Sri Aurobindo
Karmayogin
Political Writings and Speeches — 1909-1910 — No.30
Karmayogin: A Weekly Review
Saturday 29th January 1910 — No.30
Facts and Opinions
House Search
While we are on the subject we may as well make explicit the rationale of our objection to house search as it is used in Bengal.
No citizen can object to the legitimate and necessary use of house search as an aid to the detection of crime; it is only to its misuse that objection can be made.
We say that it is misuse to harass a man and his family merely because the police have a suspicion against him which they cannot establish or find any ground of evidence for — on the remote chance of finding incriminating correspondence or arms in his possession.
It is a misuse to take this step on the information of characterless paid informers whose advantage it is to invent false clues so as to justify their existence and earn their living.
It is a misuse to farther harass the householder by carrying off from his house half his library and his whole family correspondence and every other article to which the police take a fancy and which are often returned to him after infinite trouble and in a hopelessly damaged condition.
A house search is never undertaken in civilised countries except on information of the truth of which there is moral certainty or such a strong probability as to justify this extreme step.
To find out the truth of an information without immediately turning a household upside down on the chance of its veracity is not an impossible feat for detective ability in countries where all statements are not taken for gospel truth merely because they issue from the sacred lips of a policeman, and where police perjury or forgery is sure of swift punishment.
Where a detective force is put on its mettle by being expected to prove every statement and take the consequences of illegal methods, they do manage to detect crime very effectively, while the chances of the innocent suffering are greatly minimised.
In other countries there are 
or have been Anarchist outrages, Terrorist propaganda, secret societies, but nowhere, except in Russia, are such methods used as are considered quite ordinary in India, nor, if used, would they be tolerated by the European citizen.
If the police would confine themselves to legitimate detective activity, they would receive the full support of the public and the occasional trouble of a house search, caused by the existence of a suspected relative or dependent, would be patiently borne,— though it is absurd of the Statesman to expect a householder to be cheerful under such untoward circumstances.
This is the rationale of our views in the matter, and we do not think there is anything in them either unreasonable, obstructive or inconsistent with civic duty.