Simon Commission

The Indian Statutory Commission was a group of seven British Members of Parliament of United Kingdom that had been dispatched to India in 1928 to study constitutional reform in Britain's most important colonial dependency. It was commonly referred to as the Simon Commission after its chairman, Sir John Simon. One of its members was Clement Attlee, who subsequently became the British Prime Minister and eventually oversaw the granting of independence to India and Pakistan in 1947.

At the time of introducing the Montague Chelmsford Reforms the British Government declared that a commission would be sent to India after ten years to examine the effects and operations of the constitutional reforms and to suggest more reforms for India .

In November 1927 the British government appointed a commission under the chairmanship of Sir John Simon to report on India's constitutional progress for introducing constitutional reforms as had been promised.

Background

The Government of India Act 1919 had introduced the system of diarchy to govern the provinces of British India. The Indian public clamoured for revision of this form of government, and the Government of India Act 1919 itself stated that a commission would be appointed after ten years to investigate the progress of the governance scheme and suggest new steps for reform. In the late 1920s, the Conservative government then in power in Britain feared imminent electoral defeat at the hands of the Labour Party, and also feared the effects of the consequent transference of control of India to such an "inexperienced" body. Hence, it appointed seven MPs to constitute the promised commission to examine the state of Indian constitutional affairs but not a single Indian member was included in Simon Commission .

Some people in India were outraged and insulted that the Simon Commission, which was to determine the future of India, did not include a single Indian member. The Indian National Congress, at its December 1927 meeting in Madras (now Chennai), resolved to boycott the Commission and challenged Lord Birkenhead, the Secretary of State for India, to draft a constitution that would be acceptable to the Indian populace. A faction of the Muslim League, led by Mohammed Ali Jinnah, also decided to boycott the Commission.

However, opinion was divided, with support for co-operation coming from some members of the Muslim League and also both Hindus and members of the Central Sikh League.^[1] An All-India Committee for Cooperation with the Simon Commission was established by the Council of India and by selection of the Viceroy, Lord Irwin. The members of the committee were: C. Sankaran Nair (Chairman), Arthur Froom, Nawab Ali Khan, Shivdev Singh Uberoi, Zulfiqar Ali Khan, Hari Singh Gour, Abdullah Al-Mamun Suhrawardy, Kikabhai Premchand and M. C. Rajah.

In Burma (Myanmar), which was included in the terms of reference of the Simon Commission, there was strong suspicion either that Burma's unpopular union with India would continue, or that the constitution recommended for Burma by the Commission would be less generous than that chosen for India; these suspicions resulted in tension and violence in Burma leading to the rebellion of Saya San.^[2]

Protest and death of Lala Lajpat Rai

Almost immediately with its arrival in Bombay on 3 February 1928, the Simon Commission was confronted by throngs of protesters. A strike began and many people turned out to greet the Commission with black flags. Similar protests occurred in every major Indian city that the seven British MPs visited.

One protest against the Simon Commission became infamous. On 30 October 1928, the Commission arrived in Lahore where it was met by protesters waving black flags.^[1] The protest was led by Indian nationalist Lala Lajpat Rai, who had moved a resolution against the Commission in the Legislative Assembly of Punjab in February 1928. In order to make way for the Commission, the local police force began beating protestors with their sticks. The police were particularly brutal towards Lala Lajpat Rai, who died later on 17 November 1928. His death was widely believed to have been caused by the mental trauma of the beating.^[1]

Aftermath

The Commission published its 2-volume report in May 1930. It proposed the abolition of dyarchy and the establishment of representative government in the provinces. It also recommended that separate communal electorates be retained, but only until tensions between Hindus and Muslims had died down. In September 1928, ahead of the Commission's release, Motilal Nehru presented his Nehru Report to counter its charges that Indians could not find a constitutional consensus among themselves. This report advocated that India be given dominion status of complete internal self-government.

Noting that educated Indians opposed the Commission and also that communal tensions had increased instead of decreased, the British government opted for another method of dealing with the constitutional issues of India. Before the publication of the report, the British government stated that Indian opinion would henceforth be taken into account, and that the natural outcome of the constitutional process would be dominion status for India.

The outcome of the Simon Commission was the Government of India Act 1935, which established representative government at the provincial level in India and is the basis of many parts of the Indian Constitution. In 1937 the first elections were held in the Provinces, resulting in Congress Governments being returned in almost all ProIvinces.

Members of the Commission

References

1 2 3 Nair, Neeti (May 2009). "Bhagat Singh as 'Satyagrahi': The Limits to Non-violence in Late Colonial India". Modern Asian Studies. Cambridge University Press. 43 (3): 649–681. JSTOR 20488099. (subscription required (help)).
↑ See e.g. Maurice Collis, Trials in Burma (London, 1938).

