Montague–Chelmsford Reforms

The Montague–Chelmsford Reforms or more briefly known as Mont-Ford Reforms were reforms introduced by the British colonial government in India to introduce self-governing institutions gradually to India.

• The reforms take their name from Edwin Samuel Montagu, the Secretary of State for India during the latter parts of World War I and Lord Chelmsford, Viceroy of India between 1916 and 1921.
• The reforms were outlined in the Montagu-Chelmsford Report prepared in 1918 and formed the basis of the Government of India Act 1919.
• Indian nationalists considered that the reforms did not go far enough while British conservatives were critical of them.

In late 1917, Montagu went to India to meet Lord Chelmsford, the Viceroy of India, and leaders of Indian community, to discuss the introduction of limited self-government to India, and the protection rights of minority communities.

• He drew up a report, with Bhupendra Nath Bose, Lord Donoghmore, William Duke and Charles Roberts.

• The Report went before Cabinet on 24 May and 7 June 1918 and was embodied in the Government of India Act of 1919.

These reforms represented the maximum concessions the British were prepared to make at that time.

• The franchise was extended, and increased authority was given to central and provincial legislative councils, but the viceroy remained responsible only to London.

The changes at the provincial level were very significant, as the provincial legislative councils contained a considerable majority of elected members.

In a system called "diarchy," the nation-building departments of government – agriculture, education, public works, and the like – were placed under ministers who were individually responsible to the legislature.

In 1921 another change recommended by the report was carried out when elected local councils were set up in rural areas, and during the 1920s urban municipal corporations were made more democratic and Indianized.

The main provisions were the following:

1. The secretary of state would control affairs relating to Government of India
2. The Central Legislature would comprise two chambers-
   • The Council of State and the
   • Indian Legislative Assembly
3. The Central Legislature was empowered to enact laws on any matter for whole of India.
4. The Governor General was given powers to summon, prorogue, dissolve the Chambers, and to promulgate Ordinances.
5. The number of Indians in Viceroy's Executive Council would be three out of eight members.
6. Establishment of bicameral Provincial Legislative councils.
7. Dyarchy in the Provinces-
   • Reserved subjects like Finance, Law and Order, Army, Police etc.
   • Transferred subjects like Public Health, Education, Agriculture, Local Self-government etc.
8. There would henceforth be direct election and an extension of Communal franchise. Women got the voting rights.

• At the Indian National Congress annual session in September 1920, delegates supported Gandhi's proposal of swaraj or self-rule – preferably within the British empire or outside it if necessary.
• The proposal was to be implemented through a policy of non-cooperation with British rule meaning that Congress did not stand candidates in the first elections held under the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms in 1921.

Individual Satyagraha 1940-41

Launch of Individual Satyagraha 1940-41:-

The Congress was in a confused state again after the August Offer.

• The radicals and leftists wanted to launch a mass Civil Disobedience Movement, but here Gandhi insisted on Individual Satyagraha.
• The Individual Satyagraha was not to seek independence but to affirm the right of speech.
• The aims of launching individual satyagrahas were:
• (i) To show that nationalist patience was not due to weakness; 
• (ii) to express people’s feeling that they were not interested in the war and that they made no distinction between Nazism and the double autocracy that ruled India; and
• (iii) to give another opportunity to the Government to accept Congress’ demands peacefully.
•  The other reason of this Satyagraha was that a mass movement may turn violent and he would not like to see the Great Britain embarrassed by such a situation. This view was conveyed to Lord Linlithgow by Gandhi when he met him on 27 September 1940.
• The non-violence was set as the centerpiece of Individual Satyagraha. This was done by carefully selecting the Satyagrahis.
• The first Satyagrahi selected was Acharya Vinoba Bhave, who was sent to Jail when he spoke against the war in the village Panaur and he was arrested subsequently.
• Second Satyagrahi was Jawahar Lal Nehru.
• Third was Brahma Datt, one of the inmates of the Gandhi's Ashram. 
• They all were sent to jails for violating the Defense of India Act. This was followed by a lot of other people. 
• But since it was not a mass movement, it attracted little enthusiasm and in December 1940, Gandhi suspended the movement.
• The campaign started again in January 1941, this time, thousands of people joined and around 20 thousand people were arrested.

August Offer

Background:-

A change of government took place in Britain in May 1940 and Winston Churchill became the prime minister (1940–45). 

