Law of India

"To what length this concern for the conservation of their forces can lead the Hindus and the Musalmans cannot be better illustrated than by the debates on the Dissolution of Muslim Marriage Act VIII of 1939 in the Central Assembly. Before 1939, the law was that apostasy of a male or a female married under the Muslim law ipso facto dissolved the marriage, with the result that if a married Muslim woman changed her religion, she was free to marry a person professing her new religion. This was the rule of law enforced by the courts, throughout India at any rate, for the last 60 years."

"Be that as it may, the legal arguments had nothing to do with the real motive underlying the change. The real motive was to put a stop to the illicit conversion of women to alien faiths, followed by immediate and hurried marriages with someone professing the faith she happened to have joined, with a view to locking her in the new community and preventing her from going back to the community to which she originally belonged. The conversion of Muslim woman to Hinduism and of Hindu woman to Islam, looked at from a social and political point of view, cannot but be fraught with tremendous consequences. It means a disturbance in the numerical balance between the two communities. As the disturbance was being brought about by the abduction of women, it could not be overlooked. For woman is at once the seed-bed of, and the hothouse for, nationalism in a degree that man can never be./12/ These conversions of women and their subsequent marriages were there-fore regarded, and rightly, as a series of depredations practised by Hindus against Muslims and by Muslims against Hindus, with a view to bringing about a change in their relative numerical strength. This abominable practice of woman-lifting had become as common as cattle-lifting, and with its obvious danger to communal balance, efforts had to be made to stop it. ... Thus what underlies the change in law is the desire to keep the numerical balance and it is for this purpose that the rights of women were sacrificed."

""Apostasy was considered by Islam, as by any other religion, as a great crime, almost amounting to a crime against the State. It is not novel for the religion of Islam to have that provision. If we look up the older Acts of any nation, we will find that similar provision also exists in other Codes as well. For the male a severer punishment was awarded, that of death, and for females, only the punishment of imprisonment was awarded. This main provision was that because it was a sin, it was a crime, it was to be punished, and the woman was to be deprived of her status as wife. It was not only this status that she lost, but she lost all her status in society; she was deprived of her properly and civil rights as well. But we find that as early as 1850 an Act was passed here, called the Caste Disabilities Removal Act of 1850, Act XXI of 1850. . . ."

"For a very long lime the courts in British India have held without reservation and qualification that under all circumstances apostasy automatically and immediately puts an end to the married slate without any judicial proceedings, any decree of court, or any other ceremony. That has been the position which was taken up by the Courts. Now, there are three distinct views of Hanafi jurists on the point. One view which is attributed to the Bokhara jurists... The Bokhara jurists say that marriage is dissolved by apostasy. In fact, I should be more accurate in saying—I have got authority for that—that it is, according to the Bokhara view, not dissolved but suspended. The marriage is suspended but the wife is then kept in custody or confinement till she repents and embraces Islam again, and then she is induced to marry the husband, whose marriage was only suspended and not put an end to or cancelled. The second view is that on apostasy a married Muslim woman ceases to be the wife of her husband but becomes his bond-woman. One view, which is a sort of corollary to this view, is that she is not necessarily the bond-woman of her ex-husband but she becomes the bond-woman of the entire Muslim community and anybody can employ her as a bond-woman. The third view, that of the Ulema of Samarkand and Balkh, is that the marriage lie is not affected by such apostasy and that the woman still continues to be the wife of the husband. These are the three views."

"In many parts of the plains thorny jungles grow, behind the good defence of which the people… become stubbornly rebellious… and pay no taxes."

"The Sultan then asked, "How are Hindus designated in the law, as payers of tributes or givers of tribute? The Kazi replied, "They are called payers of tribute, and when the revenue officer demands silver from them, they should tender gold. If the officer throws dirt into their mouths, they must without reluctance open their mouths to receive it. By doing so they show their respect for the officer. The due subordination of the zimmi is exhibited in this humble payment and by this throwing of dirt in their mouths. The glorification of Islam is a duty, and contempt of the Religion is vain. God holds them in contempt, for he says, "keep them under in subjection". To keep the Hindus in abasement is especially a religious duty, because they are the most inveterate enemies of the Prophet, and because the Prophet has commanded us to slay them, plunder them, and make them captive, saying, 'Convert them to Islam or kill them, enslave them and spoil their wealth and property.'No doctor but the great doctor (Hanifa), to whose school we belong, has assented to the imposition of the jizya (poll tax) on Hindus. Doctors of other schools allow no other alternative but 'Death or Islam.'""

