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.
Identify the Viceroy. Mention any two terms of his plan with reference to the Princely States.
Topic: The Mountbatten Plan
Answer
The Viceroy was Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, and the plan of 3 June 1947 is known as the Mountbatten Plan.
Two terms with reference to the Princely States: (1) The British Government would not grant Dominion Status to any Princely State, and its paramountcy over the States would lapse with the transfer of power. (2) Each Princely State was free to join either India or Pakistan, having regard to its geographical position and the wishes of its people; the States were advised to accede to one of the two Dominions.
Three marks: one for the name and one for each term. Read the question closely — it asks specifically about the PRINCELY STATES, so terms about the partition of Bengal and Punjab or the Boundary Commission, however correct, earn nothing here. The date 3 June 1947 is worth stating, and so is the consequence that paramountcy would lapse rather than be transferred, since that is what left the States technically independent.