The fall of France temporarily softened the attitude of Congress in India. Britain was in immediate danger of Nazi occupation.

• As the war was taking a menacing turn from the allied point of view congress offered to cooperate in the war if transfer of authority in India is done to an interim government.
• The government's response was a statement of the viceroy known as the August offer.

August Offer:-

On 8 August 1940, early in the Battle of Britain, the Viceroy of India, Lord Linlithgow, made the so-called August Offer.

• A fresh proposal promising the expansion of the Executive Council to include more Indians,
• Dominion status as the objective for India.  
• The establishment of an Advisory War Council, to give the Indians a majority of 8 out of 12 for the first time, but the whites remained in charge of defence, finance and home.
•  Giving full weight to Minority Opinion,
  • No future constitution to be adopted without the consent of minorities.
  • The minorities were assured that the government would not transfer power "to any system of government whose authority is directly denied by large and powerful elements in Indian national life."and
• The recognition of Indians' right to frame their own constitution (after the end of the war).
  • • decide their constitution according to their social, economic and political conceptions
    • subject to fulfillment of the obligation of the Government regarding defense, minority rights, treaties with states & all India services 

In return, it was hoped that all parties and communities in India would cooperate in Britain's war effort.

The declaration marked an important advance over the existing state of things, as it recognized at least the natural and inherent right of the people of the country to determine the form of their future constitution, and explicitly promised dominion status. 

India’s Reaction to August offer

• The Congress rejected the August Offer.
• The Congress Working Committee meeting at Wardha on 21st August 1940 rejected this offer, and asserted its demand for complete freedom from the imperial power.
• Gandhi viewed it as having widened the gulf between Nationalist India and the British ruler.
• It was also rejected by Muslim League. The Muslim League asserted that it would not be satisfied by anything short of partition of India.
• Nehru said, “Dominion status concept is dead as a door nail”.

Bombay Plan

The Bombay Plan is the name commonly given to a World War II-era set of proposals the development of the post-independence economy of India.

• The plan, published in 1944/1945 by eight leading Indian industrialists, proposed state intervention in the economic development of the nation after independence.

• Titled A Brief Memorandum Outlining a Plan of Economic Development for India, the signatories of the Plan were Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata, Ghanshyam Das Birla, Ardeshir Dalal, Sri Ram, Kasturbhai Lalbhai, Ardeshir Darabshaw Shroff, Sir Purshottamdas Thakurdas and John Mathai.
• The Plan went through two editions: the first was published in January 1944. 
• This first edition became "Part I" of the second edition, published in 2 volumes in 1945 under the editorship of Purushottamdas Thakurdas.

• Although Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, did not officially accept the plan, "the Nehruvian era witnessed the implementation of the Bombay Plan; a substantially interventionist state and an economy with a sizeable public sector."

• The basic objectives were a doubling of the (then current) output of the agricultural sector and a five-fold growth in the industrial sector, both within the framework of a 100 billion Rupee (£72b, $18b) investment (of which 44.8% was slated for industry) over 15 years.

A key principle of the Bombay Plan was that the economy could not grow without government intervention and regulation.

• Under the assumption that the fledgling Indian industries would not be able to compete in a free-market economy, the Plan proposed that the future government protect indigenous industries against foreign competition in local markets. 
• Other salient points of the Bombay plan were an active role by government in deficit financing and planning equitable growth, a transition from an agrarian to an industrialized society, and—in the event that the private sector could not immediately do so—the establishment of critical industries as public sector enterprises while simultaneously ensuring a market for the output through planned purchases.
• Although the Bombay Plan did not itself propose a socialist agenda, "virtually all" commentators acknowledge "that there is a direct line of continuity from the Bombay Plan of 1944-1945 to the First Five-Year Plan in 1950."
• An alternative line of reasoning is that the Bombay Plan was a reaction to the widespread social discontent of the 1940s (resulting from unprecedented industrial growth during wartime), and a product of the fear that the movement against colonial rule would become a movement against private property.
• The Bombay Plan reaped criticism from all quarters: the far left criticized the capitalistic background of the Plan's authors or asserted that the plan did not go far enough. The far right foresaw it as a harbinger of a socialist society, and considered it a violation of the agreements of the United Nations "Bretton Woods Conference".
• Economists criticized the plan on technical grounds; that it did not take into account the fact that creating capital had an inflationary effect, and with that, its authors had overestimated the capacity of the Indian economy to generate further capital. With rising prices, the purchasing power (for investments) would fall.

