what is rowlatt act?
Answers
Rowlatt Acts, (February 1919), legislation passed by the Imperial Legislative Council, the legislature of British India. The acts allowed certain political cases to be tried without juries and permitted internment of suspects without trial. Their object was to replace the repressive provisions of the wartime Defence of India Act (1915) by a permanent law. They were based on the report of Justice S.A.T. Rowlatt’s committee of 1918.
The Rowlatt Acts were much resented by an aroused Indian public. All nonofficial Indian members of the council (i.e., those who were not officials in the colonial government) voted against the acts. Mahatma Gandhi organized a protest movement that led directly to the Massacre of Amritsar (April 1919) and subsequently to his noncooperation movement (1920–22). The acts were never actually implemented.
This article was most recently revised and updated by Maren Goldberg, Assistant Editor.
LEARN MORE in these related Britannica articles:
India
India: The postwar years
…India’s hasty passage of the Rowlatt Acts early in 1919. Those “black acts,” as they came to be called,…
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.
Mahatma Gandhi: Emergence as nationalist leader
…teeth of fierce Indian opposition—the Rowlatt Acts, which empowered the authorities to imprison without…
Amritsar, Massacre of
Massacre of Amritsar
…what became known as the Rowlatt Acts in early 1919, which essentially extended the repressive wartime…
1st Viscount Chelmsford
Frederic John Napier Thesiger, 1st Viscount Chelmsford
…spearheaded the passage of the Rowlatt Acts in early 1919, which were intended to continue the wartime…
India
India
India, country that occupies the greater part of South Asia. It is a constitutional republic…
MORE ABOUT Rowlatt Acts
4 REFERENCES FOUND IN BRITANNICA ARTICLES
Assorted References
history of India
In India: The postwar years
Massacre of Amritsar
In Massacre of Amritsar
opposition by Gandhi
In Mahatma Gandhi: Emergence as nationalist leader
role of Chelmsford
In Frederic John Napier Thesiger, 1st Viscount Chelmsford
Rowlatt Acts
Article History
Article Contributors
The Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act of 1919 is popularly known as the Rowlatt Act or Black Act was a Legislative Act passed by the Imperial Legislative Council in Delhi on 10 March 1929.