Which of the following was not one of the features of the Government of India Act, 1935 ?

Question

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Correct — D, Appraisal of the Act of 1935. The decisive point is a category distinction rather than a historical one: an appraisal is a judgement passed on the Act, not a provision contained in it. Every other option names something the statute did or proposed to do; 'Appraisal of the Act of 1935' names what historians and politicians afterwards said about it. The option set reads exactly like the sub-headings of a textbook chapter on the Act, with the evaluative section listed last, and it is that last section which the stem is asking you to spot. Two of the remaining three can be ruled out on external authority. UPSC set the same negative question about this Act in its 2000 prelims — 'Which one of the following is not a feature of the Government of India Act of 1935?' — and its published key marks 'Diarchy at the Centre as well as in the provinces', which means the Commission treated a bicameral legislature, provincial autonomy and an All-India Federation as genuine features. Both of those map onto this paper: provincial autonomy is Part III of the Act, which came into force on 1 April 1937, abolished dyarchy in the provinces and put every provincial portfolio in the hands of ministers answerable to elected legislatures; and the Federation of India is Part II, a proposed union of the British provinces with such princely states as chose to accede, which never came into operation because the rulers refused. Note the careful wording of option (c) — 'Proposal for Federation of India'. It is exactly right: the federation was proposed and never achieved, so the proposal is the feature. Be honest about the strength of this answer. This is a derived answer of medium confidence, and option (b) is a live alternative rather than a dead one — see the note in the background below, which sets out the case for it. What is not in doubt is that (a) and (c) are real features of the Act.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) The Act's most consequential and most fully implemented feature, so it cannot be the non-feature. Part III came into force on 1 April 1937, abolished provincial dyarchy, and made every provincial subject the responsibility of ministers commanding a legislative majority — though governors kept 'special responsibilities' and could take over a province outright, which they did in the Congress provinces after the 1939 resignations.  (b) The genuinely contestable option. The Act's federal chapter did reconstitute the central executive on paper — a Council of Ministers for transferred federal subjects alongside counsellors for the reserved subjects of defence, external affairs and ecclesiastical affairs — so a reader treating that as a feature has a case. It is being rejected here as the weaker candidate, not as an absurd one; the reasoning is set out honestly in the background.  (c) A feature beyond argument, and the option's own wording protects it. Part II of the Act proposed an All-India Federation of the provinces and acceding princely states, with powers split across a federal, a provincial and a concurrent list. The princes withheld their accession and the federal part never came into operation — but a proposal that failed is still a proposal the Act contained.

Concept: The Government of India Act 1935 was the longest statute the British Parliament had then passed, and it worked in two halves that met very different fates. The provincial half abolished dyarchy, transferred all provincial subjects to responsible ministers and took effect on 1 April 1937, producing the elections of 1937 and the Congress ministries that followed. The federal half proposed an All-India Federation joining the British provinces to those princely states that acceded, distributed powers across federal, provincial and concurrent lists, and introduced dyarchy at the Centre — reserving defence, external affairs and ecclesiastical affairs to the Governor-General while other federal subjects went to ministers. That half never came into being. Around these two halves sat a set of institutional changes that did happen: the Federal Court was created, the Reserve Bank of India — set up on 1 April 1935 under its own Act of 1934 — took over currency and credit management, public service commissions were set up at federal and provincial level, Sind was separated from Bombay, Bihar and Orissa were split into two provinces, and Burma and Aden were detached as separate Crown colonies. Direct elections were introduced and the franchise widened from about five million to about thirty-five million, while separate electorates were not merely retained but extended under the Communal Award.

State PCS 2024 Q113 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2024 Q113 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer