United Kingdom legislation
United Kingdom legislation
United Kingdom legislation
United Kingdom legislation
United Kingdom legislation
The Government of India Act 1935 (25 &amp; 26 Geo. 5. c. 42) was an act passed by the British Parliament that originally received royal assent in August 1935. It was the longest act that the British Parliament ever enacted until the Greater London Authority Act 1999 surpassed it. Because of its length, the act was retroactively split by the Government of India (Reprinting) Act 1935 (26 Geo. 5. &amp; 1 Edw. 8. c. 1) into two separate acts:
The act led to:
Overview.
The most significant aspects of the act were:
However, the degree of autonomy introduced at the provincial level was subject to important limitations: the provincial governors retained important reserve powers, and the British authorities also retained a right to suspend responsible government.
The parts of the Act intended to establish the Federation of India never came into operation, due to opposition from rulers of the princely states. The remaining parts of the Act came into force in 1937, when the first elections under the act were also held.
The features of this act were as follows; 1-it provided for the establishment of an all-Indian Federation consisting of provinces and princely states as units. The act divided the powers between centre and units in terms of three lists: federal list, the provincial list and the concurrent list.
Background.
Indians had increasingly been demanding a greater role in the government of their country since the late 19th century. The Indian contribution to the British war effort during the First World War meant that even the more conservative elements in the British political establishment felt the necessity of constitutional change, resulting in the Government of India Act 1919. That Act introduced a novel system of government known as provincial "diarchy", i.e., certain areas of government (such as education) were placed in the hands of ministers responsible to the provincial legislature, while others (such as public order and finance) were retained in the hands of officials responsible to the British-appointed provincial governor. While the Act was a reflection of the demand for a greater role in government by Indians, it was also very much a reflection of British fears about what that role might mean in practice for India (and of course for British interests there).
The experiment with dyarchy proved unsatisfactory. A particular frustration for Indian politicians was that even for those areas over which they had gained nominal control, the "purse strings" were still in the hands of British officialdom.
The intention had been that a review of India's constitutional arrangements would be held ten years on from the 1919 Act. In the event, the review was conducted ahead of time by the Simon Commission, whose report proposed the scrapping of diarchy, and the introduction of a much larger degree of responsible government in the provinces. This proposal was controversial in Britain, demonstrating the rapidly widening gulf between British and Indian opinions as to the desirability, extent, and speed of progress towards, the promised system of self-government contained in the 1919 Act's preamble.
Although the Simon Commission had taken evidence in India, it had met with opposition there, and its conclusions weren't accepted by Congress (the largest political party). In an attempt to involve Indians more fully in working out a new constitutional framework, a series of Round Table Conferences were then held in the early 1930s, attended at times by representatives from India's main political parties, as well as from the princely states. The agreement was reached in principle that a federal system of government should be introduced, comprising the provinces of British India and those princely states that were willing to accede to it. However, the division between Congress and Muslim representatives proved to be a major factor in preventing agreement on much of the important detail of how federation would work in practice.
The new Conservative-dominated National Government in London decided to go ahead with drafting its own proposals (white paper, March 1933). A joint parliamentary select committee, chaired by Lord Linlithgow, reviewed the white paper proposals for a year and a half between April 1933 and November 1934, amidst much opposition from Winston Churchill and other backbench Conservatives. The House of Commons approved the Joint Select Committee report in December after an emollient speech by Conservative leader Stanley Baldwin, who stated that he respected the principled position of the bill's opponents and that he did not wish feelings in his own party to become permanently embittered.
Based on the white paper, the Government of India Bill was framed. It was immensely long, containing 473 clauses and 16 schedules, and the reports of the debates took up 4,000 pages of Hansard. At the committee stage and later, to appease the diehards, the "safeguards" were strengthened, and indirect elections were reinstated for the Central Legislative Assembly (the central legislature's lower house). The opposition Labour Party opposed the Third Reading of the bill because it contained no specific promise of dominion status for India. It received Royal Assent and was passed into law on 2 August 1935.
As a result of this process, although the Government of India Act 1935 was intended to go some way towards meeting Indian demands, both the detail of the bill and the lack of Indian involvement in drafting its contents meant that the Act met with a lukewarm response at best in India, while still proving too radical for a significant element in Britain.
Features.
No preamble: the ambiguity of British commitment to dominion status.
While it had become uncommon for British Acts of Parliament to contain a preamble, the absence of one from the Government of India Act 1935 contrasts sharply with the 1919 Act, which set out the broad philosophy of that Act's aims to Indian political development. That Act's preamble quoted, and centred on, the statement of the Secretary of State for India, Edwin Montagu, to the House of Commons on 20 August 1917, which pledged "the gradual development of self-governing institutions, with a view to the progressive realization of responsible government in India as an integral part of the British Empire".
