Provincial Autonomy 1937: Elections, Congress Ministries and the 1939 Resignation

Provincial Autonomy Under the Government of India Act, 1935

How Provincial Autonomy Replaced Dyarchy

Dyarchy, introduced in the provinces by the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms, divided provincial subjects into two lists. Reserved subjects were run by the Governor through his executive council, and transferred subjects were run by ministers drawn from the legislative council. Indian ministers therefore controlled only part of the administration, and the experiment proved unsatisfactory because, even in the areas given to them, the purse strings remained in British hands.

The 1935 Act abolished that division in the provinces. All provincial portfolios were placed in charge of ministers who had the support of the legislature, headed by a premier. Ministers could be removed by an adverse vote of the legislature. Provinces also gained a separate legal identity: They were freed from the superintendence and direction of the Secretary of State and the Governor-General, and drew their authority directly from the Crown. They received independent financial powers and resources, and a provincial government could borrow money on its own security. The provincial legislature could legislate on the provincial and concurrent lists.

Governor's Special Responsibilities and Reserve Powers

The brake on this autonomy was the Governor. The Governor was the Crown's nominee and representative in the province. He was expected to accept the advice of his ministers, unless in his view the advice affected his statutory special responsibilities, such as preventing any grave menace to the peace or tranquillity of the province and safeguarding the legitimate interests of minorities.

The list of special powers was long. It covered minorities, the rights of civil servants, law and order, British business interests, partially excluded areas and princely states. The Governor could refuse assent to a bill, promulgate ordinances and enact Governor's Acts. About 40 per cent of the provincial budget was not votable. In the event of a political breakdown, the Governor, under the supervision of the Viceroy, could take over the administration of the province and run it indefinitely.

These powers explain the Congress's hesitation in 1937. The Governors kept a reserve of authority that the ministers could not touch, and the fear was that a Congress minister would carry responsibility without the power to act on it.

Legislatures, Franchise and Separate Electorates

Elections were held in 11 provinces: Madras, Bombay, Bengal, the United Provinces, Bihar, the Central Provinces, Assam, Orissa, the North-West Frontier Province, Punjab and Sind. Six of them had a second chamber, a legislative council: Assam, Bengal, Bihar, Bombay, Madras and the United Provinces. The other five had a single Legislative Assembly. Not every seat was elected: In Orissa, for example, 56 of the 60 seats were filled by direct election and four members were nominated by the Governor.

The franchise was wider than before but still narrow. No more than 10 to 15 per cent of the adult population could vote, and the qualification rested on property, which favoured landholders and richer farmers. The Congress had demanded a Constituent Assembly elected by adult franchise and rejected the Act as a whole.

Separate electorates, already given to Muslims, Sikhs and Europeans, were extended under the Communal Award to Christians, Backward Tribes, women and special interests such as commerce, labour, landholders and universities. An attempt to create a separate electorate for Dalits was put off by the Poona Pact, under which certain Hindu seats were reserved for Dalits as multi-member constituencies. This extension shaped how the Muslim League and the Congress fought the 1937 elections.

Why Nationalists Called the Act a Machine Without an Engine

The Act was condemned by nearly all sections of nationalist opinion and unanimously rejected by the Congress. Nehru described it as a machine with strong brakes but no engine. The British case was different. They saw provincial autonomy as a long-term strategy: Suppression could only be a short-term tactic, and giving Congressmen the taste of office might make them reluctant to return to the politics of sacrifice. Provincial autonomy would also create powerful provincial leaders and so loosen the hold of the central leadership.

The federal part of the Act never took effect, because the rulers of the princely states would not agree to enter the federation. The provincial part took effect on its own in 1937, so provincial autonomy worked beneath a Centre that stayed in British hands and never became the federation the Act had planned.

Congress Strategy Before the 1937 Elections

The Office Acceptance Debate

Everyone in the Congress agreed that the Act had to be opposed. The disagreement was about how to oppose it in a period when a mass movement was not yet possible, and above all about whether to form governments or stay out if the Congress won a majority. The two sides were soon identified with the emerging left and right of the party.

Office acceptance was the proposal to form ministries under the Act after winning the elections. Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Bose, the Congress socialists and the communists opposed it. They argued that taking office under the Act would negate the Congress's rejection of it, that it would be responsibility without power, and that constitutional work would sidetrack the main issues of freedom, economic and social justice and the removal of poverty. As a counter-strategy the left proposed entering the councils only to create deadlocks, the older Swarajist method.