External links

Indian Independence Movement

History	Colonisation Porto Grande de Bengala Dutch Bengal East India Company British Raj French India Portuguese India Battle of Plassey Battle of Buxar Anglo-Mysore Wars First Second Third Fourth Anglo-Maratha Wars First Second Third Polygar Wars Vellore Mutiny First Anglo-Sikh War Second Anglo-Sikh War Sannyasi Rebellion Rebellion of 1857 Radcliffe Line more

Philosophies and ideologies	Gandhism Hindu nationalism Indian nationalism Khilafat Movement Muslim nationalism in South Asia Satyagraha Socialism Swadeshi movement Swaraj

Events and movements	Partition of Bengal Revolutionaries Delhi-Lahore Conspiracy The Indian Sociologist Hindu–German Conspiracy Champaran and Kheda Rowlatt Committee Rowlatt Bills Jallianwala Bagh massacre Non-Cooperation Movement Chauri Chaura incident, 1922 Kakori conspiracy Qissa Khwani Bazaar massacre Flag Satyagraha Bardoli 1928 Protests Nehru Report Fourteen Points of Jinnah Purna Swaraj Salt March Dharasana Satyagraha Chittagong armoury raid Gandhi–Irwin Pact Round table conferences Act of 1935 Aundh Experiment Indische Legion Cripps' mission Quit India Bombay Mutiny Coup d'état of Yanaon Provisional Government of India Independence Day

Organisations	Indian National Congress All India Kisan Sabha All-India Muslim League Anushilan Samiti Arya Samaj Azad Hind Berlin Committee Ghadar Party Hindustan Socialist Republican Association India House Indian Home Rule movement Indian Independence League Indian National Army Jugantar Khaksar Tehrik Khudai Khidmatgar Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Swaraj Party more

Social reformers	Gopal Ganesh Agarkar B. R. Ambedkar Baba Amte Sri Aurobindo Ayyankali Vinoba Bhave Gazulu Lakshminarasu Chetty Gopal Hari Deshmukh Gopaldas Ambaidas Desai Mahatma Gandhi Narayana Guru A. Vaidyanatha Iyer G. Subramania Iyer Dhondo Keshav Karve Syed Ahmad Khan J. B. Kripalani Vakkom Moulavi Jyotirao Phule Pandita Ramabai Periyar E. V. Ramasamy Mahadev Govind Ranade Muthulakshmi Reddi Ram Mohan Roy Dayananda Saraswati Sahajanand Saraswati Vinayak Damodar Savarkar Shahu Vitthal Ramji Shinde Bal Gangadhar Tilak Ayya Vaikundar Kandukuri Veeresalingam Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar Vivekananda

Independence activists	Muhammad Mian Mansoor Ansari Abul Kalam Azad Chandra Shekhar Azad Annie Besant Bharathidasan Bhikaiji Cama Ram Prasad Bismil Rash Behari Bose Subhas Chandra Bose Subramania Bharati Virendranath Chattopadhyaya V O Chidamabaram Dheeran Chinnamalai Satyapal Dang Chittaranjan Das Shuja-ud-Daula Siraj ud-Daulah Har Dayal Nana Fadnavis Mahatma Gandhi Gopal Krishna Gokhale Yashwantrao Holkar Muhammad Ali Jinnah Hemu Kalani Veerapandiya Kattabomman Ashfaqulla Khan Bakht Khan Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan Tiruppur Kumaran Rani Lakshmibai Begum Hazrat Mahal Annapurna Maharana Inayatullah Khan Mashriqi V. K. Krishna Menon Syama Prasad Mukherjee Kanaiyalal Maneklal Munshi Sarojini Naidu Nagnath Naikwadi Dadabhai Naoroji Jawaharlal Nehru Oomaithurai Bipin Chandra Pal Mangal Pandey Maruthu Pandiyar Govind Ballabh Pant Vallabhbhai Patel Achyut Patwardhan Mir Qasim Lala Lajpat Rai C. Rajagopalachari Alluri Sitarama Raju Dukkipati Nageswara Rao Sangolli Rayanna Bidhan Chandra Roy Nana Sahib Rahul Sankrityayan Dayananda Saraswati Sahajanand Saraswati Vinayak Damodar Savarkar Jatindra Mohan Sengupta Bahadur Shah II Mahadaji Shinde Yogendra Shukla Babu Kunwar Singh Basawon Singh Bhagat Singh Dhan Singh Krishna Singh Sibghatullah Shah Rashidi Ram Singh Subramaniya Siva Vanchinathan Veeran Sundaralingam Purushottam Das Tandon Puli Thevar Bal Gangadhar Tilak Tatya Tope Shyamji Krishna Varma Pritilata Waddedar more

British leaders	Bentinck Canning Chelmsford Cornwallis Clive Cripps Curzon Dalhousie Irwin Hastings Linlithgow Lytton Minto Mountbatten Outram Ripon Wavell Wellesley

Independence	Simla Conference Cabinet Mission Indian Independence Act Partition of India Political integration Constitution Republic of India Liberation of French colonies in India Liberation of Portuguese India

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 12/4/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.