Consider the following events and arrange them in correct chronological order. 1. Cripps Mission 2. Cabinet Mission 3. Shimla Conference 4. Wavell Plan Select the correct answer from the code given below :
- (a)1, 4, 3, 2
- (b)4, 1, 3, 2
- (c)4, 1, 2, 3
- (d)1, 4, 2, 3
Correct — A, 1, 4, 3, 2 (Cripps Mission → Wavell Plan → Shimla Conference → Cabinet Mission). The dates settle it. 1. The Cripps Mission belongs to March 1942: the British cabinet agreed to send it on 9 March 1942, Sir Stafford Cripps landed in Delhi on 22 March 1942, his draft declaration was published on 29 March 1942 and the talks collapsed in April. 4. The Wavell Plan came more than three years later — it was made public on 14 June 1945, announced simultaneously by the Secretary of State for India in the House of Commons and by Viceroy Lord Wavell in a broadcast from Delhi. 3. The Shimla Conference was convened to negotiate that very plan and opened at the Viceregal Lodge, Simla, on 25 June 1945, adjourning on 14 July 1945. 2. The Cabinet Mission came last: announced by Attlee in February 1946, its three members reached India on 24 March 1946 and issued their plan on 16 May 1946.
- (b)4, 1, 3, 2 — It opens with the Wavell Plan (June 1945) and only then the Cripps Mission (March 1942) — a three-year inversion. Cripps came in the darkest phase of the Second World War, after the fall of Singapore; Wavell's offer came as the war in Europe was ending.
- (c)4, 1, 2, 3 — It repeats the Wavell-before-Cripps inversion and adds a second error by placing the Cabinet Mission (1946) ahead of the Shimla Conference (June-July 1945). Both halves of the sequence are wrong.
- (d)1, 4, 2, 3 — The most tempting wrong option, because it starts correctly with Cripps and then the Wavell Plan. Its error is at the end: it puts the Cabinet Mission (March-May 1946) before the Shimla Conference (25 June - 14 July 1945). The Shimla Conference was the negotiation of the Wavell Plan itself, held eleven days after the plan was broadcast, so it cannot come after 1946.
Between 1942 and 1946 Britain made three successive attempts to settle the Indian constitutional question, and the middle one came in two parts. The Cripps Mission (1942) offered Dominion status after the war, a constituent assembly and a right for any province to stay out — rejected by the Congress. The Wavell Plan (announced 14 June 1945) proposed a fully Indianised Executive Council, with only the Viceroy and the Commander-in-Chief remaining British, and parity between caste Hindus and Muslims; the Shimla Conference (25 June - 14 July 1945) was the meeting called to fill that Council and it failed when Jinnah insisted the Muslim League alone could nominate Muslim members. The Cabinet Mission (1946) then proposed a three-tier federal Union with grouped provinces, and it was the Cabinet Mission's scheme that produced the Constituent Assembly.
Sequencing questions on this cluster are decided by one insight: the Wavell Plan and the Shimla Conference are two halves of a single episode, not two independent events. Wavell broadcast the plan on 14 June 1945 and summoned the leaders to Simla eleven days later to give effect to it. Once you fix that pair as 'plan first, conference second, both in mid-1945', the sequence writes itself, because Cripps is unmistakably wartime 1942 and the Cabinet Mission is unmistakably post-election 1946. A second reason students stumble is that Sir Stafford Cripps appears twice in this list — he headed the 1942 mission and was also one of the three members of the 1946 Cabinet Mission alongside Lord Pethick-Lawrence and A. V. Alexander.
