DAY – 50: Insights Self Study Guide for UPSC Prelims + Mains – 2015

Solution: d)

Only option 1 is correct. This option is not listed in any of the options. It is different from saying “None of the above statements”. Again, beware of such options in UPSC Prelims.

Solution: d)

Refer to page 280 Bipin Chandra.

Solution: d)

Refer to pages 284-285 Bipin Chandra.

Solution: d)

All the communities Sikhs, Muslims and Scheduled castes got separate electorates by the communal award of 1932. It was however later annulled by the Poona Pact signed by Ambedkar and Gandhi.

Solution: c)

Gandhiji was not in favour of mixing up the issue of removing untouchability with the issues of inter-dining and inter-marriage. For, these practices were practiced not just among caste Brahmans, but also amongst the Harizans, as he opined.

He did not denounce the caste system. He found it rooted in the Hindu Scriptures.

Solution: c)

The Indian capitalist class had its own notions of how the anti-imperialist struggle ought to be waged. It was always in favour of not completely abandoning the constitutional path and the negotiating table and generally preferred to put its weight behind constitutional forms of struggle as opposed to mass civil disobedience. This was due to several reasons.

First, there was the fear that mass civil disobedience,

especially if it was prolonged, would unleash forces which could

turn the movement revolutionary in a social sense (i.e., threaten

capitalism itself).

Second, the capitalists were unwilling to support a prolonged all-out hostility to the government of the day as it prevented the continuing of day-to-day business and threatened the very existence of the class.

Solution: d)

The capitalists realized, as G.L. Mehta, the president of FICCI, argued in 1943, that ‘A consistent . . . programme of reforms’ was the most effective remedy against social upheavals.’ It was with this reform perspective that the ‘Post War Economic

Development Committee,’ set up by the capitalists in 1942, which eventually drafted the Bombay Plan, was to function. Its attempt was to incorporate ‘whatever is sound and feasible in the socialist movement’ and see ‘how far socialist demands could be accommodated without capitalism surrendering any of its essential features.’ The Bombay Plan, therefore, seriously took up the question of rapid economic growth and equitable distribution, even arguing for the necessity of partial nationalization, the public sector, land reform and a series of workers’ welfare schemes. One may add that the basic assumption made by the Bombay planners was that the plan could be implemented only by an independent national Government.

Solution: d)

From 1878 onwards, the Government of India undertook a number of large-scale military expeditions outside India’s frontiers and its armed forces were used in some of the wars waged by the British Government in Asia and Africa.

The Second Afghan War was waged in 1878-80. Voicing the Indian opinion, Surendranath Banerjea publicly branded the war as an act of sheer aggression and ‘as one of the most unrighteous wars that have blackened the pages of history.” The Indians demanded that since the unjust war was waged in pursuance of Imperial aims and policies, Britain should meet the entire cost of the war. Similar wars were waged in Burma and Tibet.

Solution: a)

The Indian leaders argued that the expansionist policy of the Government of India’s frontiers, a product of Britain’s worldwide imperialist policy, was the most important cause of the maintenance of a large standing army, the increase in Indian military expenditure, the deplorable financial position of the Government, and the consequent increase of taxation in India after 1815.

Solution: c)

At its Calcutta session, the Congress declared that the Indian struggle was a part of the worldwide struggle against imperialism. It also decided to open a Foreign Department to develop contacts with other peoples and movements fighting against imperialism.

Solution: c)

The complexity, the humanist approach, and anti-imperialist content of the Indian nationalist foreign policy were brought out in the approach to the problem of Palestine. While Arabs were fighting against British imperialism in Palestine, many of the Jews, hunted and killed in Nazi Germany and discriminated against and oppressed all over Europe. were trying to carve out under Zionist leadership a homeland in Palestine with British support. Indians sympathized with the persecuted Jews, victims of Nazi genocide, but they criticized their efforts to deprive the Arabs of their due. They supported the Arabs and urged the Jews to reach an agreement with the Arabs directly.

Gandhiji reiterated all these views in December 1938 in an important editorial in the Harijan on the plight of the Jews in Europe. ‘My sympathies are all with the

Jews,’ he wrote. But it would also be ‘wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. . – It would be crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs.’

Solution: d)

Refer to the discussion in the first half of the chapter on “The rise and growth of communalism” in Bipin Chandra.

