The Rowlatt Act of 1919, also known as the Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act, was a law that was applicable in British India. The Defense of India Act of 1915’s emergency measures of preventative indefinite detention, imprisonment without charge, and judicial review was extended indefinitely by an act of the Imperial Legislative Council in Delhi on March 18, 1919. The government feared that the Defense of India Act’s expiration would give revolutionary nationalists the opportunity to hatch conspiracies akin to those that had occurred during the war, thus it was passed.