The supporters of office were equally committed to fighting the Act. They argued that work in the legislatures was a short-term tactic, because a mass movement was not available at the time and mass struggle alone could win independence. Office acceptance was a question of tactics, not of principle. The administrative field should not be left to pro-government reactionary forces, and even with limited powers the ministries could promote constructive work.

Gandhi opposed office acceptance in the Working Committee meetings, but by the beginning of 1936 he was willing to give Congress ministries a trial.

Lucknow, Faizpur and Haripura

Three Congress sessions frame the period. At Lucknow in early 1936, with Jawaharlal Nehru as President, and at Faizpur on 27 and 28 December 1936, the Congress decided to fight the elections and to postpone the decision on office acceptance to the post-election phase. Faizpur was the first Congress session held in a village. The Haripura session of 19 to 22 February 1938, held under the presidency of Subhas Bose, came in the middle of the ministries' life and accepted the Wardha scheme of education.

The Congress Election Manifesto

The Congress election manifesto reaffirmed total rejection of the 1935 Act. It promised the release of political prisoners, the removal of disabilities based on gender and caste, a radical transformation of the agrarian system, substantial reduction of rent and revenue, scaling down of rural debts, cheap credit, and the right to form trade unions and to strike. The agrarian policy was strongly influenced by the agenda of the All India Kisan Sabha, founded at Lucknow in April 1936.

The campaign was run province by province. Gandhi did not attend a single election meeting, and the party worked as a federation of its provincial units, in which factionalism was rife.

1937 Provincial Elections: Results by Province

Election Arithmetic and the Congress Sweep

Polling for the Legislative Assemblies of the 11 provinces ran from 18 January to 20 February 1937, with each province voting on its own dates, and the final results were declared on 20 February 1937. The Congress won 706 of the 1,586 seats. Counted province by province, it won an absolute majority on its own in five of the 11: Madras, Bihar, the United Provinces, the Central Provinces and Orissa. In Bombay it stood just short of half the seats, and it was the largest single party in Bengal and Assam. In Punjab and Sind it won few seats.

In the Hindu-majority provinces the Congress drew support from across provincial identities, castes and the rural-urban divide. In Sind, Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province, where Hindus were in a minority, its support was mostly restricted to urban areas.

Muslim League, Unionists and Regional Parties

The Muslim League performed badly. It won 111 of the 468 seats reserved for Muslims, roughly one in four, and formed no government on its own in any province. The Congress won only 25 Muslim seats, mostly in the North-West Frontier Province, Madras and Bihar. The elections therefore showed that neither the Congress nor the League represented Muslims as a whole, and that Muslim politics was still provincial. Most Muslim seats went to regional Muslim parties.

Two regional parties mattered most. In Punjab the Unionist Party, which campaigned on the urban-rural divide and the Land Alienation Act and drew peasants across religious lines, won 94 of the 175 seats against two for the League. Its leader, Sikandar Hayat Khan, was sworn in as Premier on 5 April 1937, with the support of the Khalsa National Party and the Hindu Election Board, and he remained Premier until 1942.

In Bengal the Krishak Praja Party, a tenant party whose campaign was the abolition of the zamindari system, won 36 seats. Its leader, A. K. Fazlul Huq, formed a coalition government with the support of Khawaja Nazimuddin of the Muslim League and independent Dalit members, and was sworn in on 1 April 1937.

In October 1937, at Lucknow, Sikandar Hayat Khan and Jinnah signed the Jinnah-Sikandar Pact, under which the Muslim members of the Unionist Party joined the All India Muslim League, while the Unionist Party itself went on governing Punjab.

Interim Ministries and the Assurance on Governors' Powers

The Congress refused at first to form governments in the provinces it had won, because the Act let the Governor overrule ministers and control finances. Governors therefore swore in ministries drawn from smaller parties on 1 April 1937, among them the ministries of Dhanjishah Cooper of the Non-Brahmin Party in Bombay and of Maharaja Krushna Chandra Gajapati of Paralakhemudi in Orissa. In the United Provinces the Nawab of Chhatari of the National Agriculturist Party was sworn in on 3 April.

S. Satyamurti then campaigned inside the Congress and persuaded Gandhi to direct Congress leaders to accept premierships. On 22 June 1937 Viceroy Lord Linlithgow issued a statement declaring the willingness of the British administration to work alongside the Congress within the ambit of the 1935 Act. On 1 July 1937 the Congress Working Committee formally decided to form governments. The interim ministries then gave way to Congress ministries in the weeks that followed.

The Congress Ministries of 1937 to 1939

Formation: Provinces and Premiers

Congress ministries were formed in Bombay, Madras, the Central Provinces, Orissa, the United Provinces and Bihar, and later in the North-West Frontier Province and Assam. Eight of the 11 provinces eventually had a Congress premier working under the supervision of a British Governor.

