Select the correct statements from the following. A. The Constituent Assembly was constituted in November, 1946 under the Cabinet Mission Plan. B. Cabinet Mission rejected the idea of two Constituent Assemblies. C. The Cripps Proposal was accepted by the Muslim League.
- (1)Only A, B
- (2)Only B, C
- (3)Only A, C
- (4)All of the above
Correct — option (1), 'Only A, B'. The Cabinet Mission arrived in India in March 1946 and put forward its plan in May 1946, providing for elections to a Constituent Assembly by the existing provincial legislatures; those elections were held in July 1946 and the Assembly stood constituted in November 1946 on that basis, ahead of its first sitting on 9 December 1946. Statement A records exactly this and is correct. On the demand from the Muslim League for a separate Constituent Assembly for the Muslim-majority provinces — in effect, for Pakistan — the Cabinet Mission's plan explicitly rejected the idea of two Constituent Assemblies. Instead it proposed a single Assembly for all of British India, with provinces grouped into three sections (A, B and C) that would settle their own provincial and group constitutions before coming together at the Union level, a compromise designed to hold unity together without a formal partition of the constitution-making process itself. Statement B records this rejection and is correct. Statement C is the one that fails: the Cripps Proposals of March 1942, brought by Sir Stafford Cripps to secure Indian cooperation in the war effort, were rejected by both major parties — the Indian National Congress rejected them for offering Dominion Status rather than full independence and for the provincial right of secession that threatened India's unity, and the Muslim League rejected them because the proposals stopped short of an explicit, unconditional commitment to Pakistan. The Cripps Mission's failure was total, not partial, so statement C is false, and only A and B survive together.
- (2)Only B, C — Correctly keeps the Cabinet Mission's rejection of two Constituent Assemblies but wrongly credits the Muslim League with accepting the Cripps Proposals of 1942 and wrongly drops the Assembly's November 1946 constitution. The Cripps Mission failed with both major parties — the Muslim League rejected it precisely because it did not concede Pakistan outright, not because it accepted it.
- (3)Only A, C — Correctly keeps the Assembly's constitution in November 1946 but wrongly credits Muslim League acceptance of the Cripps Proposals and wrongly drops the Cabinet Mission's rejection of two separate Constituent Assemblies — which is one of the Mission's best-documented and most consequential decisions, since it is exactly what kept constitution-making formally unified even as political unity was collapsing.
- (4)All of the above — Requires the false Cripps statement to be true alongside the two genuine facts. An inclusive option like this fails the moment a single listed item is wrong, and statement C is wrong: the Cripps Proposals of 1942 were rejected by both Congress and the Muslim League, not accepted by either.
Two separate British missions sit behind this question, four years apart, and telling them apart is the whole task. The Cripps Mission of March 1942, led by Sir Stafford Cripps, offered a post-war Constituent Assembly and Dominion Status with a right of provincial secession, in exchange for wartime cooperation; both Congress and the Muslim League rejected it, and its failure fed directly into the Quit India movement of August 1942. The Cabinet Mission of 1946 — sent after the war, once Britain had committed to transferring power — proposed the actual mechanism by which India's Constituent Assembly was formed: elections by the provincial legislatures in July 1946, a single Assembly (not two) with provinces grouped into three sections, and the Assembly's consequent constitution in November 1946, ahead of its first sitting in December that year.
MPSC and UPSC both use this kind of statement set to test whether a candidate has kept the sequence of pre-Independence missions straight — Cripps 1942, Cabinet Mission 1946, Mountbatten Plan 1947 — because each proposed a different constitutional mechanism and each met a different fate. The Cabinet Mission's rejection of two Constituent Assemblies is a particularly important fact to hold onto: it is the point at which the demand for a separate constitution-making body for Pakistan was formally refused, well before Partition itself was agreed to in 1947 under the Mountbatten Plan.
- The Cabinet Mission arrived in India in March 1946 and issued its plan in May 1946, providing for elections to a Constituent Assembly by the provincial legislatures.
- Elections were held in July 1946; the Constituent Assembly stood constituted in November 1946 and held its first sitting on 9 December 1946.
- The Cabinet Mission rejected the Muslim League's demand for two separate Constituent Assemblies, proposing instead a single Assembly with provinces grouped into three sections (A, B and C).
- The Cripps Proposals of March 1942 offered Dominion Status after the war with a provincial right of secession, in exchange for wartime cooperation.
- Both the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League rejected the Cripps Proposals in 1942 — Congress over the secession clause and the offer of Dominion Status rather than full independence, the Muslim League because it did not explicitly concede Pakistan — and the Mission's failure fed directly into the Quit India movement of August 1942.
A and B hold; C is wrong — Cripps failed with both parties.
- Confusing the Cripps Mission (1942, rejected by both Congress and the Muslim League) with the Cabinet Mission (1946, whose plan the Congress broadly accepted and which the Muslim League initially accepted before withdrawing)
- Assuming the Muslim League's rejection of the Cripps Proposals means it endorsed some other British proposal of the same period, when in fact it rejected Cripps for the opposite reason Congress did — for not conceding Pakistan rather than for conceding too little independence
- Treating the Cabinet Mission's rejection of two Constituent Assemblies as equivalent to a rejection of Pakistan itself — the Mission's three-section grouping scheme was a compromise, not a final settlement, and Partition still followed in 1947
MPSC and UPSC both favour statement-based questions on the constitutional missions of the 1940s because the missions are numerous, close together in time, and easy to conflate. The reliable defence is a short table with, for each mission — Cripps 1942, Cabinet Mission 1946, Mountbatten Plan 1947 — its year, its central proposal, and whether Congress and the Muslim League accepted or rejected it, since almost every wrong option in this family is built by swapping one mission's outcome for another's.
No directly related past PYQ was found.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946 proposed that provinces be grouped into how many sections for the purpose of drafting provincial and group constitutions ?
- (a)Two
- (b)Three
- (c)Four
- (d)Five
Answer(b) Three — Sections A, B and C, a compromise arrangement the Cabinet Mission offered in place of the Muslim League's demand for two separate Constituent Assemblies, which the Mission had rejected.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The failure of which British mission in 1942 fed directly into the launch of the Quit India Movement ?
- (a)Cabinet Mission
- (b)Cripps Mission
- (c)Simon Commission
- (d)Mountbatten Plan
Answer(b) Cripps Mission — its March 1942 proposals were rejected by both the Congress and the Muslim League, and the impasse that followed fed directly into the Quit India Resolution of August 1942. The Cabinet Mission and Mountbatten Plan came later, in 1946 and 1947, and the Simon Commission was an earlier, 1928 body on a different question.