Test: Nationalist Movement Phase 3 (1939-1947) - 2 - Delhi Police Constable MCQ

• The Rani of Jhansi Regiment was the Women’s Regiment of the Indian National Army, the armed force formed by Indian nationalists in 1942 in Southeast Asia to overthrow the British Raj in colonial India, with Japanese assistance.

• The regiment was led by Captain Lakshmi Swaminathan (better known as Lakshmi Sahgal), the unit was raised in July 1943 with volunteers from the expatriate Indian population in SouthEast Asia.

The Cabinet Mission 1946 recommended an undivided India and turned down the Muslim league’s demand for a separate Pakistan. Important recommendations are listed below.

• Recognition of Indian Right to cede from the Commonwealth.

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  There shall be a Union of India which was to be empowered to deal with the defence, foreign affairs and communications.

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  Union Government and its legislature were to have limited powers, with greater autonomy to states.

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  Constituent Assembly to be formed of the representatives of the Provincial Assemblies and the Princely states.

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

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  All subjects other than the Union subjects and all the residuary powers would be vested in the provinces.

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  The Princely states would retain all subjects and all residuary powers.

The representation of the Provincial legislatures was to be broken up into three sections. Section A: Madras, UP, Central provinces, Bombay, Bihar & Orissa; Section B: Punjab, Sindh, NWFP, Balochistan; Section C: Assam and Bengal.

• The Cabinet Mission was sent to India to negotiate India's constitutional position and the British empire's future in India.

• It consisted of three members-Lord Pethick Lawrence, Sir Stafford Cripps and A V Alexander. The Cabinet Mission published its plan in 1946.

• It was notable that there were no Indian members in the Mission.

• The Congress accepted the proposals related to the Constituent Assembly. But since, the Muslim league had been given disproportionate representation; it rejected the Interim Government's idea.

• 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 Pakistan's demand 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’.

• As per the plan, all the Council members, except the Viceroy and the Commander-in-Chief, would be Indians.

• It said, in the Council, there would be equal representation of high-caste Hindus and Muslims. Other minorities including low-caste Hindus, Shudders and Sikhs would be given representation in the Council.

• It proposed for a future constitution of India, not its partition.

• The mutiny started as a strike regarding the service conditions in the Royal Indian navy. Later it spread to other areas.

• The intervention of Sardar Patel ended the mutiny. The INC requested an amnesty for those involved in the mutiny.

Statement 3 is incorrect. The Communist parties did not support the Royal Indian Navy mutiny of 1946. In fact, they opposed the mutiny and criticized the naval ratings for their lack of political understanding and for being misled by reactionary forces.

Statements 1 and 2 are correct. The Congress leadership dissociated itself from the mutiny and opposed it on the ground of indiscipline. The committee formed to lead the mutiny demanded the release of all political prisoners, including the Indian National Army prisoners, and the withdrawal of Indian troops from Indonesia and Egypt.

Therefore, the correct answer is statement 3 is incorrect.

• In 1930, as president of the Muslim League, Sir Muhammad Iqbal reiterated the importance of separate electorates for the Muslims as an important safeguard for their minority political interests.

• His statement is supposed to have provided the intellectual justification for the Pakistan demand in subsequent years. This is what he said: ‘I have no hesitation in declaring that if the principle that the Indian Muslim is entitled to full and free development on the lines of his own culture and tradition in his own Indian home-land is recognized as the basis of a permanent communal settlement, he will be ready to stake his all for the freedom of India.

The name Pakistan or Pak-stan is coined by a Punjabi Muslim student at Cambridge, Choudhary Rehmat Ali.

• In June 1944, Mahatma Gandhi was released from prison with the end of the war in sight. Later that year, he held a series of meetings with Jinnah, seeking to bridge the Congress and the League gap.

• In 1945, a Labour government came to power in Britain and committed itself to India's independence.

• Meanwhile, back in India, the Viceroy, Lord Wavell, brought the Congress and the League together for a series of talks. Early in 1946 fresh elections were held to the provincial legislatures.

• The Congress swept the—General category, but in the seats specifically reserved for Muslims, the League won an overwhelming majority. The political polarization was complete. A Cabinet Mission sent in the summer of 1946 failed to get the Congress and the League to agree on a federal system that would keep India together while allowing the provinces a degree of autonomy.

Bhulabhai Desai, leader of the Congress with Liaqat Ali Khan, leader of the Muslim drafted a proposal for forming an interim government at the centre, consisting an of-An equal number of persons nominated by the Congress & League in the central Legislature. 20% reserved seats for minorities.

• Chakravarti Rajagopalachari formulated C.R. formula to solve the deadlocks of the politics between the All India Muslim League and the India National Congress on British India's freedom.

• The Muslims and the Hindus of British India were positioned in the League from two different nations, and therefore Muslims had the right to their own nation.

• Partitioning of India was opposed by the Congress which also included Hindu as well as Muslim members. With the emergence of World War II, the British administration wanted both the parties to resolve the agreement, so that the Indian help could be sought for the war effort.

