Constitutional development & the transfer of power

Answer: (d) constitutional reforms

The Montague-Chelmsford Proposals produced the constitutional reforms of 1919, which allowed some form of representation in provincial legislative assemblies and made the provincial executive partly responsible to the provincial legislature.

• ✓ (d) NCERT calls Edwin Montagu the author of the Montague-Chelmsford Reforms of 1919, which allowed some representation in provincial legislative assemblies, and records that the executive was made partly responsible to the provincial legislature in 1919.
• ✗ (a) The proposals changed how India was governed, not its social customs.
• ✗ (c) They did not deal with police administration or with education; they were about the structure of provincial government.

Remember · Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms (1919): constitutional reform that made the provincial executive partly responsible to elected provincial legislatures.

📘 Read it in NCERT: Class 12 Themes in Indian History, Part III, Ch 4 (practise this chapter) · Class 12 Themes in Indian History, Part III, Ch 4 (practise this chapter)

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2016, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). Permalink · Report an error

Answer: (d) India should be given Dominion status

The Cripps Mission of 1942 offered India Dominion status once the Second World War ended. Indian leaders rejected the offer, and its failure led Gandhi to launch the Quit India Movement in August 1942.

• ✓ (d) NCERT's timeline records that the Cripps Mission in 1942 proposed post-war dominion status, and that Indian leaders rejected it.
• ✗ (a) Complete independence was not on offer. Dominion status, a lower position within the British Empire, was what the Mission proposed, which is why it was rejected.
• ✗ (b) The Cripps proposal did not promise partition of India into two before independence; that idea came up in the later 1946-47 negotiations.
• ✗ (c) The offer was of Dominion status, not of a republic bound by a condition to join the Commonwealth.

Remember · Cripps Mission, March 1942: post-war Dominion status; rejected by Indian leaders; followed by the Quit India Movement in August 1942.

📘 Read it in NCERT: Class 8 Exploring Society: India and Beyond (Part 2), Ch 2 (practise this chapter) · Class 10 India and the Contemporary World – II, Ch 2 (practise this chapter)

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2016, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). Permalink · Report an error