SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 24 September 2024, Shift 1 · General Awareness · Question 18 of 98

Text as printed on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; answer per SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 10 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. The questions and options here are reproduced as printed on a candidate's own response sheet for this shift — the Commission's text, unchanged. Each answer is SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet; SSC allowed challenges to it and never publishes a final key. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Who is called the father of Local Self-Government in India?

(a)Lord Cornwallis
(b)Lord Wellesley
(c)Lord Ripon
(d)Lord William Bentinck

Answer

Why

Correct — C. Lord Ripon, Viceroy from 1880 to 1884, issued the Resolution on Local Self-Government of 1882, which pressed for local boards that were largely elective, with non-official chairmen and defined funds and functions.

He argued for them as political education for Indians rather than as a cheaper way to administer, and that is the reason the textbooks give him the title in the stem — option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Lord Cornwallis — Lord Cornwallis is tied to the Permanent Settlement of 1793 in Bengal, the Cornwallis Code and the reorganised civil service. None of that is elected local government.
(b)
Lord Wellesley — Lord Wellesley built the Subsidiary Alliance system that drew Indian states under British control. His record is expansion by treaty, not devolution to municipalities.
(d)
Lord William Bentinck — Lord William Bentinck is remembered for the legal abolition of sati in 1829 and for backing English education — social reform, not local self-government.

Concept

Local self-government in British India begins before Ripon. Lord Mayo's Resolution of 1870 started financial decentralisation, transferring some heads of expenditure to the provinces.

Ripon's Resolution of 1882 went much further, pushing local boards towards elected membership with non-official chairmen, and it is the one the title attaches to.

The line continues through the Royal Commission on Decentralisation and, long after, to the 73rd and 74th Amendment Acts, 1992, which finally gave panchayats and urban local bodies constitutional standing.

Ripon's 1882 scheme worked unevenly in practice, because provincial governments retained control over funds and over who could stand. The title is about the direction he set, not about results delivered in his term.

Key facts

Lord Ripon was Viceroy of India from 1880 to 1884.
His Resolution on Local Self-Government of 1882 is the basis of the title father of local self-government in India.
Lord Mayo's Resolution of 1870 had already begun financial decentralisation to the provinces.
The 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment Acts of 1992 gave panchayats and urban local bodies constitutional status.

Study next

Governors-General and Viceroys with the one reform each is tagged with, from Cornwallis to CurzonRipon's other measures, including the repeal of the Vernacular Press Act and the first Factory ActThe 73rd and 74th Amendments, with the Eleventh and Twelfth Schedules

Common traps

Picking Bentinck or Cornwallis because they are the most familiar names in the list.
Mixing Mayo's 1870 financial decentralisation with Ripon's 1882 Resolution.
Reading local self-government as a twentieth-century idea and rejecting all four names.

Lord Ripon appears as a wrong option at 10 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q7, where the abolition of sati points to Bentinck.

Matching a name to a policy or an event also drives 13 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q21 on the Doctrine of Lapse (Dalhousie) and 12 Sep 2024, 16:00, GA Q11 on the Viceroy at the time of the Dandi March (Irwin).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: History — all 137 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.