PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 935
of any weapon more effective than this social boycott which could have been invented for supression of the depressed classes. The method of open violence pales away before it, for it has the most far-reaching and deadening effect. It is more dangerous because it passes as a lawful method consistent with the theory of freedom of. contract. We agree that this tyranny of the majority must be put down with a firm hand if we are to guarantee the depressed classes the freedom of speech and action necessary for their uplift.”
This is the conclusion of a committee which was specially appointed to consider the condition of the scheduled castes. I do not find any provision to deal with this point of social boycott.
I may draw the attention of the hon. Member to the Burma Anti-boycott Act of 1922, if he thinks that it is difficult to put the matter in express words which can be legally of use to the courts. I say he can copy the provisions contained in this Burma Anti-bycott Act of 1922. It gives us the most valuable definition of a difficult matter, namely, social boycott. That will be found in section 2 of that. Act. This Burma Act not only creates social boycott an offence, but it also creates the instigating of social boycott an offence. It also creates the threatening of social boycott an offence, in pharaseology as’ precise as any meticulous lawyer would want to have. My hon. Friend has tried, I think, in sub-section (2) of section 8, to have some kind of a garbled version of it for defending a Hindu who does not wish to practise untouchability but whose caste-fellows compel him to do so. I believe they can only do that in two ways, either by committing violence against him or by organising social boycott. As the Committee has said, the village communities most often prefer the social boycott because it is an act behind the curtain and appears to be perfectly in consonance with the terms of the law of contracts, to violence which, as I have said, becomes an offence under the Indian Penal Code. Therefore, instead’ of going round about and bringing about a haphazard result, why not proceed directly and recognise social boycott as an unlawful means of compelling the scheduled castes not to exercise their rights ? After all, what can be the objection to social boycott ? I say, in legal terms, social boycott is nothing else than a conspiracy, which is an offence recognised by the Indian Penal