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History Notes Empire and Nation: Britain and India Since 1750 Notes

Constitutional Reforms Notes

Updated Constitutional Reforms Notes

Empire and Nation: Britain and India Since 1750 Notes

Empire and Nation: Britain and India Since 1750

Approximately 10 pages

History of the subcontinent, from the arrival of the East India Company and the demise of the early Mughal Empire upto post-1947 trajectories of India and Pakistan. Notes include reading summaries, essay plans etc...

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What were the constitutional reforms between 1919 -1946?

Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms (1917) – basis for 1919 Government of India Act

1935 Government of India Act

Why were the British motivated to introduce constitutional reforms in India?

  1. Political concessions in light of imperial commitments

  2. Fiscal autonomy in light of financial crises

Objectives of British policy in India:

  • Tomlinson defines the objectives of British policy as

  1. the maintenance of India’s imperial commitment to provide a market for British goods

  2. supply men and materials for imperial defence

  3. obtain the sterling remittance needed to meet Home Charges and interest payments

“The devolution of increased political power and responsibility onto Indians was simply a device to buy support” Tomlinson.

The secret of successful Indian government was low taxation, hence imperial demands for Indian resources had to be balanced against domestic pressures. The heart of the problems of the Raj was the maintenance of this balance: ever successive imperial crisis in which Indian resources were pressed into imperial service – notably the two world wars and the great depression of 1929-33 – disrupted it, resulting in the need for political concessions to India, which limited the demands that the empire could make upon India in the next crisis.

Effects of the First World War

  • India’s major contributions had been in supplying money, manpower and materials for the war.

  • Military expenditure chargeable to Indian revenues rose from 20 million to 30 million.

  • By 1916, India had, in the words of the Viceroy, been bled “absolutely white”.

  • The most important effect on the war on Indian affairs was the acceleration of various schemes of constitutional reform, culminating in the Government of India Act of 1919. This legislation was based on the joint report written by the Viceroy Lord Chelmsford and the Secretary of State for India Montagu in 1917, which had argued that the only way to win Indian co-operation for British rule was to give representative Indians a greater measure of responsible executive power. The 1919 Act introduced diarchy.

  • Within the British Cabinet, the purpose of the 1919 Act was not to reward India’s efforts during the war, or because of any milestone that had been passed in the evolution of Indian political opinion, but because it was feared that popular disaffection against the Government might make the situation in India dangerous. Therefore the decisions taken in passing the 1919 Act were of a defensive nature.

  • The 1919 Act created a Central Legislative Assembly in which Indian politicians could debate government policy. Although they had no powers to pass or reject legislation without the Viceroy’s consent, the Government of India now had to take into account Indian opinion.

  • Also, once the need for Indian participation in provincial government was recognized, increased financial decentralization became necessary.

Effects of the Depression

  • The depression of the early 1930s hit India especially hard. The value of Indian exports of merchandise fell drastically; the depression in exports, combined with bad harvests and political agitation, led to agrarian unrest, a lack of confidence in the rupee, and a commercial and financial crisis for the Government of India.

  • Commercial crisis: In the face of a slump in exports, the alternative for the Government of India was to increase tariffs on imports, but because the Depression had also hurt British exports, the proposal for such action created a paradoxical dilemma within the imperial relationship. Between 1930 and 1931 the Government of India announced its intention to increase import duties on cotton textiles, a move that would adversely affect Lancashire’s cotton industries. When the British Cabinet proposed a countervailing excise on Indian cotton goods to nullify the effect of the new tariff, in the form of an increase in the tariff of non-British imports to 40 percent. But the Viceroy refused to be bullied, and argued that any dictation from London of Indian tariff policy would raise the political temperature in India disastrously he also revealed that three of the Indian and two of the British members of his Executive Council would resign if the Cabinet’s proposals went through. In the face of this opposition there was nothing that the British Government could do but concede. By the end of 1931 Britain accepted that they could not interfere in Indian tariff policy, and British commercial advantages were closed to them there. At the Imperial Economic Conference of 1932, India was treated like just another Dominion; she could no longer be regarded as a “most-favoured market”. Thus this commercial crisis marked the beginning of an Indian monopoly within decision-making in the...

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