Who became Chief Minister of Bihar in March 1939?

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — D, None of the above. The question fails on two independent grounds, and BPSC revised its own key to say so: the provisional key marked (c), Shri Krishna Singh, and the final key of 31 October 2025 moved the answer to (d). The Commission's stated reason is the first ground — Sri Krishna Sinha had been Premier since 1937, 'Premier' carries the sense of 'chief', and no post of Chief Minister was created in 1939. That is the constitutional point. Under the Government of India Act 1935, which introduced provincial autonomy and abolished dyarchy in the provinces, the head of a provincial ministry was styled Premier — Prime Minister in some provinces — answerable to the provincial legislature but working under a Governor who retained special responsibilities. The designation 'Chief Minister' belongs to independent India, and Sri Krishna Sinha is recorded as Bihar's FIRST Chief Minister only from 1947, not 1939. The second ground is chronological, and it is the one that finishes off the tempting option. Even if you generously read 'Chief Minister' as loose shorthand for head of government, nobody became head of the Bihar government in March 1939. Sri Krishna Sinha formed his cabinet at Patna on 20 July 1937, succeeding Mohammad Yunus (1884–1952), who had led the province's short-lived first ministry, and he held the office until 31 October 1939, when the ministry went out with the rest of the Congress provincial governments and Bihar passed to Governor's rule. March 1939 sits in the middle of that unbroken term. There was one mid-term crisis — Sinha and his Deputy Premier Anugrah Narayan Sinha resigned over the Governor's refusal to release political prisoners — but the Governor conceded, the prisoners at the Cellular Jail were released, the Bihar Tenancy Act was reformed in the tenants' favour, and the same two men resumed the same two offices. Even that episode produced no new head of government. So no office of that name existed, and no succession occurred: (d) is the only possible key.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Anugrah Narayan Sinha (18 June 1887 – 5 July 1957), 'Bihar Vibhuti', was in the Bihar ministry throughout this period — but as Deputy Premier and Finance Minister from 20 July 1937, never as its head. He was later Bihar's first Deputy Chief Minister and Finance Minister from 1946 to 1957, and Gandhi in 1940 called him the second Satyagrahi of Bihar after Sri Krishna Sinha. Deputy in 1937, deputy in 1946: at no point, in March 1939 or otherwise, did he head the province.  (b) The subtlest wrong answer, because a real 1939 leadership change involving a Bihari does exist — it is just a different office in a different month. Subhas Chandra Bose was re-elected Congress President on 29 January 1939, defeating Gandhi's candidate Pattabhi Sitaramayya — that is the date of the ELECTION, not of the Tripuri session, which met near Jabalpur in March. He resigned on 29 April 1939, and Rajendra Prasad took over as President of the Indian National Congress. That is the party's national presidency in late April, not the province's premiership in March. Rajendra Prasad never headed a Bihar ministry; he went on to preside over the Constituent Assembly and to become the first President of India.  (c) The option the provisional key marked, and the one the question is built to attract, and it fails on the stem's own verb. Sri Krishna Sinha (21 October 1887 – 31 January 1961) — Shri Babu, Bihar Kesari — did hold the office in March 1939, but he did not BECOME anything then: he had held it continuously since 20 July 1937 and went on holding it until 31 October 1939. He was also not called Chief Minister; that title came to him only after independence, when he became Bihar's first Chief Minister and, in office, the first head of a State government in India to abolish the zamindari system.

Concept: The Government of India Act 1935 rebuilt the provinces. It abolished dyarchy there, created eleven Governor's provinces with full provincial autonomy, and made the provincial ministry responsible to an elected legislature — but it kept a Governor above that ministry with discretionary powers and 'special responsibilities', which is why the Congress at first refused office after winning the 1937 elections and took it only once assurances about the use of those powers were given. The ministries were sworn in from July 1937. The head of such a ministry was the Premier, or in some provinces the Prime Minister; 'Chief Minister' is a post-independence designation. Bihar's own institutions were rebuilt by the same Act: the legislature became bicameral, the first Bihar Legislative Council was constituted on 22 July 1936 with thirty members under chairman Rajiv Ranjan Prasad, and the first joint session of the two houses met on 22 July 1937 with Ram Dayalu Singh as Speaker of the Assembly. The experiment lasted twenty-seven months. On 3 September 1939 the Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, declared India a belligerent in the Second World War without consulting a single Indian representative body; the Congress ministries resigned in protest in October and November 1939, Bihar's on 31 October, and the provinces passed to Governor's rule. Congress ministers returned only in 1946.

State PCS 2025 Q85 — History PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q85 — History PYQ with Answer