"But the Mogul rule could scarcely be compared with administration by the Indian Civil Service. The brilliant courts were centers of conspicuous consumption on a scale which the Sun King at Versailles might have thought excessive. Thousands of servants and hangers-on, extravagant clothes and jewels and harems and menageries, vast arrays of bodyguards, could be paid for only by the creation of a systematic plunder machine. Tax collectors, required to provide fixed sums for their masters, preyed mercilessly upon peasant and merchant alike; whatever the state of the harvest or trade, the money had to come in. There being no constitutional or other checks—apart from rebellion—upon such depredations, it was not surprising that taxation was known as “eating.” For this colossal annual tribute, the population received next to nothing. There was little improvement in communications, and no machinery for assistance in the event of famine, flood, and plague—which were, of course, fairly regular occurrences. All this makes the Ming dynasty appear benign, almost progressive, by comparison. Technically, the Mogul Empire was to decline because it became increasingly difficult to maintain itself against the Marathas in the south, the Afghanis in the north, and, finally, the East India Company. In reality, the causes of its decay were much more internal than external."

"The Hindu was taxed to the extent of half the produce of his land, and had to pay duties on all his buffaloes, goats, and other milk-cattle. The taxes were to be levied equally on rich and poor, at so much per acre, so much per animal. Any collectors or officers taking bribes were summarily dismissed and heavily punished with sticks, pincers, the rack, imprisonment and chains. The new rules were strictly carried out, so that one revenue officer would string together 20 Hindu notables and enforce payment by blows. No gold or silver, not even the betelnut, so cheering and stimulative to pleasure, was to be seen in a Hindu house, and the wives of the impoverished native officials were reduced to taking service in Muslim families. Revenue officers came to be regarded as more deadly than the plague; and to be a government clerk was disgrace worse than death, in so much that no Hindu would marry his daughter to such a man. ... [These edicts] were so strictly carried out that the chaukidars and khuts and muqad-dims were not able to ride on horseback, to find weapon, to wear fine clothes, or to indulge in betel. . .... No Hindu could hold up his head. ..... Blows, confinement in the stocks, imprisonment and chains were all employed to enforce payment. ""

"…The abolition of jizyah in Hindustan is a result of friendship which (Hindus) have acquired with the rulers of this land… What right have the rulers to stop exacting jizyah? Allah himself has commanded imposition of jizyah for their (infidels’) humiliation and degradation. What is required is their disgrace, and the prestige and power of Muslims. The slaughter of non-Muslims means gain for Islam…"

"The real purpose of levying jiziya on them is to humiliate them to such an extent that they may not be able to dress well and to live in grandeur. They should constantly remain terrified and trembling. It is intended to hold them under contempt and to uphold the honour and might of Islam."

"According to Mulla Ahmad, "the main object of levying of Jiziyah on them... is their humiliation... God established (the custom of realising) Jiziyah for their dishonour. The object is their humiliation and the (establishment of) prestige and dignity of the Muslims." Sri Ram Sharma reproduces Aurangzeb's order about the imposition and collection of Jiziyah dated 26th July, 1696. It says that "Jiziyah lapses on death and on acceptance of Islam"."

"In fine, the tribute you demand from the Hindus is repugnant to justice; it is equally foreign from good policy, as it must impoverish the country; moreover, it is an innovation and an infringement of the laws of Hindostan."

"Thomas Roll, the president of the English factory in Surat wrote that jizyah was exacted by Aurangzeb for the duel purpose of enriching the treasury and for ‘‘forcing the poorer sections of the population to become Muslims.’’"

"Muslim Asophs [asaf] or Lord Lieutenants . . . superintend large divisions of the country; and this greatly increased the evil; for these men, entirely sunk in indolence, voluptuousness and ignorance, confident of favour from the bigotry of their sovereign, and destitute of principle, universally took bribes to supply their wants; and the delinquencies of the Brahmans were doubled, to make good the new demands of the Asophs, over and above their former profits. Owing to this system, although the Sultan had laid on many new taxes, the actual receipts of the treasury never equaled those in the time of his father. The Amildars, under various pretexts of unavoidable emergency, reported prodigious outstanding balances; while they received, as bribes from the cultivators, a part of the deductions so made. Although the taxes actually paid by the people to government were thus much lighter than they had been in the administration of Hyder, the industrious cultivator was by no means in so good a condition, as formerly. The most frivolous pretexts were received, as sufficient cause for commencing a criminal prosecution against any person supposed to be rich; and nothing but a bribe could prevent an accused individual from ruin."

