Which one of the following commissions was not associated with public services in India?

Correct — D, Radhakrishnan Commission. Three of the four names belong to the long British argument over who should staff the Indian administration. The Aitchison Commission, formally the Public Service Commission, was set up in 1886 under Sir Charles Umpherston Aitchison, then Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab, and reported in 1887; it replaced the old covenanted and uncovenanted split with a three-tier Imperial, Provincial and Subordinate classification, put into effect in 1892. Lord Islington was appointed President of the Royal Commission on the Public Services of India in 1912. The Lee Commission, the Royal Commission on the Superior Civil Services in India, sat under Lord Lee of Fareham from 1923 and reported in 1924, recommending that future recruitment be split forty per cent British direct entrants, forty per cent Indian direct entrants and twenty per cent promotions from the provincial services — and out of it came the first Public Service Commission, established on 1 October 1926 under Sir Ross Barker. The fourth name belongs to a different subject entirely. The University Education Commission of 1948, chaired by Dr S. Radhakrishnan, was asked to report on Indian university education, and its recommendation that the University Grants Committee be reconstituted on the British model led to the University Grants Commission.

• (a)Aitchison Commission — This is the Public Service Commission of 1886-87, which introduced the Imperial, Provincial and Subordinate classification. It is squarely a public-services body.
• (b)Islington Commission — Lord Islington presided over the Royal Commission on the Public Services of India from 1912. The subject is named in the commission's own title.
• (c)Lee Commission — The Royal Commission on the Superior Civil Services in India of 1923-24, whose recommendation produced the first Public Service Commission in 1926. Another public-services body.

From the 1850s to the 1920s the British repeatedly reviewed how Indians could enter the higher administration, and each review carries the name of the man who chaired it. Aitchison in 1886 restructured the services into three tiers, Islington from 1912 looked at the public services as a whole, and Lee in 1923-24 fixed recruitment proportions and asked for a standing commission to run the examinations. The last of these produced the ancestor of today's Union Public Service Commission.

A question of this shape is asking whether you have filed each name under the right subject, and the trick is that the odd one out is not a colonial commission at all — it belongs to independent India and to education. Radhakrishnan is much better known as a philosopher and later as President of India, and the commission that carries his name was a stocktaking of the universities. A useful check when a list of commissions appears: sort them into services, education, agriculture and police before looking at the options, because examiners build these items by dropping one member of a different family into a set.

• The Aitchison Commission, formally the Public Service Commission, was set up in 1886 under Sir Charles Umpherston Aitchison and reported in 1887.
• Its central recommendation replaced the covenanted and uncovenanted services with an Imperial, Provincial and Subordinate classification, implemented in 1892.
• Lord Islington became President of the Royal Commission on the Public Services of India in 1912.
• The Lee Commission of 1923-24 fixed recruitment at forty per cent British, forty per cent Indian direct and twenty per cent promoted, and asked for a Public Service Commission.
• The first Public Service Commission was established on 1 October 1926 under Sir Ross Barker, the forerunner of the UPSC.
• The Radhakrishnan Commission is the University Education Commission of 1948, whose recommendation led to the founding of the University Grants Commission, inaugurated in December 1953 and made statutory in 1956.

• Reading the Radhakrishnan Commission as a services body because Radhakrishnan later held high constitutional office.
• Mixing the Lee Commission up with the Kothari Commission, one on services and the other on schooling.
• Assuming every commission with a British peer's name concerns administration; Hunter's concerned education.

Framed negatively — three names belong to one family and one is imported from another, so the question tests classification rather than the detail of any single commission.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The recommendation that led to the establishment of the first Public Service Commission in India in 1926 came from

  • (a)the Aitchison Commission
  • (b)the Islington Commission
  • (c)the Lee Commission
  • (d)the Hunter Commission

  Answer(c) the Lee Commission — the Royal Commission on the Superior Civil Services in India, which reported in 1924; the Commission followed on 1 October 1926 under Sir Ross Barker.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The University Grants Commission owes its origin to the recommendation of

  • (a)the Radhakrishnan Commission of 1948
  • (b)the Mudaliar Commission of 1952
  • (c)the Kothari Commission of 1964
  • (d)the Sargent Report of 1944

  Answer(a) the Radhakrishnan Commission of 1948 — the University Education Commission asked for the University Grants Committee to be reconstituted on the British model, and the UGC was inaugurated in December 1953.