Consider the following statements regarding the Government of India Act, 1919 : 1. It divided the subjects of administration in two categories—central and provincial. 2. The central subjects were divided into 'reserved' and 'transferred' subjects. 3. Provincial Governments were granted the power to make their own budgets and levy taxes. Which of the statements given above are correct?

Correct — C, 1 and 3 only. The Government of India Act, 1919 relaxed central control over the provinces by demarcating and separating central and provincial subjects, each legislature being authorised to legislate on its own list, so statement 1 stands. It also separated provincial budgets from the central budget and authorised provincial legislatures to enact their own budgets and levy their own taxes, so statement 3 stands. Statement 2 misplaces the division. It was the provincial subjects, not the central ones, that were split into transferred and reserved — the transferred subjects administered by ministers responsible to the legislature and the reserved ones by the Governor and his executive council. That split is what the word dyarchy names, and it operated only in the provinces.

• (a)1 and 2 only — Keeps statement 2, which contains the item's single error: the transferred and reserved division applied to provincial subjects, not central ones.
• (b)2 and 3 only — Drops statement 1, yet the separation of central and provincial subjects is one of the Act's two best-known features and the precondition for everything else it did.
• (d)1, 2 and 3 — Accepts all three, which requires dyarchy to have operated at the centre. It did not; the central executive remained wholly irresponsible to the central legislature.

The Act of 1919, framed on the Montagu–Chelmsford report, is remembered for two structural changes. It demarcated central from provincial subjects and gave the provinces their own legislative and financial sphere, and within that provincial sphere it introduced dyarchy: transferred subjects such as education, local self-government, public health and agriculture went to ministers drawn from and answerable to the legislative council, while reserved subjects such as police, justice, land revenue and irrigation stayed with the Governor in council. It also introduced a bicameral central legislature and extended communal representation.

The one thing to fix about 1919 is where dyarchy operated. Every element of the reform lives in the provinces: the transferred and reserved division, the ministers responsible to the legislature, the provincial budgets and taxes. The centre received a bicameral legislature but no responsible government at all. A statement that moves dyarchy to the centre is therefore always false for 1919 — and the mirror-image trap belongs to the Act of 1935, which abolished provincial dyarchy and provided for it at the centre instead, though that part was never brought into force.

• The Government of India Act, 1919 separated central and provincial subjects and gave each legislature its own list.
• Provincial subjects were divided into transferred and reserved, which is what dyarchy means.
• Transferred subjects were administered by ministers responsible to the provincial legislative council.
• Provincial budgets were separated from the central budget and provinces could levy their own taxes.
• The Act of 1935 reversed the arrangement: it ended provincial dyarchy and provided for dyarchy at the centre, which was never implemented.

• Applying dyarchy to central subjects, which is the classic misreading of the 1919 Act.
• Confusing the 1919 provincial dyarchy with the 1935 scheme, which inverted it.
• Assuming that separating budgets meant provinces became financially independent; central oversight continued.

Asked as a three-statement code item on a single Act, with two textbook features stated correctly and dyarchy relocated to the centre in the third.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under the Government of India Act, 1919, which pair of subjects was administered by ministers responsible to the provincial legislature?

  • (a)Police and justice
  • (b)Education and public health
  • (c)Land revenue and irrigation
  • (d)Defence and foreign affairs

  Answer(b) Education and public health — transferred subjects under provincial dyarchy.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Dyarchy in the provinces, introduced in 1919, was abolished by

  • (a)the Government of India Act, 1935
  • (b)the Indian Independence Act, 1947
  • (c)the Indian Councils Act, 1909
  • (d)the Government of India Act, 1858

  Answer(a) the Government of India Act, 1935 — which introduced provincial autonomy instead.