Ilbert Bill

Last updated

An illustration published in The Graphic on 25 January 1884 depicting a meeting in the Bombay Town Hall in support of the bill Support for the Ilbert Bill.jpg
An illustration published in The Graphic on 25 January 1884 depicting a meeting in the Bombay Town Hall in support of the bill

The Ilbert Bill was a bill introduced to the Imperial Legislative Council (ILC) of British India on 9 February 1883 which stipulated that non-white judges could oversee cases that had white plaintiffs or defendants. It was drafted by and named after British civil servant Sir Courtenay Ilbert, then serving as the legal advisor to Council of India, which was head by Governor-General of India Lord Ripon.

Contents

Ilbert had originally proposed the bill as part of a revision of the Criminal Procedure Code, which forbade non-white magistrates in British India from trying cases involving white people. The bill, introduced to the ILC by Lord Ripon, was intended to reduce restrictions placed on Indian civil servants by previous British administrations in India. Indian judges who had reached a senior rank within the Imperial Civil Service could try cases involving white plaintiffs or defendants. Lord Ripon's support for the bill was influenced by British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, who instructed him to eliminate some of the more restrictive British legislation aimed at Indian judges. [1] [2] [3]

After it was introduced, the bill sparked a massive controversy, with Anglo-Indian people largely denouncing it and Indian nationalists supporting the bill; the legislation also led to a divided reaction in the United Kingdom. The bill was ultimately enacted in 1884, but in a severely compromised state. Among Indian nationalists, British opposition to the bill led to increased support for the independence movement, with the Indian National Congress being established one year later. [4]

Background

Sir Courtenay Ilbert Courtenay Ilbert.jpg
Sir Courtenay Ilbert

British civil servant Sir Courtenay Ilbert, then serving as the legal advisor to Council of India, drafted the "Bill to amend the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1882, so far as it relates to the exercise of jurisdiction over European British subjects", which subsequently became known as the Ilbert Bill. On 2 February 1883 he moved for leave to introduce the bill and it was formally introduced on 9 February 1883. [5] Following the release of this new motion, a massive controversy erupted over divided reactions to the bill in British India. [5]

Controversy

The most vocal opponents of the bill were Anglo-Indian people, including many tea and indigo plantation owners in the Bengal Presidency. The European and Anglo-Indian Defence Association (which drew much of its membership from Anglo-Indian plantation owners) was formed as a lobbying group to campaign against the bill. Sir Henry Bartle Frere, another vocal opponent, stated that the Ilbert Bill would "raise dangerous race hatred by inculcating the idea that justice which is good enough for natives is good enough for Europeans". [6] The heat of the general protests was at its strongest on 28 February 1883 during a town hall meeting put on by the Bengal Chamber of Calcutta in which several emotional speeches were given. Other demonstrations continued to occur drawing in anywhere from 75,000 to 250,000 protesters. Racial prejudice became much more prevalent through propaganda opposing the bill that declared that Indian judges were unfit and untrustworthy regarding cases involving white people. [7]  

Protests, rallies, and discourse on the subject included several racist tropes, such as cartoons of Indian magistrates with animal-like features, and using animal terms such as 'wily snakes' and 'unchangeable, spotted leopards.' [8] Opponents of the bill also feared that as the number of Indian seeking an education was increasing due to British colonial policies, more magistrates would soon become eligible to preside over trials with white plaintiffs or defendants.  On the other hand, the majority of Indians strongly supported the bill, and white opposition to it frustrated and infuriated them. The British government in India introduced European systems of education in place in order to create a well-educated Indian upper-class and the bill would have given more authority to Indian judges who were the product of these systems. Yet despite these frustrations, reports show that the Indian supporters of the bill were neither as vocal nor as well organized as the bill’s opponents. [7]  

News outlets played a big role in fomenting the dispute around the bill, sparking outrage in Britain and in India, as the political press "actively endeavored to influence government legislation for India" for the first time. [7] Just three days after the bill was first passed, The Times released an article attacking the changes, which was telegraphed to India and distributed to papers such as The Statesman and The Pioneer. The Gazette,The Times, and other newspapers continued to release statements condemning the bill and criticizing Lord Ripon’s desire to "please the native community at any cost". The widespread news reports invoked more opposition from commentators in Britain. [7]

