Page:Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, a story of his life and work.djvu/348

Rh the 21 George III. Chap. 70 Sections 17, 18 and 19. The 3 and 4 William IV. Chap. 85 Section 53 expressly provides that, in making any law for the natives of this country, a due regard should be had to their religion, customs, laws, and usages. The more subsequent Regulation V of 1831 declares that cases relating to the marriage, succession, and inheritance of Mahomedans shall be decided according to Mahomedan law, and those concerning the Hindus shall be adjudicated according to Hindu law. These repeated declarations of the British Parliament and the local Government have induced a firm belief that the natives of this country would be continued in the enjoyment of their laws relating to marriage, succession, and inheritance. Even in the General Order recently issued by the Governor-General in Council in reference to the late disturbance at Bolarum and the conduct of Brigadier Mackenzie on the occasion, the public officers were enjoined in the strongest manner "never to interfere with the religious observances of the natives of India." When the late Law Commission in 1837 applied to the Sadar Courts at the several Presidencies for their opinions on the subject of Hindu Widow Marriage, the Judges of those Courts unanimously observed that the legalization of such marriage "would be an interference with the Hindus in the matter of their own law and religion and at once dislocate the whole frame-work of Hindu jurisprudence." The Hindu Society has undergone no material change whatever since that year, which would warrant the Legislature to interfere with the Hindu law on the ground of expediency. Its integrity, it is true, has been most seriously affected by the enactment of Act XXI of 1850, but your Petitioners submit that one encroachment does not justify another; and what is of more importance, the said law has not increased the number of native converts to Christianity. The experience of the last six years shows that, practically, it has been of no more use than affording an example of an