NDA (II) 2017 General Ability Test · Question 136 of 150

Correct — A, a federation. The plan announced on 16 May 1946 by Lord Pethick-Lawrence, Sir Stafford Cripps and A. V. Alexander set out a three-tier structure: a Federal Union at the top, the provinces at the bottom, and groups of provinces as an intermediate tier. The Union's competence was to be confined to foreign affairs, defence and communications, with the power to raise the finances for those subjects; everything else, including all residuary powers, was to stay with the provinces. A central government with enumerated subjects sitting above units that keep the remainder is the textbook definition of a federal arrangement, and the Plan's own language — a Federal Union composed of British Indian provinces and the princely states — says as much. The UPSC has twice confirmed this reading in its own prelims papers.

• (b)Confederation — In a confederation the constituent units keep their sovereignty and merely delegate a few functions to a common body they may leave at will. The Cabinet Mission's Union was to have its own legislature and executive whose decisions bound the provinces on the reserved subjects, so it was weak but not a mere league of sovereign states. The provinces could opt out of a group after the first general election, but that is a review clause, not confederal sovereignty.
• (c)Unitary form of Government — Exactly the opposite of what the Plan proposed. Its central purpose was to reassure the Muslim League by making the centre as weak as possible and pushing power downward to provinces and groups. A unitary government would have concentrated authority at the centre.
• (d)Union of States — This is a tempting option because the Plan itself speaks of a Union of India, but the phrase 'Union of States' belongs to Article 1 of the Constitution of India and describes the Republic that came into being in 1950. The question asks what form of government the Plan envisaged, and the answer to that is federal.

The Cabinet Mission arrived in India in March 1946 to work out a route to a transfer of power. Its plan rejected a sovereign Pakistan but offered the Muslim League the substance of one through grouping: provinces were placed in Group A for the Hindu-majority provinces, Group B for the north-west and Group C for Bengal and Assam, and the groups could frame their own constitutions. A Constituent Assembly was to be elected indirectly by the provincial legislatures, and an interim government was to run the country meanwhile. Congress and the League read the grouping clause in opposite ways, which is why the plan collapsed.

Two habits keep this question straight. First, judge the form of government by where residuary power sits — with the units it is federal, with the centre it is unitary, and with sovereign units free to leave it is confederal. Second, keep the sequence of British proposals in order, because the examiner tests one against another: the Cripps Mission of 1942, the Wavell Plan and Simla Conference of 1945, the Cabinet Mission of 1946, and the Mountbatten Plan of June 1947. Each conceded a little more than the last, and the Cabinet Mission was the last that still tried to keep India united.

• The Cabinet Mission Plan of 16 May 1946 proposed a federal Union with a three-tier structure — Union, groups of provinces, provinces.
• The Union was to have only foreign affairs, defence and communications, with residuary powers left to the provinces.
• The provinces were placed in Groups A, B and C, and each group could frame its own constitution.
• The Mission comprised Lord Pethick-Lawrence, Sir Stafford Cripps and A. V. Alexander, and reached India in March 1946.
• It refused a separate sovereign Pakistan, and disagreement over whether grouping was compulsory wrecked the plan.

• Reading the Plan's weak centre as a confederation; the Union still bound the provinces on its own subjects.
• Believing the Plan conceded Pakistan; it refused a sovereign separate state and offered grouping instead.
• Attributing the Constituent Assembly to the Mountbatten Plan — it was constituted under the Cabinet Mission scheme.

The Cabinet Mission is asked on the form of government it proposed, on which of its features is wrongly described, or against the Cripps and Wavell proposals in a sequence.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under the Cabinet Mission Plan, the subjects reserved for the Union government were

  • (a)defence, foreign affairs and communications
  • (b)defence, education and taxation
  • (c)police, revenue and communications
  • (d)foreign affairs, agriculture and industry

  Answer(a) defence, foreign affairs and communications — with residuary powers left to the provinces.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The three members of the Cabinet Mission of 1946 were

  • (a)Mountbatten, Cripps and Alexander
  • (b)Pethick-Lawrence, Cripps and Alexander
  • (c)Wavell, Cripps and Attlee
  • (d)Attlee, Pethick-Lawrence and Wavell

  Answer(b) Pethick-Lawrence, Cripps and Alexander — Wavell was the Viceroy and Attlee the Prime Minister who sent them.