Sri Aurobindo
Karmayogin
Political Writings and Speeches — 1909-1910
Karmayogin: A Weekly Review
Saturday 4th September 1909 — No.11
Facts and Comments
The Implications in the Judgment
That is the judgment.
It is obvious that these remarkable dicta have very wide implications and, if upheld, make every combination harmful to personal or class interests impossible under the law.
That has been for some time the tendency of magisterial decisions in India.
Every action for instance which may be objectionable to a number of Mahomedans is now liable to be forbidden because it is likely to lead to a breach of the peace, and one is dimly beginning to wonder whether the day may not yet come1 when worship in Hindu temples may be forbidden on that valid ground.
Under Mr. Garett's dictum it seems to depend purely on the bias of the judge what action will or will not be allowed by the law.
A teetotal judge may easily penalise a party of men going into a public house to drink, because it is an action abhorrent to his moral sense as a man of reason.
And certainly it would not be unarguable that such a combined action might very easily lead to a breach of the peace, much more easily than the meeting of a few hundred or thousand men on the Boycott day.
By his other dictum every caste decision forbidding a breach of caste rules is a punishable act, every trade strike is a punishable act, every National School Committee is liable to an action under the law for injuring the interests of the local Government school, every big concern aiming at the extinction in a locality of the retail shopkeeper and the capture of his business commits a wrongful act, or an illegal act, it is not clear which; all Swadeshi, Boycott, National Education movements are objectionable.
The Tariff Reform movement itself is only saved by being directed against men outside the country, even if it is so saved, for after all it affects adversely the middlemen who bring in foreign manufactures.
Even if, driven beyond endurance by my dhobi's delays, I combine with some friends to open and patronise a laundry, I can be stopped by a magisterial sympathiser with the rights of the individual.
If this is Irish law, all we can say is that it is very Irish indeed and we do not yearn to have it imported into India.
The object of the learned Magistrate was no doubt to aim a blow at the Swadeshi movement which 
is probably abhorrent to his moral sense as a man of reason.
The Sessions Judge has refused to interfere with the discretion of the executive, but there is more here concerned than the discretion of the executive.
There is a very original and far-reaching elucidation of the law behind the executive discretion.
We hope that the victimised citizens of Kaul will carry their appeal higher and get a more authoritative pronouncement on the juristic philosophy of the learned Mr. Garett.