MPPSC 2025 Prelims Paper-I · Question 4 of 100

Correct — B, 16 August 1946. The All-India Muslim League, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, named 16 August 1946 as 'Direct Action Day' — the date it announced for direct action in support of its demand for Pakistan after it withdrew its earlier acceptance of the Cabinet Mission Plan. Every standard account of the freedom struggle attaches Direct Action to that date. The League's council had adopted the direct-action resolution at its Bombay session at the end of July 1946 and fixed 16 August as the day of action; the day itself set off the Great Calcutta Killings, several days of communal violence in the city.

• (a)22nd June, 1946 — June 1946 was still the negotiating phase. The League had accepted the Cabinet Mission Plan earlier that month and was bargaining over the interim government — the direct-action call came only after it reversed that acceptance in late July.
• (c)22nd October, 1946 — By late October the League had changed course in the opposite direction: it joined Wavell's Interim Government on 26 October 1946. No direct-action announcement belongs to this date.
• (d)22nd August, 1946 — A plausible-looking August date, but the day the League named and observed was the 16th; by the 22nd the Calcutta violence that followed it was already the story.

1946 is a chain, and Direct Action Day is one link in it. The Cabinet Mission arrived in March 1946 with a plan for a united India built on provincial grouping; both the League and the Congress accepted it in June, then fell out over whether grouping was compulsory. The League withdrew its acceptance and called for direct action, fixing 16 August 1946. Communal violence followed in Calcutta and then in Noakhali and Bihar, yet the League still entered the Interim Government in late October — and the constitutional talks it boycotted eventually gave way to the 3 June 1947 partition plan.

MPPSC wants a single date, so the reliable anchor is 16 August 1946 sitting between the Cabinet Mission's collapse in July and the Interim Government in October. Students lose the mark by reaching for the date the resolution was passed, or by drifting to 15 August, which belongs to 1947.

• 16 August 1946 — Direct Action Day, announced by the All-India Muslim League under Jinnah.
• It followed the League's withdrawal of its acceptance of the Cabinet Mission Plan at its Bombay council session at the end of July 1946.
• The day triggered the Great Calcutta Killings, days of communal rioting in Calcutta, then under the Muslim League ministry of H. S. Suhrawardy in Bengal.
• Violence spread to Noakhali in October 1946 and then to Bihar; Gandhi walked through Noakhali on a peace mission.
• The League joined the Interim Government on 26 October 1946 even while boycotting the Constituent Assembly.

• Confusing Direct Action Day (16 August 1946) with the Lahore Resolution (23 March 1940), where the Pakistan demand was first formally adopted.
• Slipping from 16 August 1946 to 15 August 1947.
• Assuming the announcement date equals the resolution date — the League's council resolved on direct action in late July and set 16 August as the day of action.

MPPSC keeps it as flat date recall. UPSC prefers the sequence and the cause — which plan collapsed, who joined the Interim Government, what followed in Bengal and Bihar.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Muslim League's Direct Action Day of 16 August 1946 was followed immediately by large-scale communal violence in:

  • (a)Lahore
  • (b)Calcutta
  • (c)Bombay
  • (d)Karachi

  Answer(b) Calcutta — the episode remembered as the Great Calcutta Killings.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Muslim League withdrew its acceptance of which proposal in July 1946, and then called for direct action?

  • (a)Cripps Proposals
  • (b)Wavell Plan
  • (c)Cabinet Mission Plan
  • (d)Mountbatten Plan

  Answer(c) Cabinet Mission Plan — the dispute was over whether the grouping of provinces was compulsory.