236 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
and “that they would certainly apply to writings that might even command approval” and “much that is regarded as standard literature might undoubtedly be caught.” The right of public meeting was suppressed in the same manner and with the same sterness as was the right to personal freedom and the right to freedom of discussion ; for, over and above the restrictive provisions contained in the ordinary law of the land, [1] the executive armed itself with discretionary powers under a special enactment to prohibit any public meeting on the excuse of what it regarded as the interest of the public.
The rigour of this regime of lettre de cachet and the Bastille was quite untempered by any fear of responsibility on the part of the Executive for any excesses committed in putting these repressive laws into operation. For it is to be noted that the Executive had, coupled with the large grants of these discretionary powers to suppress the liberties of the people in order to preserve law and order, the gift of an equally generous measure of immunity to its agents in carrying out those powers. [2] The Police Acts and the Press Act all contained provisions which barred all action in a civil court against these agents for damages to be done in pursuance of these Acts. Officers, and soldiers taking part in the suppression of riots were not criminally responsible for acts done in good faith and were not to be prosecuted for other acts without the sanction of the government. [3] In like manner superior Executive officers could not be prosecuted for crimes committed in discharge of public functions except with the permission of the government and then only in the manner prescribed by government. [4] There is no wonder then if such discretionary powers, exercised extra-judicially, substituted a reign of terror in place of a regime of peace.
But it was soon found out that force was not a sure means of carrying on the government of a country. The verdict of history was well summed up by Burke [5] when he said :
“The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment, but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again : a nation is not governed which is perpetually to be conquered. (The) next objection to force is its uncertainty. Terror is not always the effect of force, and an armament is not
1 Sections 108 and 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code and Sections 120A and B, 124A and 153A of the Indian Penal Code.
2 N. Ghose, op. cit., p. 601.
3 Code of Criminal Procedure Act V of 1898, Ch. IX, Sections 128, 130 and 132.
4 Ibid., sect. 197.
5 Speech on conciliation with America.