"He [Tipu] had great aversion to non-Muslims and this feeling became stronger by the ungrateful attitude of the Brahman revenue officials. After 1792, therefore, he placed the faithful Muslims in more of the important offices like the asofdaries and amildaries. Of the diwans or provincial revenue heads in 1792 only one was a Hindu. Of 65 asofs and deputy asofs in 1797–98 not one was a non-Muslim and almost all the principal mustaddis even were Muslim, whole of the 26 Mysore civil and military officers captured by the British in 1792 and demanded back by Tipu, six only were Hindus and even they were petty clerks. The communalization of offices in the Khodadad Sirkar began much earlier than 1792 but was intensified after the third Anglo–Mysore War . . . Strangely, the result was . . . the diminution of revenue . . . The officials so appointed to posts requiring deep knowledge and great patience . . . could scarcely read and write . . . the candidates were seldom chosen for any other reason than their being Mohamedans . . . he would promote a tipdar (commander of a hundred men) or a petty amildar to be a Meer Meeran (the highest military rank); and raise a risaldar to the honours of a Meer Asof (a member of the Board of Revenue) or a wretched Killedar . . . to those of a Meer Suddm (superintendent general of forts) . . . another change was the introduction of Persian as the medium of accounts in the revenue department. It was so far the practice in Mysore for the tarafdars to make out the revenue accounts in Kannada, fair copies of which were communicated to the amildars who had them translated into Marathi. Copies in both languages were kept under separate and independent officers meant as a reciprocal check . . . Tipu ordered the accounts to be submitted in Persian probably to help his Muslim officers and perhaps to Persianise [sic] Mysore . . . this change must have resulted in widening the gulf between the higher officials who were Muslims and their Hindu subordinates.21"

"Even in the Revenue Code . . . Tipu exhibited his communal tendencies. Mussulmans were exempted from paying the house-tax and taxes on grains and other goods meant for their personal use and not for trade. Christians were seized and deported to the capital, and their property confiscated. Converts to Islam were given concessions such as exemption from taxes. Special attention was given to the education of Muslim children."

"We have a brilliant inscription authored in the third regnal year of the King Parthivendradhipati Varman, which throws brilliant light on the spirit of the era and the nature of the people embodying the spirit. It was issued by the members of the Great Assembly (Mahānāḍu) of Uttaramelur- Caturvedimaṅgalam. Here is how it reads: We, the members of this Great Assembly, having received Pūrvācāraṁ from Sandiran Eḷunnūruva Nuḷamba Māyilaṭṭi for the above land, ordered it to be free from all taxes as long as the moon and sun last. We shall not show any kind of tax… against this land. We, the members of this Great Assembly, have also ordered that if any such taxes are shown against it, each person so showing, shall be liable to pay a fine of twenty-five Kaḷan̄ju of gold in the Dharmāsana or court of justice."

"However, along with these beneficial measures for the peasants, differential treatment for people of various faiths was inherently embedded in Tipu’s revenue regulations. Clause 63 of the regulations stated: ‘The Deostan [Hindu temple] lands are all to be resumed throughout your district; and after ascertaining to what simpts [sub-divisions] they formerly appertained, you shall re-annex them, and include them in the jummabundy [revenue assessment] of those simpts.’14 This meant that the grants given to the temple establishments had to be cancelled and confiscated by the government. That the Amildar was a Brahmin and had to do this to temples of his own faith would have been a hugely discomforting act for him."

"Encouraging conversion to Islam, clause 73 states: Every person who shall become a convert to the Mahomedan faith, if he be a reyut [ryot], shall only pay half the usual assessment and shall be exempted from the payment of house tax; and if he is dealer in merchandize, his goods shall pass duty-free.18"