FICCI and Freedom Struggle

National movement encompassed all classes of people including the capitalists some of whom were also active congressmen who suffered hardships like everyone else, while some capitalists without joining the congress financially supported the national movement. 

• Some individual capitalists who joined the Congress and fully identified with the movement, went to jails and accepted the hardships were Jamnalal Bajaj, Vadilal Lallubhai Mehta, Samuel Aaron, Lala Shankar Lal, and others.
• There were other individual capitalists who did not join the Congress but readily gave financial and other help to the movement. People like G.D. Birla, Ambalal Sarabhai and Walchand Hirachand, fall into this category.

The Indian capitalist class had its own notions of how the anti-imperialist struggle should be waged. It was always in favor of not completely abandoning the constitutional path without compromising on its needs.

The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) is an association of business organizations in India.

• It was established in 1927, on the advice of Mahatma Gandhi by GD Birla and Purushottam Das Thakurdas, it is the largest, oldest and the apex business organisation in India.
• Soon after the establishment, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) ,a national level body of trade with Indian interests in mind was recognized by the British government as well as the Indian public in general, as a body representing the Indian capitalist class.
• FICCI refused to negotiate with the British Government, on constitutional as well as economic issues, without the participation of the congress or at least its approval.
• In 1930, the FICCI advised its members to boycott the Round Table Conference (RTC) stating that ‘no conference convened for the purpose of discussing the problem of Indian constitutional advance can come to a solution unless such a conference is attended by Mahatma Gandhi, as a free man, or has at least his approval.’

View of Capitalist Class on Freedom Struggle:-

The capitalists were unwilling to support a prolonged all-out hostility to the government of the day as it prevented the continuing of day-to-day business and threatened the very existence of the class. 

So they used constitutional means as a forum for maintaining an effective opposition fearing backlash from the colonial government which could severely affect the Indian economy and the capitalist class.

While, on the one hand, they were afraid of protracted mass civil disobedience, on the other hand, they clearly saw the utility, even necessity of civil disobedience in getting crucial concessions for their class and the nation.

Cabinet Mission

The United Kingdom Cabinet Mission of 1946 to India aimed to discuss and plan for the transfer of power from the British government to Indian leadership to provide India with independence. 

Formulated at the initiative of Clement Attlee, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the mission had 

• Lord Pethick-Lawrence, the Secretary of State for India, 
• Sir Stafford Cripps, President of the Board of Trade, (of the Cripps Mission fame)
• and A. V. Alexander, the First Lord of the Admiralty. 

Lord Wavell, the Viceroy of India, did not participate in every step but was present.

The Cabinet Mission's purposes were to hold preparatory discussions with elected representatives of British India and the Indian states in order to 

• secure agreement as to the method of framing the constitution, 
• to set up a constitution making body (constituent assembly) and 
• to set up an Executive Council with the support of the main Indian parties.

The Mission held talks with the representatives of the Indian National Congress and the All-India Muslim League, the two largest political parties in the Constituent Assembly of India. 

The two parties planned to determine a power-sharing arrangement between Hindus and Muslims to prevent a communal dispute and to determine whether British India would be better be being unified or divided. 

The Congress, under Gandhi and Nehru, wanted to obtain a strong central government, with more powers than state governments.

The All India Muslim League, under Jinnah, wanted to keep India united but with political safeguards provided to Muslims like parity in the legislatures because of the wide belief of Muslims that the British Raj was simply going to be turned into a Hindu Raj once the British departed, and since the Muslim League regarded itself as the sole spokesman party of Indian Muslims, it was incumbent upon it to take the matter up with the Crown. 

After initial dialogue, the Mission proposed its plan over the composition of the new government on 16 May 1946.

Plan of 16 May:-

Promulgated on 16 May 1946, the plan, to create a united dominion of India as a loose confederation of provinces, came to be known by the date of its announcement:

1. A united Dominion of India would be given independence.
2. The Muslim-majority provinces would be grouped, with 
• Sind, Punjab,Baluchistan and North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) forming one group, and 
• Bengal and Assam would form another.
3. The Hindu-majority provinces in central and southern India would form another group.
4. The central government, stationed in Delhi, would be empowered to handle nationwide affairs, such as defense, currency, and diplomacy, and the rest of powers and responsibility would belong to the provinces, coordinated by groups.

