Question

Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow:

India’s last Viceroy released a plan on the country’s independence from the British on June 3, 1947. The plan came to be celebrated as the ‘last plan for independence’. He was appointed Viceroy to India to speed up the process of transfer of power-by the then British Prime Minister Clement Atlee.

1. Identify the Viceroy. Mention any two terms of his plan with reference to the Princely States.   [3] 
2. Mention any three reasons given by the Congress to justify the acceptance of the plan.   [3] 
3. Mention any four provisions of the Indian Independence Act of 1947.   [4]

Answer 1

1. 
   
   • Viceroy: Lord Mountbatten (Louis Mountbatten).
   • Two terms regarding the Princely States:
     • The treaties between the British and the Princely States would come to an end.
     • Each Princely State would be free to accede to either Dominion (India or Pakistan) or to remain independent.
2. 
   
   • The plan guaranteed the immediate end of British rule and the transfer of power (independence).
   • To avoid large-scale communal violence or a possible civil war, partition was seen as a way to stop escalating riots and chaos.
   • Practical compromise: further delay seemed likely to make matters worse (British pressure on princely rulers, risk of disintegration), so accepting the plan was the pragmatic course to secure independence.
3. 
   
   • British India was to be partitioned into two independent Dominions, India and Pakistan, effective 15 August 1947 (with legislative supremacy for each Dominion).
   • The exact boundaries of the two Dominions were to be decided by a Boundary Commission.
   • Each Dominion would have a Governor-General (appointed by the British Crown on the advice of the Dominion’s cabinet) to act until a constitution was framed.
   • The Constituent Assemblies of the two Dominions would act as their respective central legislatures with full powers to make laws until separate constitutions were adopted.