On the declaration of Little India as a proclaimed area under the Public Order (Preservation) Act, SMU Assistant Professor of Law Jack Lee said: "Well, it gives the police, the authorities, very wide powers to do a number of things within the proclaimed area." He added that the act was "first enacted by the Malaysian parliament in 1958 and it became applicable to Singapore when Singapore became a state in the Federation in 1963, and after independence in 1965, we retained it as one of our pieces of legislation." Assistant Prof Lee said the law was used twice in 1964 during the race riots.