Plan of 16 June:-

The plan of 16 June 1946 had a united India, in line with Congress and Muslim League aspirations, but that was where the consensus between the two parties ended since Congress abhorred the idea of having the groupings of Muslim-majority provinces and that of Hindu-majority provinces with the intention of balancing one another at the central legislature. 

The Muslim League could not accept any changes to this plan since they wanted to keep the safeguards of British Indian laws to prevent absolute rule of Hindus over Muslims.

Reaching an impasse, the British proposed a second plan on 16 June 1946 to arrange for India to be divided into Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority India that would later be renamed Pakistan since Congress had vehemently rejected 'parity' at the center. 

A list of princely states of India, which would be permitted to accede to the dominion or attain independence, was also drawn up.

• The Cabinet Mission arrived in India on 23 March 1946 and in Delhi on 2 April 1946. 
• The announcement of the Plan on 16 May 1946 had been preceded by the Simla Conference in the first week of May.

The approval of the plans determined the composition of the new government. The Congress Working Committee officially did not accept either plan. 

The resolution of the committee dated 24 May 1946 concluded that The Working Committee should consider the connected problems involved in the establishment of a provisional government and a Constituent Assembly should be viewed together. The Committee was unable to give a final opinion. 

The resolution of 25 June 1946, in response to the June plan, concluded that in the formation of a provisional or other government, Congressmen could never give up the national character of the Congress or accept an artificial and unjust parity or agree to a veto of a communal group. 

The Committee was unable to accept the proposals for formation of an interim government as contained in the statement of June 16. 

• The committee, however, decided that the Congress should join the proposed constituent assembly to frame the constitution of a free, united and democratic India. 
• Nehru held a press conference in Bombay and declared that Congress had agreed only to participate in the Constituent Assembly.

Interim Government:-

Following consultations, the Viceroy invited 14 men to join the interim government on 15 June 1946. 

They were Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhabhai Patel, Rajendra Prasad, C. Rajagopalachari and Hari Krishna Mahtab of the Indian National Congress; 

Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Liaqat Ali Khan, Mohammed Ismail Khan, Khwaja Sir Nazimuddin and Abdul Rab Nisthar of the Muslim League; 

Sardar Baldev Singh (representing the Sikhs), 

Sir N.P. Engineer (representing the Parsis), 

Jagjivan Ram (representing the scheduled castes) and 

John Mathai (representing the Christians). 

The Congress proposed Zakir Hussain among its quota of 5 nominees to the interim council. 

Objecting to the decision, on 29 July 1946, Jinnah announced that his party would not participate in the process to form the Constituent Assembly.

The Viceroy began organizing the transfer of power to a Congress-League coalition but League president Muhammad Ali Jinnah denounced the hesitant and conditional approval of the Congress and rescinded League approval of both plans. 

Thus Congress leaders entered the Viceroy's Executive Council or the Interim Government of India. Nehru became the head, vice president in title, but possessing the executive authority. Patel became the home member, responsible for internal security and government agencies. 

Congress-led governments were formed in most provinces, including the NWFP, in Punjab (a coalition with the Shiromani Akali Dal and the Unionist Muslim League). The League led governments in Bengal and Sind. 

• The Constituent Assembly was instructed to begin work to write a new constitution for India.

Jinnah and the League condemned the new government, and vowed to agitate for Pakistan by any means possible. Disorder arose in Punjab and Bengal, including the cities of Delhi, Bombay and Calcutta. 

On the League-organized Direct Action Day, over 5,000 people were killed across India, and Hindu, Sikh and Muslim mobs began clashing routinely. 

Wavell stalled the Central government's efforts to stop the disorder, and the provinces were instructed to leave this to the governors, who did not undertake any major action. To end the disorder and rising bloodshed, Wavell encouraged Nehru to ask the League to enter the government. While Patel and most Congress leaders were opposed to conceding to a party that was organizing disorder, Nehru conceded in hope of preserving communal peace.

League leaders entered the council under the leadership of Liaquat Ali Khan, the future first Prime Minister of Pakistan who became the finance minister, but the council did not function in harmony, as separate meetings were not held by League ministers, and both parties vetoed the major initiatives proposed by the other, highlighting their ideological differences and political antagonism. 

At the arrival of the new (and proclaimed as the last) viceroy, Lord Mountbatten in early 1947, Congress leaders expressed the view that the coalition was unworkable. 

That led to the eventual proposal, and acceptance of the partition of India. The rejection of cabinet mission plan led to a resurgence of confrontational politics beginning with the Muslim League's Direct action day and the subsequent killings in Noakhali and Bihar. 