Another flashpoint was introduced when rumours began circulating that an Anglo-Indian woman had been raped by an Indian man in Calcutta. In reference to the Indian Rebellion of 1857, when it was alleged that white women and girls were raped by Indian rebels, many Anglo-Indians expressed great concern over the percieved humiliation that Anglo-Indian women would have to face when appearing before Indian judges in the case of rape trials. [9] Anglo-Indian newspapers spread wild rumours, including claiming that Indian judges would abuse their power granted to them by the bill to establish harems which they would then fill with white women. The allegations that Indian judges could not be trusted in dealing with cases involving white women aroused considerable Anglo-Indian opposition against the bill. [10] Civil servant John Beames stated that "[it] is intensely distasteful and humiliating to all Europeans... it will tend seriously to impair the prestige of British rule in India... it conceals the elements of revolution which may ere long prove the ruin of the country". [11]

Some Anglo-Indian women who opposed the bill further argued that Bengali women, whom they characterized as "ignorant", were abused by Bengali men, who should therefore not be given the right to judge cases involving white women. Bengali women who supported the bill responded by claiming that they were more educated than female Anglo-Indian opponents of the bill, and pointed out that more Indian women had academic degrees than women in Britain did at the time, due to the fact that the University of Calcutta was one of the first universities to admit female graduates to its degree programmes in 1878, before any British universities had done so. [12] Thousands of Bengali women from organizations in Poona and Bombay also signed petitions in favor of the bill, which they "wholeheartedly supported on humanitarian grounds'. [7] Opposition and controversy continued throughout 1883, which forced Lord Ripon to reevaluate and offer a compromise version of the bill.

Implementation and aftermath

At first, as a result of popular disapproval of the Ilbert Bill by a majority of Anglo-Indian women, Lord Ripon (who had introduced the bill) passed an amendment, whereby a jury that had at least half its members be Europeans was required if an Indian judge was to face a European on the dock. [13] Finally, a solution was adopted by way of compromise: jurisdiction to try Europeans would be conferred on European and Indian District Magistrates and Sessions Judges alike. However, a defendant would in all cases have the right to claim trial by a jury of which at least half the members must be European. The bill was then passed on 25 January 1884 as the Criminal Procedure Code Amendment Act 1884, coming into force on 1 May of that year. The controversy and amendment to the Ilbert Bill helped to promote Indian national awareness and a demand for greater Indian autonomy, and the Indian National Congress (INC) was formed a year later.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Robinson, 1st Marquess of Ripon</span> British politician (1827–1909)

George Frederick Samuel Robinson, 1st Marquess of Ripon,, styled Viscount Goderich from 1833 to 1859 and known as the Earl of Ripon in 1859 and as the Earl de Grey and Ripon from 1859 to 1871, was a British politician and Viceroy and Governor General of India who served in every Liberal cabinet between 1861 and 1908.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anglo-Indian people</span> Ethnic group or cultural group identification

Anglo-Indian people fall into three different groups: people of mixed-race origin with Indian and British ancestry, people of unmixed Indian descent born or living in the United Kingdom, and people of unmixed British descent born or living in India. The latter sense is now mostly historical. People fitting the middle definition are more usually known as British Asian or British Indian. This article focuses primarily on the modern definition, a distinct minority community of mixed-race Eurasian ancestry, whose first language is ordinarily English.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bengal Presidency</span> Province of India

The Bengal Presidency, officially the Presidency of Fort William in Bengal and later Bengal Province, was a province of British India and the largest of all the three Presidencies. At the height of its territorial jurisdiction, it covered large parts of what is now South Asia and Southeast Asia. Bengal proper covered the ethno-linguistic region of Bengal. Calcutta, the city which grew around Fort William, was the capital of the Bengal Presidency. For many years, the Governor of Bengal was concurrently the Governor-General of India and Calcutta was the capital of India until 1911.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar</span> Indian educator and social reformer

Ishwar Chandra Bandyopadhyay was an Indian educator and social reformer of the nineteenth century. His efforts to simplify and modernise Bengali prose were significant. He also rationalised and simplified the Bengali alphabet and type, which had remained unchanged since Charles Wilkins and Panchanan Karmakar had cut the first (wooden) Bengali type in 1780.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nawab Abdul Latif</span> Bengali aristocrat, educator and social worker

Nawab Bahadur QaziAbdul Latif was a Bengali Muslim aristocrat, educator and social worker. His title, Nawab was awarded by the British in 1880. He was one of the first Muslims in 19th-century India to embrace the idea of modernisation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Courtenay Ilbert</span> British lawyer and civil servant

