British administration, land revenue & economy

Answer: (c) 2 and 3 only

The ryotwari system, a settlement made directly with the cultivators, was first tried by Captain Alexander Read in territories taken from Tipu Sultan and then developed and extended across south India by Thomas Munro. Cornwallis is linked with the opposite model, the Permanent Settlement with zamindars in Bengal (1793).

• ✗ 1. Cornwallis was Governor-General of Bengal when the Permanent Settlement of 1793 fixed revenue in perpetuity with zamindars; ryotwari was a move away from that idea.
• ✓ 2. Alexander Read tried the ryotwari system on a small scale in areas the Company took over after the wars with Tipu Sultan.
• ✓ 3. Thomas Munro developed Read's system and extended it over south India, arguing that settlement should be made directly with the ryots who tilled the land.

Remember · Permanent Settlement (1793, Bengal) = Cornwallis, with zamindars. Ryotwari = Read, then Munro (Madras); Mahalwari = village-based, north-west.

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2017, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). Permalink · Report an error

Answer: (d) a system of tribunals and a ban on strikes.

Passed amid the labour unrest of the late 1920s, the Trade Disputes Act, 1929 let the government refer an industrial dispute to a Court of Inquiry or a Board of Conciliation, and it put restraints on strikes and lock-outs in public utility services. Tribunals plus curbs on strikes is option (d).

• ✓ (d) The Act let the government set up Courts of Inquiry and Boards of Conciliation to investigate and settle disputes, and it restrained strikes and lock-outs, above all in public utility services.
• ✗ (a) The Act gave workers no role in management. Even Works Committees of employer and worker representatives came only with the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, which replaced the 1929 Act.
• ✗ (c) Disputes went to bodies the government itself appointed, not to a British court; the 1946 review noted that their findings were not even binding on the parties.

Remember · Trade Disputes Act, 1929: Courts of Inquiry and Boards of Conciliation + restraints on strikes in public utility services; replaced by the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947.

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2017, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). Permalink · Report an error

Answer: (b) 2 only

The Factories Act, 1881 (passed under Lord Ripon) was a limited measure about working conditions, chiefly of child workers in factories; it neither fixed wages nor recognised trade unions. Narayan Meghaji Lokhande, who founded the Bombay Mill Hands Association in 1884, is hailed as the father of the trade union movement in India.

• ✗ 1. The 1881 Act regulated factory conditions, mainly for children. Laws on wages (Payment of Wages Act, 1936; Minimum Wages Act, 1948) and on registering trade unions (Trade Unions Act, 1926) came decades later.
• ✓ 2. Lokhande set up the Mill Hand Association in 1884, which marked the institutionalisation of the labour movement; his agitation led to the Factory Labour Commission and the Factory Act of 1891.

Remember · N.M. Lokhande: Bombay Mill Hands Association (1884), father of India's trade union movement. Factory Act 1881 (Ripon) = child labour; trade unions legalised only by the Trade Unions Act, 1926.

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2017, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). Permalink · Report an error

Answer: (d) Improve the relationship between the Government of India and the Indian States.

The Butler Committee was the Indian States Committee, set up in 1927 under Sir Harcourt Butler to examine the relationship between the Paramount Power (the British Crown acting through the Government of India) and the princely states, including their financial and economic relations with British India.

• ✓ (d) Its brief was the relationship between the Paramount Power and the Indian (princely) States; its 1929 report held that paramountcy must remain supreme and that the states could not be handed over to an Indian government without their consent.
• ✗ (a) Dividing jurisdiction between the Centre and the provinces was the subject of the 1919 and 1935 Government of India Acts and the Simon Commission, not the Butler Committee.
• ✗ (b) The Secretary of State's powers were fixed by Acts of the British Parliament; the Butler Committee dealt only with the princely states.

Remember · Butler Committee = Indian States Committee (1927–29), chaired by Sir Harcourt Butler: relations between the Paramount Power and the princely states.

📘 Read it in NCERT: Class 12 Politics in India since Independence, Ch 1 (practise this chapter)

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2017, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). Permalink · Report an error