UPPSC 2022 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 140 of 150

Correct — A, 24th August 1946. The question turns on a distinction the options are built to exploit: the date the Interim Government was ANNOUNCED is not the date it took office. The announcement — the Viceroy, Lord Wavell, making public the list of members of the reconstituted Executive Council — is dated 24 August 1946 in the standard textbook accounts of the transfer of power, and that is the date the commission's key accepts. The Interim Government then actually assumed office on 2 September 1946, with Jawaharlal Nehru as Vice-President of the Viceroy's Executive Council, the position that functioned as head of government. It is worth being straightforward about the sourcing here. The 2 September 1946 start is documented everywhere, including in the readily available online record, which also confirms that Wavell had extended invitations for fourteen members under the Cabinet Mission Plan; the 24 August announcement date rests on the standard histories of the period rather than on any single online source, and this card does not claim otherwise. Both dates should be carried together, because either can be the one asked. Sequence to hold: Cabinet Mission Plan (statement of 16 May 1946), announcement of the Interim Government (24 August 1946), Interim Government takes office (2 September 1946), Muslim League joins after initially boycotting (26 October 1946).

• (b)22nd August 1946 — There is no separate event in the formation of the Interim Government on this date. It is a near-miss offered to punish approximate recall — the option set deliberately clusters four consecutive days in the same week, so that remembering 'late August 1946' is not enough to answer.
• (c)25th August 1946 — This is the day after the announcement and carries no distinct event in the record of the Interim Government's formation. Marking it usually reflects a memory of 'the last week of August' rather than of the specific date.
• (d)23rd August 1946 — Again a filler date from the same week with no separate significance in this sequence. Note what is absent from the options altogether: 2 September 1946, the day the Interim Government actually took office. A candidate who knows only that date finds no home for it here, which is precisely the trap — the stem asks when the government was announced, not when it began to function.

The Interim Government of 1946 was the last constitutional arrangement before independence and the first in which Indians ran the central executive. It arose out of the Cabinet Mission's plan of May 1946, which proposed both a Constituent Assembly to frame a constitution and an interim government at the centre while it worked. The body was formally the Viceroy's Executive Council, reconstituted so that its members were Indian political leaders holding portfolios like ministers; the Viceroy remained its head, with Jawaharlal Nehru as Vice-President and effective head of government. Nehru took External Affairs, Vallabhbhai Patel Home, Baldev Singh Defence and Rajendra Prasad Food and Agriculture. The Muslim League refused to join at first and entered only on 26 October 1946, its deputy leader Liaquat Ali Khan taking the Finance portfolio — an appointment that gave the League leverage over every department's spending and made the government's internal deadlock worse. That deadlock is a large part of the story that runs on to the Mountbatten Plan of June 1947 and Partition.

The reasoning route here is not to recall a number but to notice a distinction. Late-colonial constitutional events almost always have two or three dates attached — the day a plan is announced, the day a body is constituted, the day it begins to function — and UPPSC likes to ask for the one candidates are least likely to have separated out. For this episode there are three worth holding: 16 May 1946 for the Cabinet Mission's plan statement, 24 August 1946 for the announcement of the Interim Government, and 2 September 1946 for the day it took office. Read the stem's verb carefully — 'was announced on' — and check whether the date you are about to mark answers that verb or a different one. Two further cautions. First, do not confuse the announcement of the Interim Government with the announcement of the Cabinet Mission itself, which came in February 1946 with the mission arriving on 24 March 1946; the day of the month coincides, which makes the confusion easy. Second, this is one of the items in this paper where the keyed fact is settled in the textbooks but is not something you can casually confirm from a general encyclopaedia entry — the widely-available online record of the Interim Government documents the 2 September start and not the announcement day. The key's answer stands; just know which part of it is the well-documented half.

• The formation of the first Interim National Government was announced on 24 August 1946, when Viceroy Lord Wavell made public the list of members of the reconstituted Executive Council. This date comes from the standard histories of the transfer of power and is the date the official key accepts; the commonly cited online record does not itself state it.
• The Interim Government took office on 2 September 1946, with Jawaharlal Nehru as Vice-President of the Viceroy's Executive Council — the office that functioned as head of government.
• It was set up under the Cabinet Mission Plan, whose statement was issued on 16 May 1946; Wavell extended invitations for fourteen members.
• The Muslim League boycotted the government at first and joined only on 26 October 1946, with Liaquat Ali Khan taking the Finance portfolio.
• Portfolios at the start included External Affairs with Jawaharlal Nehru, Home with Vallabhbhai Patel, Defence with Baldev Singh and Food and Agriculture with Rajendra Prasad.

• Marking 2 September 1946 — the day the Interim Government took office — for a stem that asks when it was announced
• Confusing the announcement of the Interim Government with the announcement of the Cabinet Mission in February 1946 or its arrival on 24 March 1946
• Assuming the Muslim League was in the Interim Government from the start; it joined only on 26 October 1946

UPPSC asks the 1946-47 sequence relentlessly, usually as a chronological arrangement of four events or as a single-date question like this one, where three of the four options are neighbouring days. UPSC prefers the people and the portfolios — who was Vice-President of the Executive Council, who held Finance, who held Food and Agriculture. Preparing this episode means holding the dates and the portfolio table together.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Interim Government formed in 1946 assumed office on

  • (a)16 May 1946
  • (b)24 August 1946
  • (c)2 September 1946
  • (d)26 October 1946

  Answer(c) 2 September 1946 — that is when the reconstituted Executive Council took office under Jawaharlal Nehru. 16 May 1946 is the Cabinet Mission's plan statement, 24 August 1946 the announcement of the Interim Government, and 26 October 1946 the day the Muslim League joined it.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  When the Muslim League entered the Interim Government in October 1946, the portfolio taken by Liaquat Ali Khan was

  • (a)Home
  • (b)Defence
  • (c)Finance
  • (d)External Affairs

  Answer(c) Finance — Liaquat Ali Khan took the Finance portfolio on the League's entry on 26 October 1946, a position from which he could scrutinise the spending of every other department.