Indian newspapers mocked colonial security measures by likening them to bad fiscal policy

Evidence

Coverage of the case in Indian newspapers made comparisons that at first seem unexpected, such as an article in the Times of India which declared that the ‘mysterious and super-legal precautions’ taken against the Wahhabis ‘is, in politics, on a par with the wisdom in finance which devised and threatens to carry through a 3 1/8 income tax’. — Julia Stephens, The Phantom Wahhabi, 128

Categorization

• CANDY: The ‘mysterious and super-legal precautions’ equated with a 3 1/8 income tax is a genuinely funny, quotable nineteenth-century slam.