The Congress held seven provinces from late 1937 and eight from 1938, when it took office in Assam, which is why both numbers appear in accounts of the period.

Gandhi's Advice on Holding Office

Gandhi told Congressmen to hold office lightly, not tightly. He called the offices crowns of thorns, to be accepted only to see whether they quickened the march to the nationalist goal. They were to be used in a way the British had neither expected nor intended. He urged Congressmen to prove that the Congress could rule with the least assistance from the police and the army.

There was great enthusiasm among the people, and the prestige of the Congress rose because it had shown that it could use state power for the people's benefit.

Civil Liberties and Administration

The first acts of the ministries concerned liberty. Laws giving emergency powers were repealed. The ban on illegal organisations such as the Hindustan Seva Dal and the youth leagues, and on certain books and journals, was lifted, and press restrictions were removed. Newspapers were taken off black lists. Confiscated arms and arms licences were restored, police powers were curbed, and the CID stopped shadowing politicians. Political prisoners and revolutionaries were released, and deportation and internment orders were revoked. In Bombay, lands confiscated during the civil disobedience movement were restored, and pensions of officials who had been associated with the movement were restored too.

Agrarian Legislation and Peasant Movements

A complete overhaul of the agrarian structure, ending the zamindari system, was beyond the ministries. They lacked adequate powers and money, since the Government of India took a lion's share of revenue. Zamindars had to be conciliated and neutralised, the second chambers in the United Provinces, Bihar, Bombay, Madras and Assam were dominated by landlords, moneylenders and capitalists whose support was needed for legislation, and the agrarian structure itself was complex. The threat of war had also grown by 1938.

Within these limits, the ministries passed a number of laws on land reforms, debt relief, forest grazing fees, arrears of rent and land tenures. Most of the benefits went to statutory and occupancy tenants, sub-tenants gained little, and agricultural labourers did not benefit, because they had not been mobilised.

The period 1937 to 1939 was also the high point of peasant activity under Congress provincial rule, with kisan conferences and meetings through which demands were aired. In Malabar, for example, the peasants campaigned in 1938 for the amendment of the Malabar Tenancy Act of 1929. The Kisan Sabha sometimes fell out with the Congress, as in Bihar over bakasht land, which zamindars had taken back from tenants into their own cultivation.

Labour Policy and Trade Unions

The basic approach to labour was to advance workers' interests while promoting industrial peace. The ministries sought to reduce strikes as far as possible and advocated compulsory arbitration before a strike, using the established conciliation machinery. They tried to create goodwill between labour and capital through mediation and also worked to improve conditions and secure wage increases.

The All India Trade Union Congress had supported Congress candidates in 1937, and the ministries were generally sympathetic to workers' demands. Many laws favourable to workers were passed. Yet militant trade union protests were treated as law and order problems, and the ministries often took recourse to Section 144 and arrested leaders. Nehru was unhappy about these measures, but in public he supported the ministries.

Education, Social Welfare and Economic Planning

Social welfare reforms covered several fields. Prohibition was imposed in certain areas. Welfare measures for Harijans included temple entry, use of public facilities, scholarships and more posts in government service and the police. The ministries paid attention to primary, technical and higher education, to public health and sanitation, to khadi through subsidies and other measures, and to prison reform. Indigenous enterprises were encouraged.

The best-known educational experiment was the Wardha scheme of Basic Education. A national education conference met at Wardha on 22 and 23 October 1937 under Gandhi's guidance. The conference appointed a committee under Zakir Husain, which submitted its report in December 1937.

Based on Gandhi's articles in the weekly Harijan, the scheme rested on learning through activity, with a basic handicraft at the centre of the syllabus. It proposed free and compulsory education for the first seven years, through the mother tongue. The Congress accepted the scheme at Haripura in 1938 and set up an all-India education board to implement it, the Hindustani Talimi Sangh. The Muslim League opposed it, and it did not develop much, because the war began and the ministries resigned in October and November 1939.

The Congress also turned to economic planning. In 1938 the Congress President, Subhas Bose, set up a National Planning Committee with Jawaharlal Nehru as chairman.

Outside the legislatures the Congress ran mass literacy campaigns, set up Congress police stations and panchayats, and organised Congress grievance committees that presented mass petitions to the government. It also supported the movements of the people of the princely states.

