BPSC 70th CCE Re-exam Prelims General Studies · Question 51 of 142

Correct — B, Mayo. The single word that decides this question is 'economic'. Until 1870 the Government of India ran one undivided purse: every rupee of revenue in every province flowed to the centre, and every rupee of provincial spending came back as a centrally sanctioned allotment, item by item. A province that economised gained nothing, and a province that overspent simply asked for more. Lord Mayo, Viceroy from January 1869 until his assassination at Port Blair in February 1872, broke that arrangement with his Resolution of 1870. It handed the provincial governments a fixed lump-sum grant together with a defined list of expenditure heads — police, jails, education, medical services, roads, printing and the like — and told them to run those services inside that sum, keeping what they saved. That is the bifurcation of central and provincial finance, and it is the measure Indian administrative history labels 'financial decentralisation'. Wikipedia's account of the evolution of local institutions in India puts the starting point at exactly this measure: 'From 1870, when Lord Mayo's Resolution on decentralization aimed to improve administrative efficiency, meet public demands, and bolster colonial finances, there was significant impetus for the development of local institutions.' Mayo's own biographical record says the same thing from the other side — he 'reorganised the country's finances' and 'to solve local problems he established local boards'. The 69th CCE asked the same fact in statement form and keyed the two limbs this card rests on: that the Resolution was the first step bifurcating central and provincial finances, and that provincial governments were empowered to administer certain services. So the Viceroy who decentralised the *economic* structure is Mayo.

• (a)Ripon — The strongest wrong answer, and the reason this question is worth slowing down for. Ripon's Resolution of 18 May 1882 is the famous decentralisation measure — it is why he is called the Father of Local Self-Government in India — but it decentralised *government*, not *finance*. It provided for local bodies with a large majority of elected non-official members under a non-official chairman, and Ripon defended it on the twin grounds of administrative efficiency and political education. That is administrative and political devolution, twelve years after Mayo had already split the purse.
• (c)Curzon — The opposite of the stem. Curzon's viceroyalty (1899–1905) is the textbook centralising one: the Calcutta Corporation Act 1899 cut the elected Indian majority in the city's municipality, the Indian Universities Act 1904 brought the universities under tighter official control, and the Police Commission of 1902–03 and the Partition of Bengal of 1905 both worked to concentrate authority rather than disperse it. No standard account credits him with devolving anything.
• (d)More than one of the above — This option is correct only if you can name at least two viceroys in the list who each decentralised the *economic* structure — and you cannot. Ripon extended Mayo's provincial settlements and is a decentraliser in the wider sense, but his own resolution is about elected local bodies, and Curzon pulls the other way entirely. One measure, one man, one year: the Resolution of 1870.

Financial decentralisation in British India was a fifty-year experiment carried out in four steps, and each step is a named viceroy. Before 1870 the system was 'wholly centralised': provincial revenues were credited to the imperial exchequer and provincial expenditure was sanctioned from Calcutta head by head. Mayo's Resolution of 1870 made the first break, assigning provinces a fixed grant for a defined bundle of services. Lord Lytton widened it in 1877 by giving provinces a share of certain growing revenue heads instead of a frozen lump sum, so that provincial income could rise with the province. Ripon's settlements of 1882 divided revenue heads into imperial, provincial and 'divided', and put the arrangement on a five-yearly quasi-permanent footing. The line runs from there to the Meston Settlement of 1920 and the separation of central and provincial heads under the Government of India Act, 1919. The purpose throughout was fiscal, not democratic: the Government of India was short of money after the Mutiny and the famines, and making provinces bear their own service budgets was a way of forcing economy.

Two habits of reading solve this. First, split 'decentralisation' into its two English meanings before you look at the options — devolving *money* and devolving *elected government* are different reforms by different viceroys, and BPSC has printed the word 'economic' precisely to tell you which one it wants. Money is Mayo, 1870; elected local bodies are Ripon, 1882. Second, use Curzon as a fixed point: he is the standard centraliser of the period, so on any question of this shape he is an eliminated option before you have finished reading it. The remaining discrimination is between the two live names, and the stem hands it to you. Be aware, though, that this is genuinely a two-name question and Ripon is defensible if a reader takes 'economic structure' loosely — the wider provincial settlements of 1882 were also fiscal. We argue Mayo because his is the measure that first divided the purse, which is what 'decentralised the economic structure' most naturally names, and because BPSC itself has already tested Mayo's Resolution as a bifurcation of central and provincial finance.

• Lord Mayo (Richard Bourke, 6th Earl of Mayo) was Viceroy from 12 January 1869 until his assassination at Port Blair in the Andamans on 8 February 1872 — the only Viceroy of India killed in office.
• The Resolution of 1870 gave each province a fixed lump-sum grant against a named list of transferred heads — police, jails, education, medical services, roads, printing, registration — and let the province keep what it saved on them.
• India's first synchronous census was taken under Mayo in 1872, and he founded Mayo College at Ajmer for the education of the sons of ruling chiefs.
• Ripon's Resolution of 18 May 1882 focused on towns and required local bodies to have a large majority of elected non-official members under a non-official chairman; it earned him the title Father of Local Self-Government in India.
• The sequence after Mayo runs Lytton 1877 (provinces given a share of revenue heads) → Ripon 1882 (imperial, provincial and divided heads on a quasi-permanent five-year settlement) → Meston Settlement 1920 under the Government of India Act, 1919.

• Reading 'decentralisation' as a single idea. Financial devolution is Mayo; elected local self-government is Ripon. The stem's adjective is doing all the work.
• Calling Ripon the answer because he is 'the Father of Local Self-Government'. That title is about municipal and district boards, not about the division of central and provincial revenue.
• Choosing the escape option on a question where only one option can be defended. 'More than one of the above' needs two demonstrably true options, not one true and one arguable.

BPSC likes viceroy-to-measure attribution and asks it both ways — as a bare 'which Viceroy did X' as here, and as a statement set on one named measure, as the 69th did with Lord Mayo's Resolution of 1870 itself. UPSC rarely names a viceroy in the stem; it prefers to hide the attribution inside a match-the-pairs list or a 'which pair is NOT correctly matched' item, so the same fact has to be held in both directions.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Lord Ripon's Resolution of 18 May 1882 is chiefly associated with

  • (a)The bifurcation of central and provincial finances
  • (b)Local self-government with an elected non-official majority
  • (c)The abolition of the Vernacular Press Act
  • (d)The permanent settlement of land revenue

  Answer(b) Local self-government with an elected non-official majority — the resolution that earned Ripon the title Father of Local Self-Government in India. The bifurcation of finances belongs to Mayo's Resolution of 1870.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  During whose viceroyalty was the first synchronous census of India conducted ?

  • (a)Lord Canning
  • (b)Lord Lytton
  • (c)Lord Mayo
  • (d)Lord Ripon

  Answer(c) Lord Mayo — the census of 1872 was taken during his viceroyalty (1869-72); the first decennial census of the modern series followed in 1881 under Ripon.