• The line was published on 17 August 1947 upon the Partition of India. It was named after its architect, Sir Cyril Radcliffe, who, as chairman of the Border Commissions, was charged with equitably dividing 175,000 square miles of territory with 88 million people.

• Today its western side still serves as the Indo-Pakistani border, and the eastern side serves as the India-Bangladesh border.

Atlee’s announcement: The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom announced in February 1947 that:

• The British Government would grant full self-government to British India by June 1948 at the latest.

• The future of the princely states would be decided after the date of the final transfer is decided.

• The Indian Independence Act was formulated by the government of Attlee and the Governor-General of India Lord Mountbatten, after representatives of the Indian National Congress, the Muslim League, and the Sikh community came to an agreement with Lord Mountbatten on what has come to be known as the 3 June Plan or Mountbatten Plan.

This plan was the last plan for independence.

• On February 20, 1947, the British Prime Minister Clement Atlee declared that the British rule in India would end by June 30, 1948; after which the power would be transferred to responsible Indian hands.

• The agitation followed this announcement by the Muslim League demanding partition of the country.

• On June 3, 1947, the British Government made it clear that any Constitution framed by the Constituent Assembly of India (formed in 1946) cannot apply to those parts of the country that we're unwilling to accept it.

• On the same day (June 3, 1947), Lord Mountbatten. The viceroy of India put forth the partition plan, known as the Mountbatten Plan.

• The Congress and the Muslim League accepted the plan. The immediate effect was given to the plan by enacting the Indian Independence Act, which ended the British rule in India and declared India an independent and sovereign state from August 15, 1947.

• It provided for India's partition and creation of two independent dominions of India and Pakistan with the right to secede from the British Commonwealth.

• In 1945, the Congress Working Committee adopted a resolution to abolish landlordism and land grants to the tiller.

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  This was also the time for the consolidation of the Indian capitalist class within the national movement.

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  This was not adopted earlier as the Congress felt it might generate backlash with the landlord community and may not augur well for the Indian National Movement.

• (Later in 1945 the Congress Working Committee adopted a resolution recommending abolition of landlordism. During 1938, when Subhash Chandra Bose was its president, the congress got committed to economic development and set up a National Planning Committee under the Chairmanship of Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehru and other leftists and Gandhi also argued for the public sector in large-scale industries as means of preventing concentration of wealth in a few hands. In fact, a major development of the 1930s was the increasing acceptance of radical economic policies by Gandhi. In 1933, he agreed with Nehru that, "without a material revision of vested interests the condition of the masses can never be improved. He also accepted the principle of land to the tiller. He declared in 1942 that "the land belongs to those who will work on it and to no one else". The National congress had from its inception in 1885 opposed the use of Indian army for suppressing or conquering other nations in the interests of British imperialism. It had also gradually developed a policy of anti-imperialism and extending support to national movements in Asia and Africa. In the 1930s, under the guidance of Nehru, it adopted a more above foreign policy. It took a strong anti-fascist stand and extended full support to the people of Ethiopia, Spain, Czechoslovakia, and China in their struggle against aggression by the three Fascist powers, Italy, Germany and Japan. It recognized that struggle against imperialism and Fascism were aspects of a common struggle on a world scale.)

• He said the British would relinquish power either to some form of central government or in some areas to the existing provincial governments if the Constituent Assembly formed was not fully representative, i.e. if the Muslim majority provinces did not join.

• British powers and obligations concerning them would lapse, but they would not be transferred to any successor government.

• Clement Attlee made the historic announcement regarding the British Government’s ‘definite intention to take necessary steps to effect the transfer of power to responsible Indian hands by a date not later than June 1948’. It was an unconditional transfer of power.

• The Act abolished Viceroy's office and provided, for each dominion, a Governor-General, who was to be appointed by the British King on the Dominion cabinet's advice.

• His Majesty’s Government in Britain was to have no responsibility concerning the Government of India or Pakistan.

• It also abolished the office of the Secretary of State for India and transferred his functions to the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs.

• On 20 June 1947, the Bengal Legislative Assembly met to decide the future of the Bengal Presidency, whether it would be a United Bengal within India or Pakistan; or be divided into East and West Bengal. At the preliminary joint session, the assembly decided by 120 votes to 90 that it should remain united if it joined the new Constituent Assembly of Pakistan.

• Later, a separate meeting of legislators from West Bengal decided by 58 votes to 21 that the province should be partitioned and that West Bengal should join the existing Constituent Assembly of India.

• There was no conception that population transfers would be necessary because of the partitioning. Religious minorities were expected to stay put in the states they found themselves residing in. However, an exception was made for Punjab where the transfer of populations was organised because of the communal violence affecting the province. This did not apply to other provinces.

• Indian Independence Bill was introduced in the British House of Commons on July 4, 1947, and passed within a fortnight.

• The date was chosen by Lord Mountbatten himself because he had considered this date to be lucky. It was on this day during World War II that the Japanese Army surrendered to the allies.

• In 1929, when Jawaharlal Nehru as Congress President gave the call for ‘Pooma Swaraj’ or total independence from British colonial rule, January 26 was chosen as the Independence Day. Later it was declared as the Republic Day.