The portioning of responsibility of the League, the Congress and the British Colonial Administration for the breakdown continues to be a topic of fierce disagreement. Jinnah Called the day of DIRECT ACTION on August 16,1946.

Cripps mission

The Cripps mission was an attempt in late March 1942 by the British government to secure full Indian cooperation and support for their efforts in World War II. 

• The mission was headed by Sir Stafford Cripps, a senior left-wing politician and government minister in the War Cabinet of Prime Minister Winston Churchill. 
• Cripps was sent to negotiate an agreement with the nationalist leaders, speaking for the majority Indians, and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, speaking for the minority Muslim population. 

• Cripps worked to keep India loyal to the British war effort in exchange for a promise of full self-government after the war. 
• Cripps promised to give dominion status after the war as well as elections to be held after the war. 
• Cripps discussed the proposals with the Indian leaders and published them. 
• Both the major parties, the Congress and the League rejected his proposals and the mission proved a failure.
• Cripps had designed the proposals himself, but they were too radical for both Churchill and the Indians; no middle way was found. 
• Congress moved towards the Quit India movement whereby it refused to cooperate in the war effort, while the British imprisoned practically the entire Congress leadership for the duration of the war. 
• Jinnah was pleased to see that the right to opt out of a future Union was included.
• Indians were given promise of liberty to frame their own constitution.

Contents of Draft Declaration prepared by Sir Cripps:- 

• According to the preamble of the Draft Declaration, the object was ‘the creation of a new Indian Union which shall constitute a Dominion associated with the United Kingdom and other Dominions by a common allegiance to the Crown but equal to them in every respect, in no way subordinate in any aspects of its domestic and external affairs’. 
• The Declaration also stated that any province not willing to accept the constitution would be given ‘the same full status as the Indian Union’, designed to appeased the Muslim League’s call for Pakistan. 
• The Indian National Congress, however, was not satisfied with the fact that its demand for immediate complete independence had been rejected. 
• Furthermore, Congress did not accept the provision that ‘His Majesty’s Government must inevitably bear the responsibility for and retain the control and direction of the Defense of India as part of their world war effort’. 

Results:-

• The Indian National Congress Working Committee rejected the Declaration on 7 April 1942. 
• On 9 April, Cripps made one last effort to persuade the Indian leaders to accept the Declaration, but once again Congress declined. 
• United States President Roosevelt tried to persuade Cripps to renew his efforts, but Cripps had already left India.
• The failure of the Cripps Mission is generally attributed to a variety of factors, especially  the constraints within which Cripps had to operate. 
• Some analysts see the Mission merely as an appeasement of Chinese and American concerns with British imperialism.
• Gandhi seized upon the failure of the Mission and called for voluntary British withdrawal from India. It resulted in the 'Quit India' Movement.

Butler Committee.

During the British Raj in the 1930's extent of sovereignty of the Paramount power were not yet settled properly, so, relations between Indian Princes and the crown were not well defined. which resulted in ambiguity and problems for the future India. 

• The Indian states committee in the year 1927 was appointed 
• to investigate and clarify the relationship between the paramount power i.e the British and the Indian Princes.
• Sir Harcourt Butler was its chairman and so this committee was popularly known as the Butler Committee.

It gave the following recommendations:

• Paramountey must remain supreme.
• States should not be handed over to an Indian government in British India, responsible to an Indian Legislature.
• But it could be done with the consent of states.
• It must fulfill its obligation, adopting and defining itself according to the shifting necessities of time and progressive development of states.
• The viceroy was made the Crown’s agent in dealing with states.
• The committee fully endorsed that the viceroy, not the governor general should remain the Crown agent in dealing with the native states. 
• In fact the right to protect includes right to internal intervention. 
• Paramountcy is the supreme sovereign power which was kept above the reach of law and interpretation, to be exercised at the appropriate time subject to restraints of morality and constitutional propriety against an erring ruler of a native state when other correctional means had proved to be futile. 
• It is a concept developed into a deterrent in the political relation between the British and the Indian rulers.
• Thus, the committee left it yet undefined creating ambiguity, which was appointed to define paramountcy. 
• This hydra-headed creature was left to feed on usage, crown’s prerogative and the princes implied consent. By this definition in the report princes were shocked. 
• As a result they resorted to constitution of All India Union to save themselves from such vague concept of paramountcy.

