THE NECESSITY FOR A CHANGE 229
There are very few countries in the world where there may be said to prevail so many social evils as has been the case in India. Law is a means by which society from time to time repairs its ills in order to effect its conservation. But with very few exceptions [1 ] the rule of personal law of a most pernicious character has been allowed to govern the social relations of the citizens, notwithstanding the fact that enlightened public opinion has long since raised its voice of protest against its perpetuation. [2] So religious has been the regard of the Executive for the preservation of the personal law, notwithstanding the fact that it has disabled millions of its subjects from enjoying the most elementary rights of citizenship, that it has been careful not to allow in cases of conflict the rational provisions of the civil law to override or chasten the irrational rulings of that archaic code. [3] Judged by the modern standard of legislation the Executive must be pronounced to be extremely conservative. In the matter of securing economic rights its response was of a very halting character, and the legislation it has been persuaded to undertake for giving security or fixity of tenure to the agricultural [4] or ease and comfort to the industrial [5] population sank in comparison to what it refused to undertake for liberating the rest from a species of industrial slavery notwithstanding incessant demands for its abolition. [6]
Its financial system was similarly characterized by the desire to preserve peace and order by taxing the masses and exempting the classes. It has been urged that the revenue system be so altered as to give relief to the poorer classes. Indirect taxes are justified as a method of making the poorer classes pay their
1 Bengal Regulation of 1829 prohibiting Sati; Act V of 1843 (prohibiting slavery); XXI of 1850 (re enacting Sec. of Reg. VII of 1832) prohibiting forfeiture of rights or property as a result of loss of caste or religion ; XV of 1856 authorizing the remarriage of Hindu widows ; XXI of 1866 enabling native Converts to Christianity to obtain divorce ; XXVII of
1871 restricting unnatural practices ; III of 1872 providing a form of marriage for all persons who are neither Christians, Jews, Hindus, Mahomedans, Jains, nor Sikhs.
- It was first accepted by Warren Hastings in 1772 and was embodied in the East India Company’s Act of 1780 (21 Geo. III, c. 70, ss. 17 and 18); the provisions have been incorporated in later Statutes.
3 Cf. the provisions in favour of the personal law in the Indian Succession Act X of 1865; the Transfer of Property Act IV of 1882, and the Indian Trust Act II of 1882.
4 Cf. The Tenancy Acts of 1859, 1868, 1881 and 1885 in Bengal; Oudh Rent Act of 1868 in U.P.; the Deccan Agriculturists Relief Act of 1879 in Bombay, and the Central Provinces Tenancy Act of 1883.
5 The Factory Acts did not begin in India till 1881. The Act of 1881 was amended in
1891 and replaced by another in 1911 which lays down the conditions governing factory labour in India.
6 Students of Indian economic problems will perceive that the reference is to the scandalous system of indentured labour.