Solution: d)

As is well-known, Hindus and Muslims had fought shoulder to shoulder in the Revolt of 1857. The notion of Hindu-Muslim distinction at the non-religious

plane, not to speak of the clash of interests of Hindus and Muslims was by and large non-existent in the Press during the 1860s. The identity that the North Indian newspapers emphasised was that of the Hindustanis, especially vis-a-vis

European or British rulers.

Solution: d)

The Muslim communalists continued to follow the politics of loyalty after Syed Ahmed’s death. They openly sided with the Government during the Swadeshi Movement in Bengal during 1905-6 and condemned the Muslim supporters of the movement as ‘vile traitors’ to Islam and as ‘Congress touts.’

But the attempt to keep the growing Muslim intelligentsia politically passie or loyalist was not wholly successful. Badruddin Tyabji presided over the Congress session in 1887, and the number of Muslim delegates to the Congress increased in the succeeding years. R.M. Sayani, A. Bhimji, Mir Musharaff Hussain, Hamid Ali Khan and numerous other Muslim intellectuals from Bombay, Bengal and Northern India joined the Congress. They pointed out that not even one of the Congress demands was communal or for Hindus only.

Solution: b)

The first session of the All-India Hindu Mahasabha was held in April 1915 under the presidentship of the Maharaja of Kasim Bazar. But it remained for many years a rather sickly child compared to the Muslim League. This was for several reasons.

The broader social reason was the greater and even dominant role of the zamindars, aristocrats and ex-bureaucrats among Muslims in general and even among the Muslim middle classes. While among Parsis and Hindus, increasingly, it was the modern intelligentsia, with its emphasis on science, democracy and

nationalism, and the bourgeois elements in general, which rapidly acquired intellectual, social, economic and political influence and hegemony, among Muslims the reactionary landlords and mullahs continued to exercise dominant influence or hegemony.

There were other reasons for the relative weakness of Hindu communalism. The colonial Government gave Hindu communalism few concessions and little  Support, for it banked heavily on Muslim communalism and could not easily

simultaneously placate both communalisms.

Solution: d)

The positive development within the Congress and within the Muslim League soon led to broad political unity among the two, an important role in this being played by Lokmanya Tilak and M.A. Jinnah. The two

organizations held their sessions at the d of 1916 at Lucknow, signed a pact known as the Lucknow Pact, and put forward common political demands before the Government including the demand for self-government for India after the war. The Pact accepted separate electorates and the system of weightage and

reservation of seats for the minorities in the legislatures. While a step forward in many respects — and it enthused the political Indian — the Pact was also a step back. The Congress had accepted separate electorates and formally recognized communal politics. Above all, the Pact was tacitly based on the assumption

that India consisted of different communities with separate interests of their own. It, therefore, left the way open to the future resurgence of communalism in Indian politics.

Solution: d)

Declaring that the Nehru Report represented Hindu interests, Jinnah consolidated all the communal demands made by different communal organizations at different times into a single document which came to be known as Jinnah’s Fourteen Points. The Fourteen Points basically consisted of the four Delhi Proposals, the three Calcutta amendments and demands for the continuation of separate electorates arid reservation of seats for Muslims in government services and self- governing bodies. The Fourteen Points were to form the basis of all future communal propaganda in the subsequent years.

Solution:  b)

The awards were given to the Muslim, Sikhs, SCs, STs etc. so as to ensure separate electorates for them in the election to legislatures.

Solution: d)

While there was agreement among Congressmen on the question of attitude to the War and the resignation of the ministries, sharp differences developed over the question of the immediate starting of a mass satyagraha. Gandhiji and the

dominant leadership advanced three broad reasons for not initiating an immediate movement. First, they felt that since the cause of the Allies — Britain and France — was just, they should not be embarrassed in the prosecution of the War. Second, the lack of Hindu- Muslim unity was a big barrier to a struggle. In

the existing atmosphere any civil disobedience movement could easily degenerate into communal rioting or even civil war.

Solution: d)

Even though Cripps announced that the aim of British policy in India was ‘the earliest possible realization of self- government in India,’ the Draft Declaration he brought with him was disappointing. The Declaration promised India Dominion Status and a constitution-making body after the War whose members would be elected by the provincial assemblies and nominated by the rulers in case of the princely states. The Pakistan demand was accommodated by the provision that any province which was not prepared to accept the new constitution would have the right to sign a separate agreement with Britain regarding its future status. For the present the British would continue to exercise sole control over the defence of the country.

