CDS (I) 2022 General Knowledge · Question 94 of 120

Correct — A, Morley-Minto Reforms, 1909. Separate electorates for Muslims entered Indian law with the Indian Councils Act of 1909, named after John Morley, the Secretary of State for India, and Lord Minto, the Viceroy. Under it a defined bloc of seats on the provincial councils and on the Imperial Legislative Council was to be filled by Muslim members chosen by Muslim voters alone — a communal roll separate from the general one. The demand had been carried to Minto by the Simla Deputation of Muslim notables in October 1906, weeks before the All-India Muslim League was founded at Dhaka, and the Act granted it. Everything that followed built on this base rather than creating it, which is why the later three options are traps rather than alternatives.

• (b)Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms, 1919 — The Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms, enacted as the Government of India Act 1919, widened the communal-electorate principle to further groups — Sikhs, Indian Christians, Anglo-Indians and Europeans — and introduced dyarchy in the provinces. It extended separate electorates; it did not first provide for them, and Muslims already had theirs.
• (c)Communal Award, 1932 — The Communal Award of 16 August 1932, announced by Ramsay MacDonald after the second Round Table Conference, is remembered for extending separate electorates to the Depressed Classes. Gandhi's fast in Yerwada jail forced the Poona Pact of 24 September 1932, which replaced that with reserved seats in a joint electorate. Muslim separate electorates were by then twenty-three years old.
• (d)Government of India Act, 1935 — The Government of India Act 1935 carried the existing communal electorates forward into provincial autonomy and the proposed federation. It consolidated the arrangement rather than originating it.

A separate electorate reserves seats for a community and lets only voters of that community elect the members who fill them, on a communal roll kept apart from the general roll. A joint electorate with reservation, by contrast, reserves the seats but lets the whole constituency vote for them. The first was introduced for Muslims by the Indian Councils Act 1909, extended to other minorities by the Act of 1919 and to the Depressed Classes by the Communal Award of 1932, and abolished altogether by the Constituent Assembly, which chose reservation within a common roll instead.

This is a chronology question dressed as a concept question, and the four options are the four milestones of communal representation in exact order. The safe anchor is the Simla Deputation of 1906 and the founding of the Muslim League in the same year: the political demand and the legislative answer sit three years apart, so 1909 is the date to hold. The tempting wrong pick is 1919, because Montagu-Chelmsford is the reform students associate with electorates being widened — but widened is not introduced. A second useful check is the direction of travel across the four dates: 1909 creates the device for one community, 1919 spreads it, 1932 pushes it as far as the Depressed Classes, and the Poona Pact then pulls it back. Sardar Patel put the nationalist objection sharply in the Constituent Assembly in August 1947, asking whether anyone could show him one free country with separate electorates.

• The Indian Councils Act 1909 — the Morley-Minto Reforms — gave Muslims separate electorates, with Muslim members elected only by Muslim voters.
• The Simla Deputation of October 1906 carried the demand to Viceroy Lord Minto; the All-India Muslim League was founded at Dhaka in December of the same year.
• The Government of India Act 1919 extended separate electorates to Sikhs, Indian Christians, Anglo-Indians and Europeans.
• The Communal Award of 16 August 1932 offered separate electorates to the Depressed Classes; the Poona Pact of 24 September 1932 replaced them with reserved seats in a joint electorate.
• The Constitution of India abolished separate electorates altogether, retaining only reservation of seats within a common electoral roll.

• Answering 1919 because Montagu-Chelmsford is the reform associated with extending communal electorates. It extended them; 1909 created them.
• Confusing the Communal Award's separate electorates for the Depressed Classes with the Poona Pact's joint electorate and reserved seats — the Pact reversed the Award.
• Dating the Muslim League to 1909 rather than 1906 and then dating the Act to the League's founding.

As a straight which-reform-introduced-it question, as a chronology of communal representation, or as a statements item contrasting separate electorates with reservation in a joint roll.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Poona Pact of 1932 provided for

  • (a)separate electorates for the Depressed Classes
  • (b)reservation of seats for the Depressed Classes in a joint electorate
  • (c)the abolition of untouchability by law
  • (d)separate electorates for Sikhs and Indian Christians

  Answer(b) reservation of seats for the Depressed Classes in a joint electorate — the Pact of 24 September 1932 replaced the separate electorates offered by the Communal Award with reserved seats voted on by the whole constituency.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Simla Deputation of 1906 met which one of the following?

  • (a)Lord Curzon
  • (b)Lord Minto
  • (c)Lord Chelmsford
  • (d)Lord Reading

  Answer(b) Lord Minto — the deputation of Muslim notables placed the demand for separate representation before the Viceroy in October 1906, three years before the Indian Councils Act of 1909 conceded it.