Rowlatt Act

Also called: Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act, Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act 1919 · Topic: The National Movement: Gandhian Era · NCERT: Class 10, Ch 2 "Nationalism in India"; Class 12, Ch 3 "Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement"

Meaning

The Rowlatt Act (1919), officially the Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act, was a law passed in March 1919. It kept the government's wartime emergency powers alive in peacetime, mainly the power to detain people without trial. It was based on the report of a committee chaired by Justice Sidney Rowlatt, and Indians called it the "Black Act".

It matters because Gandhi's satyagraha against it was his first all-India political movement. It led straight to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre and made Gandhi a truly national leader.

Explanation

Background: why the Act angered Indians

• Indians helped Britain in the First World War and expected a reward.
• India gave men and money for the war.
• In return, Indians hoped for self-rule.

• What they got was a law that took away basic legal rights.

• The Act kept wartime powers alive after the war.

• During the war, the government had special emergency powers to arrest people on suspicion.

• The Rowlatt Act kept these powers after the war ended.

• It was passed against the wishes of every Indian member. Every Indian member of the Imperial Legislative Council (the central law-making body of British India) voted against it, and the British passed it anyway. Indians saw this as an open insult.

Main features: what the Act allowed

• Detention without trial. The government could jail a person on suspicion alone.
• There was no charge, no normal trial and no appeal.

• NCERT says political prisoners could be held without trial for two years.

• Popular slogan against it: "no vakil, no dalil, no appeal" (no lawyer, no argument, no appeal).

• This turned a dry legal question into something any villager could understand.

How the protest unfolded: the Rowlatt Satyagraha

• Gandhi called for a satyagraha against the Act. Satyagraha means "truth-force": you refuse to obey an unjust law, accept the punishment and do not hit back.
• Gandhi had already used this method in local campaigns: Champaran (1917), Ahmedabad (1918) and Kheda (1918). [2]

• Those three were local and economic fights. This was his first all-India political action against the colonial state itself.

• The programme was a hartal on 6 April 1919. A hartal is a protest shutdown.

• Shops closed, work stopped, and people fasted and prayed.
• People then broke chosen laws, such as selling banned books and making salt without a licence.

• Gandhi kept it simple so that ordinary people could join, not only the educated.

• The protest was strongest in Punjab.

• Gandhi was barred from Punjab and was detained near Delhi on his way there.
• 10 April 1919: in Amritsar, the popular leaders Dr Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr Satyapal were arrested and deported. A protesting crowd was fired on. Angry crowds then attacked banks, post offices and railway stations.
• Martial law (army rule in place of normal courts) followed, and Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer took command in Amritsar. [4]
• 13 April 1919 (Baisakhi day): Dyer ordered troops to fire on a crowd in Jallianwala Bagh. About 1,650 rounds were fired in 10–15 minutes. [4]

Results

• Gandhi called off the movement as violence spread. He called his decision to start mass action before people were trained in non-violence a "Himalayan blunder".
• Gandhi became a national leader. Before 1919 he was known for local causes. After 1919, Indians across the provinces looked to him.
• Gandhi drew two lessons:
• The movement had been mostly urban (cities, students, traders), so he needed the villages.
• He needed a wider base, above all Hindu–Muslim unity. This led him to take up the Khilafat issue and launch Non-Cooperation (1920–22).

Time, place and evidence

• Period: 1919, early in the Gandhian era (1915–1948). This was just after the First World War.
• Places: The protest was all-India. It was fiercest in Punjab, especially Amritsar. Delhi is where Gandhi was detained.
• Key people:
• Mahatma Gandhi led the satyagraha.
• Sidney Rowlatt chaired the committee behind the Act.
• Dr Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr Satyapal were the Amritsar leaders who were arrested.
• Reginald Dyer commanded in Amritsar. [4]

• Edwin Montagu (Secretary of State) appointed the Hunter Committee. [4]

• How we know:

• NCERT Class 10, Ch 2 "Nationalism in India" and Class 12, Ch 3 "Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement".
• The Hunter Committee report (March 1920) is the official record. It condemned Dyer but punished nobody. [4]
• British official figures for Jallianwala Bagh were about 379 killed and about 1,200 wounded. [4] NCERT says "hundreds" (Class 10) and "400 or more" (Class 12), and the Congress enquiry gave far higher numbers.

Don't confuse with

• Rowlatt Committee vs Rowlatt Act: the committee chaired by Sidney Rowlatt wrote the report. The Act of 1919 is the law based on that report.
• Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms / Government of India Act, 1919: these reforms gave Indians a limited share in government. The Rowlatt Act was the repressive law of the same year. They show the two faces of British rule in 1919.
• Hunter Committee: this was the enquiry into the Jallianwala Bagh massacre and the Punjab disturbances. It was not about the Rowlatt Act itself. It reported in March 1920. [4]
• Rowlatt Satyagraha vs Champaran Satyagraha: Champaran (1917) was Gandhi's first satyagraha in India, and it was local and about indigo tenants. [3] Rowlatt (1919) was his first all-India satyagraha.

Prelims Hooks

• Rowlatt Act, 1919: officially the Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act. It allowed detention without trial. Indians called it the "Black Act".
• It was passed despite the unanimous opposition of the Indian members of the Imperial Legislative Council.
• Slogan against it: "no vakil, no dalil, no appeal".
• The Rowlatt Satyagraha began with the hartal of 6 April 1919. It was Gandhi's first all-India political action.
• Chronology: Rowlatt hartal (6 April) → arrest of Kitchlew and Satyapal and the Amritsar firing (10 April) → Jallianwala Bagh (13 April 1919) → Hunter Committee report (March 1920). [4]
• Trap: "Gandhi's first satyagraha in India" = Champaran (1917), not Rowlatt. "First all-India satyagraha" = Rowlatt (1919).

Mains Points

• Rowlatt marks the shift from elite to mass politics.
• Gandhi turned a law about legal procedure into a moral issue anyone could grasp.
• The hartal needed no literacy and no party membership.

• Nationalism moved from petitions in council halls to mass action on the street.

• It exposed the gap between Indian hopes and British rule.

• India's war help was answered with repression. The Act passed even though every Indian member opposed it.
• It led to Jallianwala Bagh, where Dyer went unpunished. [4]
• Together these convinced moderates that reform inside the system could not bring justice. That pushed Congress towards Non-Cooperation in 1920.

• Counterpoint: the Montagu–Chelmsford reforms came in the same year, so 1919 shows the Raj's reforming face and its repressive face side by side.

• Gandhi's withdrawal: strength or weakness?

• Critics say calling off a rising movement wasted its energy.
• Gandhi held that means and ends cannot be separated, and that a violent movement would be easy for the Raj to crush.
• The same pattern repeats at Chauri Chaura (1922), which is a useful link in answers.

Related concepts

• Satyagraha
• Rajkumar Shukla
• Champaran satyagraha
• Tinkathia system
• Ahmedabad mill strike
• Kheda satyagraha
• Mahadev Desai
• Rowlatt satyagraha
• Jallianwala Bagh massacre
• Michael O'Dwyer

Read more

• Satyagraha in action: Champaran, Ahmedabad, Kheda; Rowlatt and Jallianwala Bagh