Indian History Quiz: Constitutional Developments 1858–1947

The correct answer is B, Government of India Act of 1935. This Act abolished dyarchy in the provinces and made them autonomous units, with ministries responsible to elected provincial legislatures; the first elections under it were held in 1937 and Congress ministries took office in most provinces. Option A is wrong because the Indian Councils Act of 1892 only enlarged the councils, allowed budget discussion and permitted questions to the executive. Option C is wrong because the Charter Act of 1853 belongs to Company rule and is remembered for separating legislative and executive functions and for introducing open competition for the civil service. Option D is wrong because the Indian Independence Act of 1947 did not reform provinces; it ended British rule and created the dominions of India and Pakistan. Remember the pair: 1919 brought dyarchy to the provinces, and 1935 replaced it with provincial autonomy.

The correct answer is C, 1, 3 and 4. Under dyarchy the Governor kept the reserved subjects, which were those touching revenue and coercive power: administration of justice, land revenue, police, irrigation, famine relief, forests and labour relations. Local self-government, along with education, public health, agriculture, industries and excise, belonged to the transferred list, run by Indian ministers answerable to the legislative council. Option A is wrong because it includes local self-government, a transferred subject. Option B is wrong for the same reason, as it too carries local self-government. Option D is wrong because it drops land revenue, the most jealously guarded of the reserved subjects, and adds local self-government. The simple rule for the examination hall is that whatever earned money or kept order was reserved, and whatever spent money on people was transferred.

The correct answer is B, which is the incorrect statement. The Act of 1919 is known as the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms; the Morley-Minto Reforms were the Indian Councils Act of 1909, a decade earlier, remembered for separate electorates. Option A is a correct statement, because the Act was passed in 1919 but its provisions were brought into force in 1921, which is why the first dyarchy ministries date from that year. Option C is correct, since Edwin Montagu was the Secretary of State for India and Lord Chelmsford the Viceroy, and the reforms carry both their names. Option D is correct as well, because for the first time the Act separated central and provincial subjects and gave the provinces their own revenue sources. In a negative question like this, identify the odd nickname first; it is almost always the mismatched pair of names.

The correct answer is B, Edwin Montague. Edwin Montagu, the Secretary of State for India, issued the declaration of August 1917 promising the gradual development of self-governing institutions, and together with the Viceroy Lord Chelmsford produced the report of 1918 on which the Act of 1919 was based. Option A is wrong because Lord Elgin served as Viceroy in the nineteenth century and had nothing to do with these reforms. Option C is wrong because Charles I was a seventeenth century English king, associated with the early charters of the East India Company, not with twentieth century Indian reform. Option D is wrong because Lord Linlithgow came later: he chaired the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Bill that became the Act of 1935 and was Viceroy during the Second World War. Keep the chain in mind: Montagu's declaration of 1917, the report of 1918, the Act of 1919 and its enforcement in 1921.

The correct answer is A, Linlithgow. The White Paper of 1933 on Indian constitutional reform was examined by a Joint Select Committee of the British Parliament chaired by Lord Linlithgow, and the Bill drafted on its report became the Government of India Act of 1935; Linlithgow later served as Viceroy of India from 1936 to 1943. Option B is wrong because Ramsay MacDonald was the British Prime Minister who convened the Round Table Conferences and announced the Communal Award of 1932. Option C is wrong because Winston Churchill was the loudest opponent of the reforms in Parliament, not the chairman of the committee. Option D is wrong because Clement Attlee belongs to the end of the story: as Prime Minister he made the announcement of February 1947 on the transfer of power and sent the Cabinet Mission in 1946. Sort these four by the decade in which each acted.

The correct answer is C, 1947. The Indian Independence Act was introduced in the British Parliament in July 1947 on the basis of the Mountbatten Plan of 3 June 1947, received royal assent on 18 July 1947 and came into effect on 15 August 1947, creating the dominions of India and Pakistan. Option A is wrong because 1945 is the year of the Wavell Plan and the Simla Conference, which failed over the Muslim League's claim to nominate all Muslim members. Option B is wrong because 1942 saw the Cripps Mission and the Quit India Movement, not a transfer of power. Option D is wrong because 1946 is the year of the Cabinet Mission, the elections to the Constituent Assembly and the formation of the interim government. Keep the final sequence in order: Wavell Plan 1945, Cabinet Mission 1946, Mountbatten Plan and the Act in 1947.

The correct answer is B, Lord Canning. The Act of 1858 gave the Governor-General the additional title of Viceroy, making him the direct representative of the Crown in India, and Lord Canning, who was Governor-General during the Revolt of 1857, became the first to hold the title. Option A is wrong because Lord Dalhousie left India in 1856, before the Revolt, and is remembered for the doctrine of lapse and for the first railway line. Option C is wrong because Lord Lytton came much later and is associated with the Vernacular Press Act of 1878 and the Delhi Durbar of 1877. Option D is wrong because Lord Ripon, often called the father of local self-government in India, served in the 1880s and repealed the Vernacular Press Act. The chain to remember is Canning in 1858, then the gradual expansion of the councils under his successors.

The correct answer is B, Indian Councils Act, 1909. The Morley-Minto Reforms created separate electorates in which Muslim members were elected only by Muslim voters, and for that reason Lord Minto is remembered as the father of communal electorates in India. Option A is wrong because the Act of 1892 had only an indirect and limited system of nomination through local bodies, universities and chambers of commerce, with no communal electorate. Option C is wrong because the Act of 1919 did not introduce the device but extended it to Sikhs, Indian Christians, Anglo-Indians and Europeans. Option D is wrong because the Act of 1935 extended it still further to the depressed classes, women and labour, following the Communal Award of 1932 and the Poona Pact. So 1909 introduced, 1919 extended and 1935 extended again: that progression is itself a favourite question.

The correct answer is C, the Governor-General. The Act of 1935 divided powers into a Federal List, a Provincial List and a Concurrent List, and left residuary subjects, those appearing in none of the three lists, to the discretion of the Governor-General, that is the Viceroy. Option A is wrong because the Federal Legislature could legislate only on the Federal List and, with the Provincial legislatures, on the Concurrent List. Option B is wrong because the provinces were confined to the Provincial and Concurrent Lists. Option D is wrong because the Federal Court, established in 1937, interpreted the Act and resolved disputes between the federation and its units; it did not hold legislative power. Compare this with our Constitution, where residuary powers belong to Parliament under Article 248, and the contrast becomes an easy mark in the exam.

The correct answer is A, Lord Canning and the Indian Councils Act of 1861. Canning introduced the portfolio system, under which each member of the Viceroy's council was placed in charge of one or more departments of government and could issue final orders on departmental matters; the Act of 1861 gave this arrangement statutory recognition and is also remembered for beginning the association of Indians with law making and for giving the Viceroy the power to issue ordinances. Option B is wrong because the Act of 1909 is the Act of separate electorates and of the first Indian in the Viceroy's Executive Council. Option C is wrong because the Act of 1919 is the Act of dyarchy, a much later development. Option D is wrong because Lord Ripon is linked with local self-government in 1882 and the Act of 1892 with budget discussion, not with portfolios.