Sir Courtenay Peregrine Ilbert, was a distinguished British lawyer and civil servant who served as legal adviser to the Viceroy of India's Council for many years until his eventual return from India to England. His later career included appointments as the First Parliamentary Counsel (1899–1902) and as Clerk of the House of Commons from 1902 to 1921.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Surendranath Banerjee</span> Indian nationalist leader (1848–1925)

SirSurendranath Banerjee, often known as Rashtraguru was Indian nationalist leader during the British Rule. He founded a nationalist organization called the Indian National Association to bring Hindus and Muslims together for political action. He was one of the founding members of the Indian National Congress. Surendranath supported Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms, unlike Congress, and with many liberal leaders he left Congress and founded a new organisation named Indian National Liberation Federation in 1919.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Toru Dutt</span> Bengali poet and translator (1856–1877)

Tarulatta Datta, popularly known as Toru Dutt was an Indian Bengali poet and translator from British India, who wrote in English and French. She is among the founding figures of Indo-Anglian literature, alongside Henry Louis Vivian Derozio (1809–1831), Manmohan Ghose (1869–1924), and Sarojini Naidu (1879–1949). She is known for her volumes of poetry in English, Sita, A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields (1876) and Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan (1882), and for a novel in French, Le Journal de Mademoiselle d'Arvers (1879). Her poems explore themes of loneliness, longing, patriotism and nostalgia. Dutt died at the age of 21 of tuberculosis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Surendranath College</span> College in Kolkata, West Bengal, India

Surendranath College is an undergraduate college affiliated to the University of Calcutta, in Kolkata, India. It was founded in 1884 by the nationalist leader and scholar Surendranath Banerjee. It offers undergraduate and postgraduate level courses in various arts, commerce and science subjects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gurusaday Dutt</span> Indian writer, folk literature researcher and civil servant

Gurusaday Dutt was a civil servant, folklorist, and writer. He was the founder of the Bratachari Movement in the 1930s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Defence of India Act 1915</span>

The Defence of India Act 1915, also referred to as the Defence of India Regulations Act, was an emergency criminal law enacted by the Governor-General of India in 1915 with the intention of curtailing the nationalist and revolutionary activities during and in the aftermath of the First World War. It was similar to the British Defence of the Realm Acts, and granted the Executive very wide powers of preventive detention, internment without trial, restriction of writing, speech, and of movement. However, unlike the English law which was limited to persons of hostile associations or origin, the Defence of India act could be applied to any subject of the King, and was used to an overwhelming extent against Indians. The passage of the act was supported unanimously by the non-official Indian members in the Viceroy's legislative council, and was seen as necessary to protect against British India from subversive nationalist violence. The act was first applied during the First Lahore Conspiracy trial in the aftermath of the failed Ghadar Conspiracy of 1915, and was instrumental in crushing the Ghadr movement in Punjab and the Anushilan Samiti in Bengal. However its widespread and indiscriminate use in stifling genuine political discourse made it deeply unpopular, and became increasingly reviled within India. The extension of the law in the form of the Rowlatt Act after the end of World War I was opposed unanimously by the non-official Indian members of the Viceroy's council. It became a flashpoint of political discontent and nationalist agitation, culminating in the Rowlatt Satyagraha. The act was re-enacted during World War II as Defence of India act 1939. Independent India retained the law in a number of amended forms, which have seen use in proclaimed states of national emergency including Sino-Indian War, Bangladesh crisis, The Emergency of 1975 and subsequently the Punjab insurgency.

The Age of Consent Act, 1891, also known as Act X of 1891, was a legislation enacted in British India on 19 March 1891 which raised the age of consent for sexual intercourse for all girls, married or unmarried, from ten to twelve years in all jurisdictions, its violation subject to criminal prosecution as rape. The act was an amendment of the Indian Penal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure, Section 375, 1882,, and was introduced as a bill on 9 January 1891 by Sir Andrew Scoble in the Legislative Council of the Governor-General of India in Calcutta. It was debated the same day and opposed by council member Sir Romesh Chunder Mitter on the grounds that it interfered with orthodox Hindu code, but supported by council member Rao Bahadur Krishnaji Lakshman Nulkar and by the President of the council, the Governor-General and Viceroy Lord Lansdowne.