Negotiations between Cripps and the Congress leaders broke down. The Congress objected to the provision for Dominion Status rather than full independence, the representation of the princely states in the constituent assembly not by the people of the states but by the nominees of the rulers, and above all by the provision for the partition of India. The British Government also refused to accept the demand for the immediate transfer of effective power to the Indians and for a real share in the responsibility for the defence of India.

Solution: a)

These are general observations about the Quit India movement.

Solution: b)

The cabinet mission recommended an undivided India and turned down the Muslim league’s demand for a separate Pakistan. The Cabinet mission restricted the Communal representation.

It provided that all the members of the Interim cabinet would be Indians and there would be minimum interference by the Viceroy.

It also provided for formation of the constituent assembly on democratic principle of population.

It recognized Indian Right to cede from the Commonwealth. The Union Government and its legislature were to have limited powers, dealing with Finance, Foreign Affairs and Communications. The union would have powers necessary to raise the finances to manage the subjects. Thus, the Cabinet Mission plan proposed a weak Centre. We can realize what would have been of the country if this plan was approved and implemented.

All subjects other than the Union Subjects and all the residuary powers would be vested in the provinces. The Princely states would retain all subjects and all residuary powers.

A Constituent Assembly will be formed of the representatives of the Provincial Assemblies and the Princely states. Each province had to be allotted a total number of seats in proportion to its population. The Constituent assembly had to comprise 293 Members from the British Provinces and 93 members from the Princely states. The representation of the Provincial legislatures was to be break up into 3 sections. Section A: Madras, UP, Central provinces, Bombay, Bihar & Orissa. Section B: Punjab, Sindh, NWFP, Baluchistan Section C: Assam and Bengal.

Thus it seems that though the Cabinet Mission plan rejected the idea of separate Pakistan, yet it grouped the provinces in such a way that it gave weightage to the idea of Pakistan, because the Section B would get almost complete autonomy.

Solution: d)

The Congress accepted the proposals related to the Constituent assembly. But since, the Muslim league had been given disproportionate representation; it rejected the idea of the Interim Government. Congress also rejected the idea of a weak centre and division of India in small states. Congress was against decentralization and the idea was to have a strong centre. The Muslim league first approved the plan. But when Congress declared that it could change the scheme through its majority in the Constituent Assembly, they rejected the plan. On July 27, the Muslim League Council met at Bombay where Jinnah reiterated the demand for Pakistan as the only course left open to the Muslim League. On July 29, it rejected the plan and called the Muslims to resort to “Direct Action” to achieve the land of their dream “Pakistan”. August 16, 1946 was fixed as “Direct Action Day”.

Solution: d)

To discuss the provisions of the Wavell Plan a conference of 21 Indian Political leaders was invited to the Summer Capital of British Government Shimla. The leaders included Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, who was the President of the Congress at that time. Mohammad Ali Jinnah also reached in the conference. But here, Jinnah made a strange claim. He said that no non-league Muslim should be represented to the Executive Council because only Muslim League has right to represent the Muslims of India. So, it was said that Congress had no right to nominate any Muslim in the Executive council. Jinnah also demanded that in case of the division of votes and objection by the Mulism members, there should be a provision that vote is cleared only by 2/3rd of majority. Wavell had given place to 6 Muslims in the Executive Council of 14, and British had given it the power of Veto to any constitutional proposal which was not in its interest. But Muslims represented only 25% of Indian Population. Thus, these unreasonable demands were rejected by Congress. The Muslim league did not relent and Wavell dropped the plan. However, now it was almost clear to Congress that Muslim League can make or mar the fortune of Muslims of India. It was seen as strongest at this point of time, than ever before.

Solution: d)

The British authorities were worried that they had lost control over the ‘Frankenstein monster’ they had helped to create but felt it was too late to tame

1. They were frightened into appeasing the League by Jinnah’s ability to unleash civil war. Wavell quickly brought the League into the Interim Government on 26 October 1946 though it had not accepted either the short or long term provisions of the Cabinet Mission Plan and had not given up its policy of Direct Action. The Secretary of State argued that without the League’s presence in the Government civil war would have been inevitable.

