CDS (II) 2021 General Knowledge · Question 90 of 120

Correct — D, The British Government could enter into a separate constitutional arrangement with any of the acceding provinces. The word to catch is acceding. The Draft Declaration published on 30 March 1942 offered the separate arrangement to provinces that did not accede, not to those that did. Its clause (c)(i) gives 'the right of any Province of British India that is not prepared to accept the new Constitution to retain its present constitutional position, provision being made for its subsequent accession if it so decides', and then continues: 'With such non-acceding Provinces, should they so desire, His Majesty's Government will be prepared to agree upon a new Constitution, giving them the same full status as the Indian Union.' A province that acceded would be inside the new Constitution and would have no need of an arrangement of its own. The other three statements are accurate as printed.

• (a)It was sent to India by the British Government in March 1942. — Correct, and therefore not the answer. Sir Stafford Cripps reached India on 22 March 1942 and the declaration was published on 30 March; the mission came at a moment when Japanese forces had taken Rangoon and were at India's eastern frontier.
• (b)It proposed that the Constitution of India was to be framed by an elected Constituent Assembly of the Indian people. — Correct. Clause (a) provides for 'an elected body charged with the task of framing a new Constitution for India', and clause (d) explains that the members of the lower houses of the provincial legislatures would elect it by proportional representation.
• (c)Any province which was not prepared to accept the Constitution would be free to retain its constitutional provisions existing at that time. — Correct, and it is the first half of the very clause that makes option (d) wrong. A province unwilling to accept the new Constitution could retain its existing constitutional position, with the door left open to accede later.

The Cripps mission was Britain's wartime offer to India: Dominion status after the war, a constitution framed by Indians, and in exchange Indian cooperation in the war effort. It failed on both of its main terms. The Congress rejected it because defence was to remain with the British and because the offer of full self-government was deferred to the end of the war; and the opt-out clause, which the Muslim League read as an implicit concession of the principle of partition without conceding Pakistan by name, satisfied nobody. Within months the Congress had moved to Quit India.

The item is a single-word discrimination, and it repays reading the clause rather than the summary. The opt-out was the most consequential thing in the declaration, because a province allowed to keep its existing position and then to negotiate a constitution 'giving them the same full status as the Indian Union' is a province that could become a second dominion. Note also the small looseness in statement (b) as printed: the constitution-making body was to be elected by provincial legislators, while the Indian States were to appoint their representatives, so the phrase 'of the Indian people' describes it only indirectly. UPSC has tested precisely that distinction in 2022.

• Sir Stafford Cripps arrived in India on 22 March 1942, and the Draft Declaration was published on 30 March 1942.
• The declaration offered the creation of an Indian Union with Dominion status after the war.
• A province not prepared to accept the new Constitution could retain its present constitutional position, with provision for later accession.
• With such non-acceding provinces His Majesty's Government would be prepared to agree a new Constitution giving them the same full status as the Indian Union.
• Defence was to remain the responsibility of the British Government for the duration of the war, which was among the Congress's main objections.

• Reading 'acceding' for 'non-acceding'; the whole question turns on that one word.
• Describing the proposed constituent assembly as directly elected by the people; provincial legislators were to elect it and the States were to appoint members.
• Confusing the Cripps proposals of 1942 with the Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946, which offered a grouping scheme rather than an opt-out.

As a which-statement-is-not-correct item on the proposals, as a statements-and-code question on their content, or as a chronology of the wartime missions.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under the Cripps proposals of 1942, defence during the war was to remain the responsibility of

  • (a)the proposed Indian Union
  • (b)His Majesty's Government
  • (c)the Viceroy's Executive Council alone
  • (d)a joint Indo-British commission

  Answer(b) His Majesty's Government — the declaration reserved control and direction of India's defence to Britain for the duration of the war.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Cripps Mission arrived in India in which one of the following months?

  • (a)August 1940
  • (b)March 1942
  • (c)June 1945
  • (d)March 1946

  Answer(b) March 1942 — Cripps reached India on 22 March and the draft declaration was published on 30 March.