History - Rulers of British India (Part - 10)

Lord Willingdon (1936-43)

1. Second Round Table Conference, 1931. Gandhiji was the sole representative of the Congress in the RTC.

2. Communal Award 1932, announced by the British Prime Minister Ramsay McDonald.

3. Third Round Table Conference in 1932.

4. White paper on political reforms in India was published in 1933.

5. The Congress Socialist party was formed in 1934.

6. Chandrasekhar Azad died in an encounter with the police in 1934.

7. Government of India Act of 1935: This Act laid down certain features which later became the foundations of the Constitution of Independent India. The salient features of the Act were the following:

i. An All India Federation was envisaged, by including the states of British India and those princely states who voluntarily joined the Federation. However, this provision did not come into force because no princely state expressed willingness to join it.

ii. It granted autonomy to the Indian States and abolished the system of dyarchy introduced by the Government of India Act 1919.

iii. Direct elections were introduced for the first time. The right to vote was extended to more people. More than 35 million people were eligible to vote, whereas the number of voters as per the Government of India Act, 1919. Sind was separated from Bombay and Orissa was separated from Bihar.

iv. Burma and Aden were separated from British India.

v. Governments were formed in the Provinces by elected representatives who formed majority in the Legislature. But Governors retained some discretionary powers regarding summoning of the Legislature, giving assents to the Bills passed by it and administering certain special regions (mostly tribal areas).

vi. The Reserve bank of India was established.

vii. First elections were held as per this Act in 1937, and elected governments came into power in the Provinces.

8. All India Kisan Sabha was formed in 1936.

Lord Linlithgow (1936-43)

1. First general lections to the central as well as provincial legislatures were held in 1937.

2. Forward Block was founded in 1939.

3. The Second World War broke out on 3rd September, 1939.

4. The British Government declared that India was a party to the War, without consulting the elected governments of the Provinces. In protest, the Congress governments in the Provinces resigned.

5. August Offer (1940) by the Viceroy in which he declared dominion status as the ultimate goal of British policy in India.

6. At its Haripura session (1938), the congress declared ‘Poorna Swaraj’ ideal to cover native states and British India. However, the functioning of the Congress was to be confined in British India only, and the people of the native states were to from their own political parties.

7. In 1940 individual civil disobedience movement was started.

8. Lahore resolution of the Muslim League in 1940, demanding Pakistan.

9. 1942, Cripps Mission arrived in India.

10. Quit India Movement started on 8th August 1942.

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