Indian demands were by now centring on British India achieving constitutional parity with the existing Dominions (Australia, Canada, Newfoundland, the Irish Free State, New Zealand and the Union of South Africa) which would have meant complete autonomy within the British Empire. A significant element in British political circles doubted that Indians were capable of running their country on this basis, and saw Dominion status as something that might, perhaps, be aimed for after a long period of gradual constitutional development, with sufficient "safeguards".
This tension between and within Indian and British views resulted in the clumsy compromise of the 1935 Act having no preamble of its own but keeping in place the 1919 Act's preamble even while repealing the remainder of that Act. Unsurprisingly, this was seen in India as yet more mixed messages from the British, suggesting at best a lukewarm attitude and at worst suggesting a "minimum necessary" approach towards satisfying Indian desires.
No 'bill of rights'.
In common with Commonwealth constitutional legislation of the time, the Act did not include a "bill of rights" within the new system that it aimed to establish. However, in the case of the proposed federation of India, there was a further complication in incorporating such a set of rights, as the new entity would have included nominally sovereign (and generally autocratic) princely states.
A different approach was considered by some, though, as the draft outline constitution in the Nehru Report included such a bill of rights.
Excess "safeguards".
At the partition of India in 1947, with relatively few amendments, the Act became the functioning interim constitutions of India and Pakistan.
The Act was not only extremely detailed but also contained many "safeguards" designed to enable the British Government to intervene whenever it saw the need to maintain British responsibilities and interests. To achieve this, in the face of a gradually increasing Indianisation of the institutions of the Government of India, the Act concentrated the decision for the use and the actual administration of the safeguards in the hands of the British-appointed Viceroy and provincial governors who were subject to the control of the Secretary of State for India.
'Given the enormous powers and responsibilities which the Governor-General must exercise his discretion or according to his individual judgment, it is obvious that he (the Viceroy) is expected to be a kind of Superman. He must have tact, courage, and ability and be endowed with an infinite capacity for hard work. "We have put into this Bill many safeguards", said Sir Robert Horne... "but all of those safeguards revolve about a single individual, and that is the Viceroy. He is the linchpin of the whole system…. If the Viceroy fails, nothing can save the system you have set up". This speech reflected the point of view of the die-hard Tories who were horrified by the prospect that someday there might be a Viceroy appointed by a Labour government.'
Nature of representative government?
A close reading of the Act reveals that the British government equipped itself with the legal instruments to take back total control at any time they considered this to be desirable. However, doing so without good reason would totally sink their credibility with groups in India whose support the act was aimed at securing. Some contrasting views:
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;"In the federal government… the semblance of responsible government is presented. But the reality is lacking, for the powers in defence and external affairs necessarily, as matters stand, given to the governor-general limit vitally the scope of ministerial activity, and the measure of representation given to the rulers of the Indian States negatives any possibility of even the beginnings of democratic control. It will be a matter of the utmost interest to watch the development of a form of government so unique; certainly, if it operates successfully, the highest credit will be due to the political capacity of Indian leaders, who have infinitely more serious difficulties to face than had the colonial statesmen who evolved the system of self-government which has now culminated in Dominion status."
Lord Lothian, in a talk lasting forty-five minutes, came straight out with his view, not on the Bill:
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;"I agree with the diehards that it has been a surrender. You who are not used to any constitution cannot realize what great power you are going to wield. If you look at the constitution it looks as if all the powers are vested in the Governor-General and the Governor. But is not every power here vested in the King? Everything is done in the name of the King but does the King ever interfere? Once the power passes into the hands of the legislature, the Governor or the Governor-General is never going to interfere... The Civil Service will be helpful. You too will realize this. Once a policy is laid down they will carry it out loyally and faithfully...
We could not help it. We had to fight the diehards here. You could not realize what great courage has been shown by Mr Baldwin and Sir Samuel Hoare. We did not want to spare the diehards as we had to talk in a different language...
These various meetings – and in due course G. D. [Birla], before his return in September, met virtually everyone of importance in Anglo-Indian affairs – confirmed G.D.'s original opinion that the differences between the two countries were largely psychological, the same proposals open to opposed interpretations. He had not, probably, taken in before his visit how considerable, in the eyes of British conservatives, the concessions had been… If nothing else, successive conversations made clear to G.D. that the agents of the Bill had at least as heavy odds against them at home as they had in India.
False equivalences.
Under the Act, British citizens resident in the UK and British companies registered in the UK must be treated on the same basis as Indian citizens and Indian registered companies unless UK law denies reciprocal treatment. The unfairness of this arrangement is clear when one considers the dominant position of British capital in much of the Indian modern sector and the complete dominance, maintained through unfair commercial practices, of UK shipping interests in India's international and coastal shipping traffic and the utter insignificance of Indian capital in Britain and the non-existence of Indian involvement in shipping