UPPSC 2024 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 13 of 150

Correct — A, both statements 1 and 2 are correct. The Justice Party — formally the South Indian Liberal Federation, founded on 20 November 1916 at Victoria Public Hall, Madras by C. Natesa Mudaliar, T. M. Nair and P. Theagaraya Chetty — was built precisely on the charge in statement 1: that the Indian National Congress in the Madras Presidency was a Brahmin-run body, with Brahmins holding most of the elected council seats and controlling the leading newspapers, even though they were a small minority of the population. Statement 2 is equally accurate. The party's founding document, the Non-Brahmin Manifesto of December 1916, called on non-Brahmins to press their claims against 'the virtual domination of the Brahmin caste', and the demand it framed was for exactly the kind of communal representation — separate electorates and reserved seats — that the Minto–Morley Reforms (Indian Councils Act, 1909) had conceded to Muslims. Since both statements stand, the answer is (a).

• (b)Neither 1 nor 2 — Both statements are true. Anti-Brahmin criticism of the Congress was the party's founding plank, and the Non-Brahmin Manifesto's demand was explicitly modelled on the communal representation granted to Muslims in 1909.
• (c)Only 1 — This concedes the anti-Brahmin critique but rejects the Morley–Minto parallel, which is in fact the better-documented half of the question: the non-Brahmin demand for separate electorates and reserved seats was consciously argued on the precedent of the 1909 Muslim concession, and reserved non-Brahmin seats duly appeared in the Madras arrangements under the Government of India Act, 1919.
• (d)Only 2 — It rejects the more obvious of the two statements. Opposition to what it saw as Brahmin domination of the Congress was not incidental to the Justice Party — it was the reason the party existed and the theme of its newspaper Justice, from which its popular name comes.

The Justice Party grew out of the non-Brahmin movement of the Madras Presidency, where a numerically tiny Brahmin community held a hugely disproportionate share of education, government service and nationalist politics. Rather than fight the British, the party's strategy was to work the constitutional machinery: demand group representation, cooperate with the Montagu–Chelmsford reforms that the Congress was boycotting, and use office to redistribute posts. It swept the first elections held under dyarchy in November 1920, winning 63 of 98 elected seats, and its ministry is best remembered for the Communal Government Order reserving appointments in government service for non-Brahmin communities.

The trap the paper is testing is whether you know that the Justice Party's demand was framed on the Muslim precedent of 1909 — students often associate communal electorates only with the Muslim League and Sikhs, and hesitate to extend the idea to a caste group. It helps to remember the party's later trajectory: Periyar E. V. Ramasamy, who had quit the Congress in 1925, became its president on 29 December 1938 and on 27 August 1944 converted it into the Dravidar Kazhagam, withdrawing it from electoral politics — the ancestry of Dravidian politics in Tamil Nadu.

• Justice Party = South Indian Liberal Federation, founded 20 November 1916 at Victoria Public Hall, Madras, by C. Natesa Mudaliar, T. M. Nair and P. Theagaraya Chetty; its popular name comes from its English newspaper Justice.
• The Non-Brahmin Manifesto (December 1916) urged non-Brahmins to press their claims against 'the virtual domination of the Brahmin caste' and sought separate electorates and reserved seats on the model granted to Muslims by the Minto–Morley Reforms of 1909.
• The Minto–Morley Reforms = Indian Councils Act, 1909, which introduced separate electorates for Muslims — the precedent the non-Brahmin demand invoked.
• The party won 63 of 98 elected seats in the November 1920 Madras elections — the first held under the dyarchy of the Government of India Act, 1919, which the Congress was boycotting.
• Periyar E. V. Ramasamy became its president on 29 December 1938 and renamed it Dravidar Kazhagam on 27 August 1944.

• Assuming separate/communal electorates were only ever a Muslim question — Sikhs, Indian Christians, Anglo-Indians, Europeans and (through the 1932 Communal Award) the Depressed Classes were all brought into the same framework.
• Confusing the Justice Party (1916) with the Self-Respect Movement (1925) — Periyar founded the second and only later took over the first, merging the two streams in 1944.
• Mixing up 'Justice Party' with the newspaper Justice or with the Madras Mahajana Sabha (1884), a Congress-aligned body of a different generation.

UPPSC tests this as a two-statement judgement on the party's programme, while UPSC prefers matching pairs — leader with organisation or movement — and questions on Periyar, the Self-Respect Movement and the machinery of communal representation.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Justice Party of Madras, formally the South Indian Liberal Federation, took its popular name from :

  • (a)A judgment of the Madras High Court that upheld communal reservation
  • (b)Its English-language newspaper, Justice
  • (c)The Justice Government Order of 1921
  • (d)The name of its first president

  Answer(b) Its English-language newspaper, Justice — the paper gave the South Indian Liberal Federation the name by which it is universally known.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Separate electorates for Muslims — the precedent invoked by the non-Brahmin movement in Madras — were introduced by :

  • (a)The Indian Councils Act, 1892
  • (b)The Indian Councils Act, 1909
  • (c)The Government of India Act, 1919
  • (d)The Government of India Act, 1935

  Answer(b) The Indian Councils Act, 1909 (Morley–Minto Reforms) — the 1919 Act widened communal representation and the 1935 Act carried it further, but 1909 created it.