History Test - 24

The correct answer is March 1946.

Key Points

• Cabinet Mission (1946): 
  • ​The Cabinet Mission came to India in 1946.
  • It was launched by the British Government in March 1946 to discuss plans for the transfer of power from the British Raj to Indian leadership.
  • The members of the mission were:
    • Lord Patrick-Lawrence: The Secretary of State for India.
    • Sir Stafford Cripps: President of the Board of Trade
    • A.V. Alexander: First Lord of the Admiralty.
  • On 22nd January 1946, the decision to send Cabinet Mission was taken and on 19th February 1946, the British PM C.R Attlee Government announced in the House of Lords about the mission and the plan to quit India.
  • The mission made its own proposals, after inconclusive dialogue with the Indian leadership, seeing that the Congress opposed Jinnah's demand for a Pakistan comprising six full provinces.
  • The mission proposed a complicated system for India with three tiers: the provinces, provincial groupings and the centre.
  • The centre's power was to be confined to foreign affairs, defence, currency and communications.
  • The provinces would keep all the other powers and be allowed to establish three groups.

The Correct Answer is Bengal.

Key Points

• In the 1937 elections, the Indian National Congress emerged in power in eight of the provinces - the three exceptions being Bengal, Punjab, and Sindh. 
• It formed MInistries in 8 out of the 11 provinces. 
• In Assam, it had won 33 out of 108 seats and though it was the single largest party it was not in a position to form a Ministry. 
• In Punjab, the Muslim League with Unionist Party formed a coalition government. 
• In Bengal, the Muslim League formed a coalition government with Krishak Praja Party under Fazlul Haq.
• Congress remained in office for more than two years. 
• Under this tenure, Tenancy acts were passed in United Provinces and Bihar, to protect the tenants from the moneylenders.

Additional Information

• In 1937, the Congress Government in Bombay appointed a Textile Inquiry Committee which recommended a wage increase for labor.
• In November 1938, the Congress Government in Bombay introduced the “Industrial Disputes Act”. 
• Rise of Separatism: In 1937, after the Provincial elections, Congress had refused to make coalition Governments with the Muslim league. 
• There was one more reason for the press for a separate Muslim nation. 
• It was the Wardha Scheme of Education, which led the Muslim League to champion the cause of Pakistan.

The correct answer is Punjab

Key Points

The “Pakistan” Resolution 

• The Pakistan demand was formalised gradually.
• On 23 March 1940, the League moved a resolution demanding a measure of autonomy for the Muslim-majority areas of the subcontinent.
• This ambiguous resolution never mentioned the partition of Pakistan.
• The National Unionist Party was a political party based in the Punjab Province during the period of British rule in India.
• The Unionist Party mainly represented the interests of the landed gentry and landlords of Punjab, which included Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs.
• In fact, Sikandar Hayat Khan, Punjab Premier and leader of the Unionist Party, who had drafted the resolution, declared in a Punjab assembly speech on 1 March 1941 that he was opposed to a Pakistan that would mean “Muslim Raj here and Hindu Raj.

The correct answer is Urdu.

Key Points

• The origins of the Pakistan demand have also been traced back to the Urdu poet Mohammad Iqbal, the writer of “Sare Jahan Se Achha Hindustan Hamara”. Hence the correct answer is option 2.
• In his presidential address to the Muslim League in 1930, the poet spoke of a need for a “NorthWest Indian Muslim state”.
• Iqbal, however, was not visualising the emergence of a new country in that speech but a reorganisation of Muslim-majority areas in north-western India into an autonomous unit within a single, loosely structured Indian federation.  

The correct answer is option 1.

Key Points

The Withdrawal of Law and order 

• The bloodbath continued for about a year from March 1947 onwards.
• One main reason for this was the collapse of the institutions of governance.
• Penderel Moon, an administrator serving in Bahawalpur (in present-day Pakistan) at the time, noted how the police failed to fire even a single shot when arson and killings were taking place in Amritsar in March 1947.
• Hence the correct answer is option 1.
• Edward Penderel Moon was a British administrator and writer who served as a finance minister for the Bahawalpur State, chief commissioner of Himachal Pradesh, and chief commissioner of Manipur state.

The correct answer is Cambridge University.

Key Points

PAK-STAN 

• In 1933 The name Pakistan or Pak-stan is coined by a Punjabi Muslim student at Cambridge, Choudhry Rehmat Ali.
• Hence the correct answer is option 1.
• Chaudhary Rehmat Ali was a Punjabi Muslim.
• In his 'PAK-STAN', each letter denotes a Muslim-dominated region, where 'P' stands for Punjab, 'A' stands for Afghan bordering region, 'K' stands for Kashmir and 'stan' stands for Baluchistan.
• His view of a separate Muslim State was ridiculed by many leaders.
• Even the Muslim League dismissed the idea as a student's dream

The Correct Answer is "Baldev Singh".