"As regards the laws, they are scarcely observed at all, for the administration is absolutely autocratic, but there are books of law, which are in charge of their lawyers, the Kazis. Their laws contain such provisions as hand for hand, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; but who will excommunicate the Pope? And who would dare to ask a Governor “Why do you rule us this way or that way? Our Law orders thus.” The facts are very different, although in every city there is a kachhahri, or royal court of justice, where the Governor, the Diwan, the Bakhshi, the Kotwal, the Kazi, and other officers sit together daily, or four days in the week. Here all disputes are disposed of, but not until avarice has had its share. All capital cases, such as thefts, murders, or crimes are finally disposed of by the Governor, if the criminals are poor and unable to pay, and the sweepers drag them out to execution with very little ceremony. In the case of other offences the criminals are seldom or never executed; their property is merely confiscated for the Governor and Kotwal. Ordinary questions of divorce, quarrels, fights, threats, and the like, are in the hands of the Kotwal and the Kazi. One must indeed be sorry for the man who has to come to judgment before these godless ‘unjudges’; their eyes are bleared with greed, their mouths gape like wolves for covetousness, and their bellies hunger for the bread of the poor; everyone stands with hands open to receive, for no mercy or compassion can be had except on payment of cash. This fault should not be attributed to judges or officers alone, for the evil is a universal plague; from the least to the greatest, right up to the King himself, everyone is infected with insatiable greed, so that if one has any business to transact with Governors or in palaces, he must not set about it without “the vision of angels’, for without presents he need expect very little answer to his petitions. Our honourable employers need not deign to be surprised at this, for it is the custom of the country."

"Although the notion of absolute power admits of nothing which can be sanctified from its grasp, whence the king, as in other despotic States, may, if he pleases, become heir to any man in his kingdom: yet custom has not established this right to him in Indostan; and these perhaps are the reasons why neither the Moors or Gentoos have been subjected to it. 1. All the political institutions of the Gentoos are so blended with the idea of religion, that this is generally effected where these are concerned. The softness of manners which these people receive from the climate, has fixed all their attention to the solaces of a domestic life. There are not more tender parents, or better masters, in the world: such a people will make wills in favour of their offspring: and the prince finds himself restrained by policy from establishing a right so utterly shocking to the nature and disposition of the subject. He is likewise restrained by religion: the name of God invoked in the testament of a Gentoo, gives it as sacred an authority as with those who have better notions of a deity; and the Brachman is too much interested, as father of a family, to sanctify a practice which would affect his own property. Thus the Gentoo princes were never seen to assert this right, excepting when avarice had got so far the ascendant, as not only to confound all their notions of policy, but even to make them look on religion as the prejudice of education. 2. The Moors, in the first outrages of conquest, doubtless possessed themselves of all kinds of property: but when the Gentoos would not be converted, and were left to the observance of their own rites, the right of testaments was continued, and still subsists amongst them. The Gentoos, by their subtilty and application, find many means of gaining wealth under the Moors; and this wealth they devolve by will to their male children. The obstacles which these may meet with in taking possession, will be explained hereafter. 3. The idea of being fellow-conquerors; the complacency arising from perpetual victories; the immense wealth which these conquests afforded; might have been the causes which prevented the first Mahomedan princes of Indostan, from establishing amongst those of their own religion, this utmost effort of absolute power. They were contended with knowing that they had at all times the power to seize, without declaring that they intended to inherit every man’s property. 6. …The different methods of inheritance amongst the Gentoos, are settled by their religion, according to the different casts by which they are distinguished. In general, the females are recommended to the care of the brothers; and these are commonly ordered to divide equally: sometimes first cousins, especially if born under the same roof, share equally with the brothers: sometimes the first wife of the deceased is intrusted with the management of the whole estate during life – a custom attended with no consequences prejudicial to the children, as she cannot enter into a second marriage. It is always recommended by the parent, that the house, if in a way of trade, be not divided; and as surely it happens, that divisions ensure amongst the heirs."

"…There are no digests or codes of laws existing in Indostan: the Tartars who conquered this country could scarcely read or write and when they found it impossible to convert them to Mahomedanism, left the Gentoos at liberty to follow their own religion…"

"Imitation has conveyed the unhappy system of oppression which prevails in the government of Indostan throughout all ranks of the people, from the highest even to the lowest subject of the empire. Every head of a village calls his habitation the Durbar, and plunders of their meal and roots the wretches of his precinct: from him the Zemindar extorts the small pittance of silver, which his penurious tyranny has scraped together; the Phousdar seizes upon the greatest share of the Zemindar’s collections, and then secures the favour of his Nabob by voluntary contributions, which leave him not possessed of the half of his rapines and exactions: the Nabob fixes his rapacious eye on every portion of wealth which appears in his province, and never fails to carry off part of it: by large deductions from these acquisitions, he purchases security from his superiors, or maintains it against them at the expense of a war. Subject to such oppressions, property in Indostan is seldom seen to descend to the third generation."

