Caste and Race in India c12.29

c12.29

Government had on its Statute-book so late as the end of 1923 a law empowering village Magistrates to punish the offenders of the lower castes by imprisonment in the stocks, though the Government had definitely pledged itself in 1914 to discontinue this inhuman practice.¹ In 1925 a Bill was introduced in the Madras Legislative Council to put under statute the principle of a resolution passed in the previous session of the Council throwing open all public roads, streets, or pathways, giving access to any public office, well, tank, or place of public resort, to all classes of people including the Depressed.²