Important Points

• The Interim Government was formed as a provisional government between an imperial structure and a democratic structure.
• It lasted till 15th August 1947 when India became independent and was partitioned into India and Pakistan.
• This Interim Government was formed from the Constituent Assembly which was elected in August 1946.
• The election to the Constituent Assembly was not direct and representatives were elected by the provincial assemblies.
• In these elections, the Indian National Congress (INC) won around 69% of the seats and had a majority.
• The Congress Party won 208 seats and the Muslim League won 73 seats.
• In the Interim Government, the Viceroy’s Executive Council was equivalent to the position of Council of Ministers which acted as the executive.
• Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru became its Vice President and served as the de-facto Prime Minister.
• Even though the Muslim League refused to be a part of the Interim Government, insisting on their demand for a separate nation, it eventually became a part of it. In Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s words, the League was “going into the Interim Government to get a foothold to fight for the cherished goal of Pakistan.”

Additional Information

• The formation of the Interim government is related to the Second World War.
• The period post the second world war was a turning point as all the political prisoners were released who were a part of the Quit India movement.
• The Indian National Congress laid the foundation by declaring its participation in the formation of the Constituent Assembly.
• The newly formed government of Clement Attlee dispatched the 1946 Cabinet Mission to India to formulate proposals for the formation of a government that would lead to an independent India.

Key Points 

The Cabinet of the Interim Government of India composed of the following members:

1. President of the Executive Council (Viceroy and Governor-General of India): Viscount Wavell (till February 1947); Lord Mountbatten (from February 1947)
2. Commander-in-Chief: Sir Claude Auchinleck
3. Vice President, Also in charge of External Affairs and Commonwealth Relations: Jawaharlal Nehru (INC)
4. Home Affairs, Information, and Broadcasting: Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (INC)
5. Agriculture and Food: Rajendra Prasad (INC)
6. Commerce: Ibrahim Ismail Chundrigar (ML)
7. Defense: Baldev Singh (INC)
8. Finance: Liaquat Ali Khan (ML)
9. Education and Arts: C Rajagopalachari (INC)
10. Health: Ghazanfar Ali Khan (ML)
11. Labour: Jagjivan Ram (INC)
12. Law: Jogendra Nath Mandal (ML)
13. Railways and Communications, Post and Air: Abdur Rab Nishtar (ML)
14. Works, Mines, and Power: C H Bhabha (INC)

The correct answer is 16th August 1946.

Key Points

Towards Partition 

• After withdrawing its support to the Cabinet Mission Plan, the Muslim League decided on “Direct Action” for winning its Pakistan demand.
• It was announced on 16 August 1946 as “Direct Action Day”.
• Hence the correct answer is option 4.
• On this day, riots broke out in Calcutta, lasting several days and leaving several thousand people dead.
• By March 1947 violence spread to many parts of northern India.
• It was in March 1947 that the Congress high command voted for dividing Punjab into two halves, one with a Muslim majority and the other with a Hindu/Sikh majority and it asked for the application of a similar principle to Bengal.

The correct answer is The Muslim League.

Key Points

• Subhash Chandra Bose allied with the Muslim League to destroy the Holwell Monument in Calcutta during  1939-40. Hence option 2 is correct.
• After the failure of the Bose-Mahasabha alliance, Bose entitled his alliance with the Muslim League of being a larger vision and strategic purpose.
• Muslim League's objective in allying with Bose was simply to employ him as a useful tool to keep Congress and Hindus divided, while at the same time consolidating itself in Bengal as the sole Moslem representative. Indeed, Bose would continue his labours to 'woo them to his side at all costs, and it is towards that direction that he spent his energies in the next political program that he took up: Muslim League-led agitation to remove the Holwell Monument. 

Additional Information

• The All-India Muslim League was a political party established in 1906 in British India. Its strong advocacy for the establishment of a separate Muslim-majority nation-state, Pakistan, successfully led to the partition of India in 1947 by the British Empire.
• The Hindu Mahasabha is a political party in India. The organization was formed to protect the rights of the Hindu community, after the formation of the All India Muslim League in 1906 and the British India government's creation of a separate Muslim electorate under the Morley-Minto reforms of 1909.
• The Unionist Party, a secular party, was formed to represent the interests of Punjab's large feudal classes and gentry. Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan, Sir Fazli Husain, Sir Shahab-ud-Din, Muhammad Hussain Shah, and Sir Chhotu Ram were the co-founders of the party.
• The Communist Party of India is the oldest communist political party in India, and one of the eight national parties in the country. The CPI was formed on 26 December 1925 at Kanpur. 

The correct answer is Lahore.

About Pakistan Resolution:

• The First Meeting of the League after the outbreak of the war was held in Lahore in March 1940. The "Lahore Resolution", was later, known as the "Pakistan Resolution".
• The Pakistan Resolution passed on 23^rd March 1940 and the adoption of the First Constitution of Pakistan during the Transition of the Dominion Status of Pakistan to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan on 23^rd March 1956.
• This was passed by the largest crowd gathering of League Members just one day after Mohammad Ali Jinnah informed his party followers that “The problem of India is not of an inter-communal but manifestly of an international character.”
• Mohammad Ali Jinnah addressed that any Future Constitutional plan proposed by the British for India would not be “Acceptable to the Muslims”.
• it was Planned in the resolution that the Majority area of Muslims in India was the “North-Western and Eastern Zones” were Grouped to Constitute the Independent States in which the Constituent units shall be Sovereign and Autonomous states.

Notes:

• Liaquat Ali Khan was the First Prime Minister of Pakistan.