Judges justified permanent colonial detention by treating Indian unrest as permanent

Evidence

The Regulation differs from Acts passed for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in this, that it is not a temporary Act; but if the danger to be apprehended from the conspiracies of people of such character as those I have mentioned, is not temporary, but from the condition of the country, must be permanent, it seems to me that the principles which justify the temporary suspension of the Habeas Corpus Acts in England justify the Indian Legislature in entrusting to the Governor-General in Council an exceptional power of placing individuals under personal restraint when, for the security of the British dominions from foreign hostility, and from internal commotion, such a course might appear necessary to the Governor-General in Council. — Julia Stephens, The Phantom Wahhabi, 88

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A compact statement of how an emergency justification gets universalized once the population is deemed permanently dangerous — the core logic of the security state.
• XREF: Echoes Justice Jackson’s dissent in Korematsu and the ‘emergency powers’ reasoning critiqued in Bruce Ackerman’s Before the Next Attack.