"That the legislature discriminates against Hindus is not news—I have provided enough examples. Plenty more exist of minority appeasement at the cost of the majority, but what is to be done when the judiciary singles out the Hindus? What is the recourse then? What is the recourse when you find that the fine lady who stands atop our temples of justice belligerent, when you find her sword that is pointing to the skies blunted and her blindfold perforated, when you find her scales rusted? What is the recourse? There is none. Because while the Supreme Court decides to remove discrimination from Islam, it is stopped from doing so by the Parliament. When it decides to remove perceived discrimination from Hinduism, it is encouraged to do so by the Parliament."

"History that is written by the victors, I had remarked earlier, is peddled by the vanquished, and as far as I am concerned, one of the most barbaric legislations ever peddled in India is the 1991 Places of Worship Act. But in 2019, the virtue-signalling Supreme Court in its Ayodhya Judgment wilfully ratified this Act that obligates maintaining all religious places, except Ram Janambhoomi, as they were on 15 August 1947—a 75-year-old date in an 8,000-year-old civilisation. Historical injustice of Kashi or Mathura can now never be addressed unless the Parliament overrides not only this barbaric act but also the Supreme Court’s perfidious ratification of it. A legal recourse to correct historical injustices cannot be denied in a democracy. And this is not a Hindu issue."

"Draconian laws like the Places of Worship Act, 1991, prevent Hindus from even seeking peaceful, legal reclaim of what has been forcibly snatched from them. Which justice-abiding democracy in the world would have such provisions? Even when there are visible signs of broken temples atop which domes were erected (like in Kashi), to promote social harmony the minority is never asked to have a generous heart and hand over these sacrosanct spaces that are as holy as Mecca or Jerusalem to Hindus."

"All religious schools are equal, but some are less equal than others. This paraphrasing of George Orwell’s parodic commandment typifies the thinking of the State when it comes to Hindu-run schools and educational institutions. The Right to Education Act, or the RTE, is the proverbial Moses staff that makes sure this commandment is obeyed."

"To summarise the chain of events, the government applies RTE rules selectively to Hindu-run schools, orders them to maintain a 25 per cent EWS quota, does not provide fee reimbursement on time—so much so that back in 2019, as many as 4,000 schools threatened to go on a strike against the delays in fee reimbursement.” Unconcerned, governments threaten schools and blackmail them with land occupancy provisions just to escape paying the reimbursement. Schools are forced to hike fees for all pupils in order to escape debt and closure; the fee increase forces Hindu parents to shift their children to other schools. More and more Hindu parents take their children away from Hindu schools and these children are then welcomed by schools run by minorities, and by virtue of the religious obligations and directive principles of the Constitution laid down for the believers, where preaching, proselytisation and conversion are religious duties, these children are inevitably, sometimes subtly, sometimes directly, put under pressure to convert. Meanwhile, Hindu schools are forced to close down. A recent report estimates that the RTE is responsible for the closure of more than 10,000 Hindu-run schools."

"But in terms of discrimination at once casual and concrete, very few acts match up to the RTE. The Act was passed by the Congress-led UPA government back in 2009. Tellingly, it remains in force in the present-day Hindu Rashtra. Simply put, the RTE continues to destroy Hindu schools and institutions."

"The question, however, is whether Modi had any choice in Kashmir and whether, over time, the revocation of an article conceived as temporary breaks the Kashmiri logjam, pries open the stranglehold of corrupt local elites and offers a better future. I think it might. .... “We revoked a temporary constitutional provision that slowed down development, created alienation, led to separatism, fed terrorism and ended up as a deadly national security problem,” Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, the external affairs minister of India, told me. “We know the last 70 years did not work in Kashmir. It has bled us. It would be Einsteinian insanity to do the same thing and expect a different result.”... Modi will not turn back from his elimination of Kashmir’s autonomy. That phase of Indian history is over. Trump and Modi are both forceful, media-savvy politicians. But they are not alike. Modi, a self-made man from a poor family, is measured, ascetic, not driven by impulse. Trump was born on third base. He’s erratic, guided by the devouring needs of his ego. I’d bet on Modi to transform India, all of it, including the newly integrated Kashmir region."

"Equal status to all states and equal rights to all citizens is the BJP secularism."

