Paper on Act of India 1935

Government of India Act of 1935

        Even the most ardent of Conservatives began to doubt whether or not the British could permanently keep their hold on India following World War One. It became obvious that change was necessary in the way the dominion was administered due to the backlash from Indian political leaders to the Government of India Act in 1919, as well as their continued desire for “swaraj” or self-rule. Following intense parliamentary debate that showcased British colonial racism, the government came out with the deeply flawed Government of India Act of 1935. This document would serve as the final constitution in British India. Although it was intended to meet Indian demands for autonomy while curbing nationalism and still being able to retain India within the Commonwealth, it was not able to satisfy any of its aims. In purpose it did not really satisfy either the British or the Indians as it was deemed as too radical by detractors at home, and rejected by all of the major political parties in India.

In December of 1939 Lord Linlithglow, who had been chariman of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the 1935 Act and was then the Viceroy of India summed up the rationale behind the legislation in a private letter to Lord Zetland when he said that “....we framed the Constitution as it stands in the Act of 1935 because we thought it was the best way… of maintaining British control over India. It is no part of our policy, I take it, to expedite in India Constitutional changes for their own sake.”^[1] This colonial view of India by British politicians  played a large hand in the breakup of British rule over India, and the frustration that was felt by Indian political leaders as their demands were continuously not responded to surely played a role in the realization of this fact merely twelve years after the Act’s implementation. The continued inability of the British leaders in London to respond in a timely fashion to problems that were occurring in India became a source of constant frustration for both the Indian political leaders and for the British civil servants who were ruling over them^[2]. Furthermore, there were many conflicting opinions on what the ultimate destiny of British India was, and perhaps even more ideas on how the land should be administered over, which made the administration of India even more of a bureaucratic nightmare than it already was.

         India had been overseen in some way by the British Empire since the mid 18th century when the British East India company established several trading posts which went on to grow into some of the largest Indian cities such as Chennai, Kolkota, and Mumbai. This was followed by a direct period of Company rule wherein the East India Company had direct sovereignty over large parts of India but was simultaneously starting to cede authority in the area to the Crown, which went on until the Sepoy’s Rebellion of 1857. In response to this, the British government took up direct rule over India in the period that is now referred to as the “British Raj”. However, the Indian people were growing increasingly frustrated with the way that they had been treated, and were beginning to recognize the inherent problems that existed with British rule. As a new class of wealthy Indians emerged, some of them were able to attend prestigious western universities and gain a liberal education, which allowed for them to come back and be effective orators and leaders. This new class of Indian leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru would apply a new and massively effective strategy of civil disobedience in order to devalue British authority and gain leverage in negotiations with the Crown. ^[3]

        The Government of India Act of 1919 was brought about following complaints from Indians over their lack of autonomy in their own affairs despite the contributions they made to the British war effort in World War One. It was intended to serve as the Constitution for the country, and to grant sovereignty in part to the Indian people through a system of diarchy. It was the culmination of the first official statement on India’s eventual status made by the Indian Secretary of State Edwin Montagu, who was the first sitting secretary to actually visit the subcontinent. After making this visit, he stated in the ensuing report that the British policy was “the progressive realization of responsible government” which was then incorporated into the preamble of the 1919 Act. It was commonly assumed that the declaration and then the ensuing act represented the granting of dominion-hood, however this assertation began to seem less certain following contradictory remarks made by Sir Malcolm Hailey who was the Home Member of the Government of India and the leader of the Indian Legislative Assembly that had been set up by the 1919 Act.

        The Indian public clamoured for revision of the dyarchic form of government, and the Government of India Act 1919 itself stated that a commission would be appointed after ten years to investigate the progress of the governance scheme and suggest new steps for reform. The Conservative Party appointed a seven-member commission to take a look at the issue of Constitutional Reform in 1928 that was commonly known as the Simon Commission. This committee itself was boycotted by Indian politicians after the exclusion of any non-Europeans from the body, and Nehru published his competing Nehru Report to counter the Simon Commission’s report. The Commission published its 2-volume report in May 1930. It proposed the abolition of the diarchy and the establishment of representative government in the provinces. It also recommended that separate communal electorates be retained, but only until tensions between Hindus and Muslims died down. ^[4]

        Noting that educated Indians opposed the Commission and also that communal tensions had increased instead of decreased, the British government opted for another method of dealing with the constitutional issues of India. Before the publication of the report, the British government stated that Indian opinion would henceforth be taken into account, and that the natural outcome of the constitutional process would be dominion status for India. The British then decided to hold a series of meetings to consider the future Indian Constitution from 1930 to 1932 in London that were known as the Round Table Conference. The first session (Nov. 12, 1930–Jan. 19, 1931) had 73 representatives, from all Indian states and all parties except the Indian National Congress, which was engaged in waging a civil disobedience campaign against the government at the time.^[5]