive emergency powers enjoyed by the government during the First World War and to suppress alleged revolutionary activities.

Its principal features were:

• Suspected persons could be detained without an ordinary trial.

• Special procedures were provided for trying political and revolutionary offences.

• Certain cases could be tried by a special bench of three High Court judges.

• Ordinary safeguards such as trial by jury and normal rights of appeal were curtailed.

• It granted the executive extensive control over individual liberty.

Consequently, Indians denounced it as the Black Act.

Mahatma Gandhi launched the Rowlatt Satyagraha against it. A nationwide hartal was held on 6 April 1919. The agitation and the subsequent repression in Punjab formed the background to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 13 April 1919.

Why are the other options incorrect?

• Option (a): The Act did not deal with compulsory economic contributions to the war. It concerned political repression and extraordinary judicial powers.

• Option (c): Suppression of the Khilafat Movement was not its specific objective. The Khilafat Movement developed mainly during 1919–20 over the status of the Ottoman Caliph.

• Option (d): The colonial government employed other laws, such as the Indian Press Act of 1910, to control the press. The most direct and defining features of the Rowlatt Act were detention without ordinary trial and special summary trial procedures.

Connection:

• Rowlatt Act—recommendations of the Sedition Committee

• Chairman—Justice Sidney Rowlatt

• Year—1919

• 6 April 1919—nationwide Rowlatt Satyagraha hartal

• 13 April 1919—Jallianwala Bagh massacre

• Viceroy—Lord Chelmsford