- Cripps Mission: Cripps reached Delhi on 22 March 1942 and published his draft declaration on 29 March 1942; it offered Dominion status after the war, not immediate independence
- Wavell Plan: made public on 14 June 1945 in a Commons statement and a simultaneous broadcast by Lord Wavell from Delhi
- Shimla Conference: opened at the Viceregal Lodge, Simla, on 25 June 1945 and was adjourned on 14 July 1945 after Jinnah refused to submit a Muslim League list unless the League was recognised as the sole representative of Indian Muslims
- Cabinet Mission: Pethick-Lawrence, Cripps and A. V. Alexander arrived in India on 24 March 1946 and issued their statement on 16 May 1946
- The Viceroy through the whole 1943-1947 stretch until March 1947 was Lord Wavell — Mountbatten arrived only in March 1947, which is why 'Mountbatten convened the Shimla Conference' is a standard false statement
- Treating the Wavell Plan and the Shimla Conference as unrelated events and letting them drift apart in the sequence
- Attributing the Shimla Conference to Lord Mountbatten — it was Lord Wavell's initiative, and Mountbatten did not arrive until March 1947
- Confusing the 1945 Shimla Conference with the 1913-14 Simla Convention on Tibet or the 1972 Simla Agreement with Pakistan
UPPSC asks for the raw sequence and rewards nothing but the dates; UPSC prefers the content of each plan — what Cripps actually offered, whether the Cabinet Mission recommended a federal government — so revise both the calendar and the clauses.
Consider the following statements: 1. Lord Mountbatten was the Viceroy when Shimla Conference took place. 2. Indian Navy Revolt, 1946 took place when the Indian sailors in the Royal Indian Navy at Bombay and Karachi rose against the Government. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 2 only
- (c) Both 1 and 2
- (d) Neither 1 nor 2
Answer(b) 2 only
Directly tests the fact that decides this sequence — who was Viceroy when the Shimla Conference took place. UPSC's statement 1 (Mountbatten) is false because the conference was Lord Wavell's, held in June-July 1945, and dating it to Wavell's viceroyalty is exactly what keeps it ahead of the 1946 Cabinet Mission.
Assertion (A): According to the Wavell Plan, the number of Hindu and Muslim members in the Executive Council were to be equal. Reason (R): Wavell thought that this arrangement would have avoided the partition of India.
- (a) Both A and R are true and R is the correct explanation of A
- (b) Both A and R are true but R is not the correct explanation of A
- (c) A is true but R is false
- (d) A is false but R is true
Answer(c) A is true but R is false
The other half of the same episode — the substance of the Wavell Plan, whose central proposal was parity between Hindu and Muslim members of a reconstituted Executive Council. That plan was the agenda of the Shimla Conference, which is why item 4 must precede item 3 here.
With reference to the proposals of Cripps Mission, consider the following statements: 1. The Constituent Assembly would have members nominated by the Provincial Assemblies as well as the Princely States. 2. Any Province, which is not prepared to accept the new Constitution would have the right to sign a separate agreement with Britain regarding its future status. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 2 only
- (c) Both 1 and 2
- (d) Neither 1 nor 2
Answer(b) 2 only
The 1942 end of the sequence. Knowing that Cripps offered a constituent assembly and a provincial right to opt out fixes the mission firmly in the wartime moment of 1942, three years before anything Wavell proposed.
Arrange the following events in a chronological order and select correct answer from the codes given below : I. Poona Pact II. Gandhi-Irvin Agreement III. Cripps Mission IV. Civil Disobedience Movement Codes :
- (a) IV, II, III, I
- (b) II, IV, I, III
- (c) IV, II, I, III
- (d) III, I, IV, II
Answer(c) IV, II, I, III
The identical exercise from UPPSC's own paper — a four-item chronology of freedom-struggle landmarks ending with the Cripps Mission of 1942. There Cripps is the last event; here it is the first, so the two questions together anchor March 1942 as the pivot between the 1930s mass movements and the 1945-46 transfer-of-power negotiations.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Shimla Conference of 1945 was convened by which Viceroy?
- (a)Lord Linlithgow
- (b)Lord Wavell
- (c)Lord Mountbatten
- (d)Lord Willingdon
Answer(b) Lord Wavell — he broadcast the Wavell Plan on 14 June 1945 and summoned Indian leaders to Simla on 25 June 1945 to implement it.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following was NOT a member of the Cabinet Mission that came to India in 1946?
- (a)Lord Pethick-Lawrence
- (b)Sir Stafford Cripps
- (c)A. V. Alexander
- (d)Lord Wavell
Answer(d) Lord Wavell — he was the Viceroy who hosted the mission, not one of its three members, who were Pethick-Lawrence, Cripps and Alexander.