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.
Mention any four provisions of the Indian Independence Act of 1947.
Topic: Indian Independence Act 1947
Answer
(1) Two independent Dominions, India and Pakistan, were to come into existence from 15 August 1947, and each was given the right to secede from the Commonwealth. (2) The Constituent Assemblies of the two Dominions were free to frame their own constitutions, and until then each would function as the legislature of its Dominion. (3) The office of the Secretary of State for India was abolished, and British paramountcy over the Princely States lapsed — each State was free to join either Dominion. (4) Until the new constitutions were framed, each Dominion would be governed under the Government of India Act of 1935, and the Governor-General would act as the constitutional head on the advice of the Dominion ministry.
Four marks, four provisions, one mark each. The date 15 August 1947 must appear — it is the provision every examiner looks for. The lapse of paramountcy is the second most important, since it links back to the Princely States in part (i). Note the sequence for context: the Act received royal assent on 18 July 1947 and gave legal effect to the Mountbatten Plan of 3 June. Showing that chain — plan, Act, independence — earns credit for understanding rather than recall.