From beating drums to kite-flying, the bizarre British colonial-era laws India wants to scrap

The Indian government will scrap nearly 1,500 obscure British-era laws in an upcoming Parliament session, according to a federal minister.

On Saturday, India’s law minister Kiren Rijiju told reporters in Meghalaya that the laws will be repealed as they are obsolete and do not have a place in people’s lives.

One such outdated law that still technically appliies in India involves recquiring a licence for kite-flying under the Indian Aircraft Act, 1934. Those found violating the law can be fined Rs 1 million (over £1,000) or jailed for two years.

Another law states that, since people have to make loud noises to drive away locusts, in case of locust swarms in national capital Delhi, people have to beat drums to drive them away and those who fail to do so will be fined, reported The Guardian.

Prime minister Narendra Modi also spoke about another such law during an election rally in his home state, Gujarat.

“There was a law stating that if you have a factory with a toilet, and if you did not wash it for six months and if the government learnt about it, you will be sent to jail for six months,” he said.

Mr Modi said that his government had done away with about 2,000 outdated laws from the British era that had brought in ease of doing business in the country.

“Now, six months in jail for not plastering the toilet! The [outdated] laws continued from the time of the British rule, and I roped in an entire team [for review of such laws] because I did not want to send businesspersons behind bars [over trivial issues]. We scrapped 2,000 such laws. I have to do more, and if traders sitting here know of such a law, let me know.”

Some British-era laws already scrapped by the government include the Hackney Carriage Act 1879, legislated for the regulation and control of hackney-carriages and the Dramatic Performance Act 1876, for use in instances when theatre was used to protest against British rule.

Another law requiring officials in Andhra Pradesh state to have “well-brushed teeth” was done away with as well.

Mr Rijiju was quoted by the Press Trust of India as saying that Mr Modi wanted “less government role in the life of the common people”.

“It is the prime minister’s desire to reduce the compliance burden of the people, to ensure that they can live as peacefully as possible,” he said.

“We have decided to remove all obsolete archaic laws from the statute as unnecessary laws are a burden to the common man. We have decided to revoke more than 1,500 laws in the winter session of Parliament. I am ready to introduce many more repealment acts,” he added.

In July, Mr Rijiju said the Modi government had identified 1,824 obsolete laws and planned to remove 71 such laws in the monsoon session.

In his Independence Day address this year, Mr Modi called for freeing the country from a “colonial mindset” as part of his “five pledges” to mark India’s 75^th year of Independence.

While the government has announced its intention to do away with outdated legislation, the scrapping of some of the more controversial British-era laws does not appear to be part of the government’s agenda.

This includes the contentious sedition legislation, under section 124A of India’s criminal code, that continues to be used by the Modi government in what critics call an effort to clamp down on dissent.

In May, India’s supreme court put on hold all cases under the sedition law until the federal government reexamined its provisions.