Solution: a)

The war had ended, though Japan was yet to surrender. The heroic deeds of INA were about to end. More than 3 million people had lost lives in the Famine of Bengal, which was largely manmade as the Government stopped the supplies from Burma due to the fear of the Japanese invasion. Burma was the largest exporter of rice and the scarcity of the supplies coupled with the low rains and droughts in several parts of India from as early as 1942, when 10 princely states of Rajputana had declared themselves famine affected as per the famine code and wanted to get relief.

Solution: a)

The Muslim league had escalated the demand for a separate sovereign state. There was a deadlock with the congress since 1939 resignations. On June 14, 1945, Lord Wavell came out with a plan which had the following schemes: A new Executive Council was to be formed at the Centre in which all but the Viceroy and the Commander in Chief will be Indians. This executive council was for the time being till a new permanent constitution could be agreed upon and come to force. All portfolios except the Defense would be held by the Indian Members.

Solution: c)

The August offer was announced when the popular congress ministries resigned. It was to placate them.

Another proposal was that the number of Indians in the executive council was to be increased. As seen later, the Wavell plan provided for it.

Solution: d)

The satyagrahis, which included Pandit Nehru and Vinoba Bhave among others, were sent to jails immediately as per the Defence of India Act. The British did not want this movement to escalate no matter how small it seemed in the beginning.

Solution: c)

The mutiny started as a strike regarding the service conditions in the Royal Indian navy (RIN). Later it spread to other areas. The mutiny was ended by the intervention of Sardar patel. The INC requested for an amnesty for those involved in the RIN mutiny.

Solution: d)

Refer to the chapter – Crisis at Tripuri and the cripps mission in Bipin Chandra to understand the various contentions between the two groups in INC. For space constraints, it can not be reproduced here.

Solution: d)

The Mountbatten Plan, as the 3rd June, 1947 Plan came to be known, sought to effect an early transfer of power on the basis of Dominion Status to two successor states, India and Pakistan. Congress was willing to accept Dominion Status for a while because it felt it must assume full power immediately and meet boldly the explosive situation in the country. As Nehru put it, Murder stalks the streets and the most amazing cruelties are indulged in by both the individual and the mob.” Besides Dominion Status gave breathing time to the new administration as British officers and civil service officials could stay on for a while and let Indians settle in easier into their new positions of authority. For Britain, Dominion Status offered a chance of keeping India in the Commonwealth, even if temporarily, a prize

not to be spurned.

Solution: c)

The partition committee which was later called partition council existed even after 15^th August 1947. Sardar patel represented the INC and the league was represented by Jinnah, Liyaqat Ali khan and others.

Solution: d)

These were the major provisions of Act, other than partitioning India. It also provided a list of provinces which were to be a part of Pakistan.

Solution: c)

The plan was unveiled by C rajagopalachari when nothing was working between the INC and the league. It was a sort of a middle way between the two extremes adopted by both the parties.

Solution: a)

It did provide for heavy representation of Muslims. In fact, Jinnah disagreed with the proposals because he felt it gave them inadequate representation.

Solution: c)

This was not a major conference. It was a nominal conference. The INC did not attend it (not invited, in fact).

The outcome of the conference was a ‘white paper’ based on which the Government of India Act, 1935 was formed.

Solution: b)

Other important incidents that happened under his reign were: the arrival of cripps mission; beginning of 2^nd world war etc. He was the longest serving Viceroy of India.

Solution: d)

The rise of this party was due to the increasing left-wing influence in the Congress. Leaders like Acharya Vnoba Bhave and JP Narayan were holding the party together. It was an offshoot of the congress. The party believed in decentralized socialism.

Solution: d)

The Quit India movement was not a meticulously planned movement as the previous mass movements. The situation in British India had deteriorated to such an extent that these incidents were like a spark in the haystack.

Already the masses were frustrated with the British not giving them the right to self-govern. This became clear with the failure of the Cripps Mission which only offered a dominion status for India.

Then, the incoming famine made people even more impatient. In fact, as history tells us, they had become even more impatient than the leaders. When the leaders were released from jails, they did not even need to gather the people. They were already watiting for them.

Further, the news came in that the British have left Indian subjects to die in the war at Burma. But, they had evacuated British citizens. This infuriated the leaders and the masses. In their opinion, if there was invasion from the side of Burma, this would be the fate of Indians too. The British would simply flee.

All of this made a dangerous cocktail and led to the spontaneous Quit India movement.