Behari Lal Gupta was a member of the Indian Civil Service and a politician.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dramatic Performances Act</span> Legislation of British India

The Dramatic Performances Act was implemented by the British Government in India in the year 1876 to police seditious Indian theatre. India, being a colony of the British Empire had begun using the theatre as a tool of protest against the oppressive nature of the colonial rule. In order to check these revolutionary impulses, the British Government proceeded to impose the Dramatic Performances Act. Following India's independence in 1947, the Act has not been repealed, and most states have introduced their own modified versions with certain amendments which have in fact, often strengthened the control of the administration over the theatre.

In British India, the Vernacular Press Act (1878) was enacted to curtail the freedom of the Indian press and prevent the expression of criticism toward British policies—notably, the opposition that had grown with the outset of the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878–80). The government adopted the Vernacular Press Act 1878 to regulate the indigenous press in order to manage strong public opinion and seditious writing producing unhappiness among the people of native region with the government. The Act was proposed by Lytton, then Viceroy of India, and was unanimously passed by the Viceroy's Council on 14 March 1878. The act excluded English-language publications as it was meant to control seditious writing in 'publications in Oriental languages' everywhere in the country, except for the South. Thus the British totally discriminated against the Indian Press.

Events in the year 1883 in India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Surendranath Law College</span> Law college of West Bengal, India

Surendranath Law College formerly known as Ripon College) is an postgraduate law college affiliated with the University of Calcutta. It was established in Kolkata in the Indian state of West Bengal in 1885 by a trust formed by the nationalist leader, scholar and educationist Surendranath Banerjee, a year after he founded Surendranath College. This is now regarded one of the oldest Law college of British India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sealdah</span> Neighbourhood in Kolkata in West Bengal, India

Sealdah is a neighbourhood of Central Kolkata in Kolkata district in the Indian state of West Bengal.

The Calcutta International Exhibition world's fair was held in Calcutta from the end of 1883 to March 1884.

The European and Anglo-Indian Defence Association was a pressure group formed in British India. The group's founder and president was the industrialist John Johnstone Jardine Keswick. The Association has been described as "primarily, the political party of India’s non-official British". The Association was particularly well-known for opposing the Ilbert Bill, and was criticised as a "Defiance" Association. Several tea and Indigo planters were members of the Association.

References

  1. Roy, Somnath (1970). "Repercussions of the Ilbert Bill". Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. 32: 94–101. ISSN   2249-1937. JSTOR   44138511.
  2. The Ilbert bill : a collection of letters, speeches, memorials, articles, &c., stating the objections to the bill. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. London : W.H. Allen & Co., 13, Waterloo Place, S.W. 1883.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  3. Dussart, Fae (8 April 2013). ""To Glut a Menial's Grudge": Domestic servants and the Ilbert Bill controversy of 1883". Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History. 14 (1). doi:10.1353/cch.2013.0000. ISSN   1532-5768. S2CID   144814536.
  4. A Concise History of India , p. 120, at Google Books
  5. 1 2 Buckland, Charles Edward (1901). Bengal under the Lieutenant-Governors. Calcutta: S. K. Lahiri & Co. pp. 771–774.
  6. "The Ilbert Bill in India". The New York Times. 27 December 1883. p. 4. ProQuest   94159869.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 Kaul, Chandrika (1993). "England and India: The Ilbert Bill, 1883: A Case Study of the Metropolitan Press". The Indian Economic and Social History Review. 30 (4): 413–436. doi:10.1177/001946469303000402. S2CID   144763646 via Sage Journals.
  8. Whitehead, Judith (1996). "Bodies of Evidence, Bodies of Rule: The Ilbert Bill, Revivalism, and Age of Consent in Colonial India". Sociological Bulletin. 45 (1): 29–54. doi:10.1177/0038022919960103. ISSN   0038-0229. JSTOR   23619695. S2CID   151722865.
  9. Carter, Sarah (1997), Capturing Women: The Manipulation of Cultural Imagery in Canada's Prairie West, McGill-Queen's University Press, p. 17, ISBN   0-7735-1656-5
  10. Reina Lewis; Sara Mills (2003), Feminist Postcolonial Theory: A Reader, Taylor & Francis, p.  444, ISBN   0-415-94275-6
  11. Barbara D. Metcalf; Thomas R. Metcalf (2002). A Concise History of India. Cambridge University Press. p. 120. ISBN   978-0-521-63974-3.
  12. Reina Lewis; Sara Mills (2003), Feminist Postcolonial Theory: A Reader, Taylor & Francis, pp.  451–3, ISBN   0-415-94275-6
  13. Ware, Vron (1992). Beyond the pale: White women, racism, and history. ISBN   978-0-86091-336-8.

Further reading