What was the colonial-era Dramatic Performances Act, mentioned by PM Narendra Modi?

The PM’s reference was to the Dramatic Performances Act, 1876, which gave the (then British) government powers to “prohibit public dramatic performances which are scandalous, defamatory, seditious or obscene”.

This law was among those enacted by the British to clamp down on the budding Indian nationalist sentiment following the visit of the Prince of Wales, Albert Edward, to India from October 1875 to May 1876. Other laws enacted during this period were the draconian Vernacular Press Act, 1878, and the sedition law of 1870.

What were the provisions of the Dramatic Performances law?

Under the Dramatic Performances Act, “any play, pantomime or other drama performed or about to be performed in a public place” could be banned if the government was of the “opinion” that the play was “of a scandalous or defamatory nature”, was “likely to excite feelings of disaffection to the Government established by law”, or “to deprave and corrupt persons present at the performance”.

Any Magistrate could warrant the search and seizure of “any house, room or place is used, or is about to be used, for any performance prohibited under this Act”.

The law prescribed a jail term of up to three months and a fine or both.

What was the status of the law after India became independent?

The law was formally repealed in 2018 as part of the Narendra Modi government’s exercise to weed out obsolete laws. However, the Dramatic Performance Act had not been a “valid law” since at least 1956.

On May 10, 1956, in a ruling titled State versus Baboo Lal And Ors, the Allahabad High Court ruled that the law was inconsistent with the Constitution of India.

The law was also brought in at the state level, including in Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Delhi and Tamil Nadu. The law was later repealed in several states and Union Territories, including Delhi. The Madras HC struck down the Tamil Nadu Dramatic Performances Act, 1954, in 2013.

How did the court take up this matter and what did it determine?

In June 1953, the Lucknow branch of the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA), the oldest body of stage artists in India, had planned to stage a play based on Munshi Premchand’s short story ‘Idgah’ (1938).

The theatre group had applied for permission as per the law and were initially granted permission. However, for reasons unknown, the magistrate in Lucknow cancelled the permission and prohibited the play. The prohibitory order was served in the middle of the performance, and the accused did not obey it and continued the performance.

The Allahabad High Court, instead of looking at the specific facts of the case, examined the constitutionality of the law. It referred to a few judgments where colonial statutes that were inconsistent with fundamental rights guaranteed by the new Constitution had been struck down or modified – from laws on preventive detention to those on censorship.

“In our opinion, the Dramatic Performances Act is ultra vires of the Constitution of India because its procedural part imposes such restrictions on the right of freedom of speech and expression which cannot be covered by the saving clause in Article 19(2),” the court ruled.

The ruling noted the petitioner’s contention that the case might have been “victimisation of persons who have a different political ideology than the ideology of the party in power”.

But why does India continue to have laws enacted during the colonial period?

Article 372 of the Constitution states that laws in operation at the time of Independence would continue to be in operation.

However, colonial laws do not enjoy the presumption of constitutionality – which means that when a colonial law is challenged, the government must defend the law for it to be valid.

Other laws – those enacted by the Parliament of independent India – are deemed constitutional unless declared otherwise, which means that when challenged in court, the onus is on the petitioner to prove that the legislation violates the Constitution.

Successive governments, including the Modi government, have defended several colonial laws.

In the past, Congress-led governments have defended preventive detention laws and laws declaring unlawful associations.

The Modi government has retained the sedition law, another colonial statute, with a name change in the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.

It has also defended the marital rape exception, also a colonial law, which is currently under challenge before the Supreme Court.

And how did the government repeal the Dramatic Performances law?

The repeal of obsolete laws has been a flagship exercise by the Modi government to improve the ‘ease of doing business’ indices.

Since 2014, it has repealed more than 2,000 such laws. Obsolete laws, by definition, are laws which are no longer in use.

The Dramatic Performances Act, 1876, though declared unconstitutional by the court and no longer in use, was only formally deleted by Parliament through the Repealing and Amending (Second) Act, 2017.