Ryotwari System

• Ryotwari System was introduced by Thomas Munro in 1820.
• Major areas of introduction include Madras, Bombay, parts of Assam and Coorgh provinces of British India.
• In Ryotwari System the ownership rights were handed over to the peasants. 
• British Government collected taxes directly from the peasants.
• The revenue rates of Ryotwari System were 
• 50% where the lands were dry, and 
• 60% in irrigated land.
• Every peasant was held personally responsible for direct payment of land revenue to the government. However, in the end, this system also failed. 
• Under this settlement it was certainly not possible to collect revenue in a systematic manner. The revenue officials indulged in harsh measures for non payment or delayed payment. 

An official report by John Stuart Mill in 1857 explained the ryotwari land tenure system as follows. 

As John Stuart Mill was himself working for the British East India Company, the following quote will see the system from the British perspective:

• Under the Ryotwari System every registered holder of land is recognised as its proprietor, and pays direct to Government. He is at liberty to sublet his property, or to transfer it by gift, sale, or mortgage. He cannot be ejected by Government so long as he pays the fixed assessment, and has the option annually of increasing or diminishing his holding, or of entirely abandoning it. 
• In unfavourable seasons remissions of assessment are granted for entire or partial loss of produce. 
• The assessment is fixed in money, and does not vary from year to year, in those cases where water is drawn from a Government source of irrigation to convert dry land into wet, or into two-crop land, when an extra rent is paid to Government for the water so appropriated; nor is any addition made to the assessment for improvements effected at the Ryot's own expense. 
• The Ryot under this system is virtually a Proprietor on a simple and perfect title, and has all the benefits of a perpetual lease without its responsibilities, in as much as he can at any time throw up his lands, but cannot be ejected so long as he pays his dues; he receives assistance in difficult seasons, and is irresponsible for the payment of his neighbours. 
• The Annual Settlements under Ryotwari are often misunderstood, and it is necessary to explain that they are rendered necessary by the right accorded to the Ryot of diminishing or extending his cultivation from year to year. 
• Their object is to determine how much of the assessment due on his holding the Ryot shall pay, and not to reassess the land. 
• In these cases where no change occurs in the Ryots holding a fresh Potta or lease is not issued, and such parties are in no way affected by the Annual Settlement, which they are not required to attend.

Mahalwari System

• Mahalwari system was introduced in 1833 during the period of Lord William Bentick.
• It was introduced in Central Province, North-West Frontier, Agra, Punjab, Gangetic Valley, etc of British India.
• The Mahalwari system had many provisions of both the Zamindari System (in Bengal Presidency) and Ryotwari System (in Madras and Bombay Presidency).
• It was the last land settlement experimented by the company administration and expected to be an improvement over both the previous working settlements. 
• In this system, the land was divided into Mahals. 
• Each Mahal comprises one or more villages.
• Ownership rights were vested with the peasants.
• The villages committee was held responsible for collection of the taxes. Generally a person known as Lambardar was appointed as Mahal for a particular village.
• The settlement under the Mahalwari operation was directly made with the villages or estates or Mahals by the instruction of the settlement officers, who fixed the rent with the consultation of ‘lambardar’ and the rent to be paid by the cultivating peasants.
• In a simple revenue language, the Mahalwari settlement was famous as a ‘mauzawar’ settlement where ‘mauza’ stands for a village or a unit of assessment. 
• The foundation of entire land revenue assessment and realization in the Mahalwari operated region was based on the records of ‘shajra’ or field map and “khasra” or field register
• Though the Mahalwari system eliminated middlemen between the government and the village community and brought about improvement in irrigation facility, yet its benefit was largely enjoyed by the government.

Zamindari System

• Zamindari System was introduced by Lord Cornwallis in 1793 through Permanent Settlement Act.
• It was introduced in provinces of Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and Varanasi.
• Also known as Permanent Settlement System.
• Zamindars were recognized as owner of the lands. 
• Zamindars were given the rights to collect the rent from the peasants.
• The realized amount would be divided into 11 parts. 1/11 of the share belongs to Zamindars and 10/11 of the share belongs to East India Company.
• The ryots became tenants since they were considered the tillers of the soil.
  