"The separate status for the state of Kashmir (Article 370) is again a discrimination in secular matters on the basis of religion, viz. its being a state with a Muslim majority. Nehru sycophants have tried to explain this irresponsible and communalist Article as follows: "The special problems of Jammu and Kashmir do not arise only out of the fact of its being a Muslim-majority state. It is also a state coveted by a foreign power which has thrice gone to war with India to capture the state,... whose territory is partly under hostile foreign occupation,... which is geopolitically located in the cockpit of international intrigue." ... But our Nehruvian knows it all better: "It is with a view to addressing ourselves to these very special problems... that the constitutional device of Article 370 was evolved." If that is true, then we must recognize in all sincerity that this device has been ineffective. It has not stopped the Chinese from annexing parts of Karakoram and Ladakh, it has not stopped Pakistan from invading it twice more, it has not prevented the ongoing skirmishes over the Siachen glacier, it has not prevented the general spread of secessionism, it has not prevented the Kashmiri Muslims from practicing majorityism at the expense of the Hindu and Buddhist areas of Jammu and Ladakh and from hounding out the Hindu minority of the Kashmir valley, and it has not given private investors the confidence to go in and bring some genuine economical development. Short, in every geopolitical, communal and even economical respect, it has been an outrageous failure."

"I would encourage you to visit Jammu and Kashmir to witness firsthand the sweeping positive changes happening on [the] ground. Do not go by what I or others tell you. I went to Jammu and Kashmir just last month. For the first time, people have a new hope in their lives. The process of development, good governance and empowerment of the people is to be seen to be believed. People are reaping the peace dividend: Over 21 million tourists visited Jammu and Kashmir in 2023. There has been a significant decline in terror incidents. Organized bandh/hartals [protests], stone pelting, which once disrupted normal life, are now a thing of the past Not only this, the youth are also excited about sports events being held here. Sports is being seen as a career path for many youth there. A new dawn has also emerged for Kashmiri women, who now enjoy the same rights as their male counterparts when it comes to inheriting property or transferring property to their children, regardless of their marital status or residency. Post the revocation of Article 370, [which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir] the region has become a welcoming destination for global events, hosting significant gatherings like the Formula 4 racing event, Miss World and G20 meetings. Digital economy, startups, innovation and smart solutions are taking wings."

"As far as I can remember, none of the kings or chieftains or even the British, took away the land which was given as a grant to us by others. But now, our own people have forcibly grabbed the land donated to us by others. May God bless this Government."

"But it was Indira Gandhi’s so-called “land reform” legislation that proved to be the axe that annihilated this unbroken tradition and practice of magnanimity whose source-fount was spirituality. A poignant and heart-rending conversation in Dr. S.L. Bhyrappa’s classic, Tanthu slaps us awake over the dire consequences of this annihilation of virtue. One of the characters in the novel is an aged temple Purohita speaking to the protagonist about Indira Gandhi’s notorious Land Ceiling Act: “As far as I can remember, none of the kings or chieftains or even the British, took away the land which was given as a grant to us by others. But now, our own people have forcibly grabbed the land donated to us by others. May God bless this Government.”"

"The outbreak of the plague epidemic in Bombay in 1896 fundamentally changed the relationship between the colonial state and its subjects. This was the first instance when the state acquired special legal and judicial powers for an apparently humanitarian cause: to prevent the spread of the epidemic. To do so, it specifically targeted the poor and the migrant workers, seen as the carriers of the disease, restricting their movements, demolishing their homes, and subjecting their bodies to medical experiments. This became the model for subsequent governments to use disease or epidemics to justify authoritarian measures, all the way into the current pandemic."

"The Epidemic Diseases Act gave the colonial government the right to inspect and isolate anyone suspected of being infected with plague, in public places, trains, ships and inside their homes. It simultaneously protected the state or the government officials from any legal action while acting under the act. Prior to this, the colonial government had in 1895 introduced the Pilgrim Ships Act to control the movement of Haj pilgrims from South Asia on health grounds. This gave local authorities in India new powers to board the pilgrim ships at any time to carry out inspections and apprehend any passenger in the name of disease prevention. The two acts combined to provide the colonial authorities almost unrestricted power to restrict the movements of the poor, migrant workers, and Muslim pilgrims."

"The act was used in large parts of the plague-affected localities of Bombay and Pune, to demolish dwellings and clear the cities of so-called ‘vagrants’, beggars, and migrant labourers. These measures continued to be the mainstay of the colonial state's anti-plague campaign well into the first part of the twentieth century. The government used the acts to prohibit immigration from India, particularly from the infected areas; to to suspend railway travel to certain areas, and to obstruct of the pilgrimage to Mecca. After the plagues ceased, the Epidemic Diseases Act was employed rarely, perhaps because there were few such sudden pandemic outbreaks."