• This settlement took away the administrative and judicial functions of the zamindars. 
• Under the Scheme of 1793, the function of deciding revenue disputes including demands of revenue had been entrusted to the diwani adalats. 
• Out of this arose two difficulties. 
• It led to the increase of work before the adalats and thus led to the accumulation of undecided cases there. 
• Further, disposal of revenue demands by zamindars against their tenants was very much delayed by the adalats because of load of work on them. 
• This put the zamindars in a quandary. While the Government had summary powers to realise its revenue arrears from the zamindars by selling away the defaulters' lands, the zamindars had no such summary method available to them to realise their dues from the tenants: they had to move against their tenants through the extremely dilatory process of the adalats. 
• From the point of view of the zamindars, the situation was very inequitable; there was little prospect of their revenue demands against their tenants being decided through the adalats before their own lands were liable to be sold in execution of the Government's demands against them. 
• The delays in judicial process resulted in many zamindaries being sold. Many representations were made to the Government urging the need to mend matters. The wheels of justice were clogged and this affected the Government as well as the private individuals. The collection of revenue was being adversely affected, it became indispensable to take steps to set matters right.

Anti-Non-Cooperation Association 1920

• The Anti-Non-Cooperation Association 1920 was started by big businessmen of Bombay in 1920 against the Non-Cooperation/Khilafat Movement (1920-1921). 
• It was established by Jamnadas Dwarkadas, Purshottamdas Thaukrdass, Cowasji Jehangir, Pheroze Sethna and Setalvad.
• The businessmen of Bombay felt that the movement would encourage the labour strikes which in Bombay Presidency turned out be violent at earlier occasion.
• Secondly, Gandhi did not have that acceptance in Maharashtra region which at that time was still remembered Bal Gangadhar Tilak. 

Wood's Despatch of 1854 on Education

By 1853 a number of problems concerning education in the country had risen which required immediate solution. 

As a result of an inquiry made by the Government, Sir Charles Wood, the then Secretary of state, sent a despatch popularly known as Wood's Despatch to the Court of the Directors of the East India Company in 1854. 

• The despatch enunciated the aim of education as the diffusion of the Arts, Science, Philosophy and Literature of Europe. 
• It laid down that the study of Indian languages was to be encouraged and that the English language should be taught wherever there was a demand for it, and that both English and the Indian Languages were to be regarded the media for the diffusion of European knowledge; a scheme to establish universities was to be formulated, whose functions were to hold examinations and corder degrees. 
• The despatch also recommended that a number of high schools should-be set up.
• This eventually led to the establishment in the country of the first three universities in 1857. 
• The Despatch was considered to be the " Magna Carta of Education of in India". 
• It was the first authoritative declaration on the part of the British Parliament about the educational policy to be followed in India.
• Macaulay rejected the claims of Arabic and Sanskrit as against English, because he considered that English was better than either of them. 

Hunter Commission

The Education Commission of 1882

In 1882 the Government of India appointed a Commission, known as the Hunter Commission, "to enquire into the manner in which, effect had been given to the principles of the Woods Despatch of 1854 and to suggest such measures as it may think desirable in order to further carrying out of the policy therein laid down". 

• The Commission, inter alia, recommended the gradual withdrawal of the State from the direct support and management of institutions of higher education. 
• With regard to vocational and technical education, the Commission recommended that in the particular class of high schools there should be two avenues, one leading to the entrance examination of the University and the other of a more practical character intended to fit the youth for commercial, vocational and non-literary pursuits.

Sadler Commission

The Calcutta University Commission of 1917

The next important stage was the appointment of the Calcutta University Commission in 1917 under the Chairmanship of the late Sir Michael Sadler. 

This Commission went into the question of secondary education and held the view that the improvement of secondary education was essential for the improvement of University education. 

The Commission made the following important re- commendations:

• (i) The dividing line between the University and Secondary courses should properly be drawn at the Intermediate examination than at the Matriculation Examination.
• (ii) The Government should, therefore, create a new type of institution called the intermediate colleges which would provide for instruction in Arts, Science, Medicine, Engineering and Teaching etc; these colleges were to be run as independent institutions or to be attached to selected high schools.
• (iii) The admission test for universities should be the passing of the Intermediate examination.
• (iv) A Board of Secondary and Intermediate Education, consisting of the representatives of Government, University, High Schools and Intermediate Colleges be established and entrusted with the administration and control of Secondary Education.

• The Sadler Commission Report was a comprehensive one and many of the universities in India implemented its suggestions.
• It was also for the first time that a Commission had recommended the attachment of Intermediate Classes to the high schools and the setting up of a Board of Education to control High School and Intermediate Education.