Limits, Criticism and Communal Tension

Civil Liberties Blemishes and Structural Limits

The record on liberty was not spotless. The Madras government arrested Yusuf Meherally, a socialist, for inflammatory speeches, and later released him. It also arrested S. S. Batliwala, a socialist, for a seditious speech and gave him a six-month sentence. K. M. Munshi, the Home Minister of Bombay, used the CID against communists and leftists. By 1939 internal strife, opportunism and hunger for power had started to show among Congressmen.

The deeper limits were structural. Working inside the colonial system, the ministries could not change its imperialist character or introduce a radical era, and the shortage of powers and money that held back agrarian reform held back every other field too. Since Congress politics rested on confrontation with colonialism, not cooperation, the ministries were never meant to last long.

Muslim League Charges: Pirpur Report and the UP Coalition

In 1938 and 1939 the Muslim League tried to bring the grievances of Muslims in provinces run by Congress governments to public attention. The effort produced documents such as the Pirpur Report of 1938, Fazlul Huq's pamphlet Muslim sufferings under the Congress rule, and the Sharif Report of 1938, which alleged pro-Hindu and anti-Muslim bias under Congress governments.

The charges were contested, and the ministries were able to control communal riots. Nehru exchanged letters with Jinnah between 9 and 14 December 1939, offering to deal with specific allegations. The talks fell through because Nehru would not accept the League as the sole representative of Indian Muslims. Nehru concluded that the two sides differed on purely political grounds.

A further grievance concerned the United Provinces. The Congress had won 133 of 228 seats there, and the League had won 27 of the Muslim seats. The Congress refused to form a coalition with the League, even though the two parties had a verbal understanding to do so, and offered the League a role in government only if it merged itself into the Congress Party. The refusal had a basis in Congress policy, but it proved to be a mistake.

Resignation of the Congress Ministries in 1939

The War Declaration of 3 September 1939

The Second World War began on 1 September 1939 when Germany attacked Poland. On 3 September 1939 the Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, declared India at war with Germany. Though constitutionally correct, the declaration offended Indian opinion, because the Viceroy had not consulted the elected representatives of the Indian people on a decision of such weight.

The Congress was hostile to fascism, Nazism and imperialism alike. It offered cooperation on two conditions. A Constituent Assembly should be convened after the war to decide the political structure of free India, and some form of genuinely responsible government should be set up at the Centre immediately.

The Debate Within the Congress and the Viceroy's Reply

The Working Committee met at Wardha from 10 to 14 September 1939 and heard different views. Gandhi advocated unconditional support to the Allied powers, because he distinguished between the democracies of Western Europe and the totalitarian Nazis. Subhas Bose and the socialists argued that the war was imperialist, since both sides fought to gain or defend colonial territories, so the question of supporting either side did not arise.

The Viceroy rejected the Congress offer. On 17 October 1939 he stated the Allied objectives in the war and announced that at the end of the war the government would consult the several communities, parties and interests in India. The Congress called the statement wholly unsatisfactory and calculated to rouse resentment among all who wanted India's independence. It rejected the war policy, refused to support the war, and called upon the Congress ministries to resign.

The ministries of Bombay, Madras and Bihar resigned between 27 and 31 October, the ministry of the United Provinces on 3 November, Orissa on 5 November and the Central Provinces on 9 November, and the ministries of the North-West Frontier Province and Assam also left office in November 1939. Nehru backed the resignations. Gandhi was less sure, since he feared they would strengthen the League and give the British full freedom to militarise India throughout the war.

Common Misreadings About the 1939 Resignation

Two wrong explanations of the resignations are common. The first holds that a left wing in the Congress made the ministries unworkable, but the Working Committee's call to resign followed the war declaration and the Viceroy's reply on war aims. The second holds that communal disturbances forced the ministries out, but the ministries were able to control communal riots, and the Congress resolution named the war policy as the cause. The cause was a political one: The Viceroy committed India to a world war without asking the people's representatives.

Day of Deliverance, 22 December 1939

The League promised support to the British, and Jinnah called on Muslims to help the Raj by honourable cooperation at a critical juncture. After the Congress ministries resigned, on 2 December 1939 Jinnah appealed to Muslims to observe Friday, 22 December 1939 as a Day of Deliverance and thanksgiving, as a mark of relief that the Congress regime had ceased to function. Provincial, district and primary Leagues were asked to hold public meetings after the Friday prayers.

Gandhi appealed to Jinnah on 9 December to end the observance in view of pending unity discussions and a possible third-party review of the League's allegations. Abul Kalam Azad, a Muslim leader of the Congress, criticised it. Some non-Muslim opponents of the Congress joined it, among them B. R. Ambedkar's Independent Labour Party, Periyar, and some Parsis and Anglo-Indians. Jinnah and Ambedkar jointly addressed a large meeting at Bhindi Bazaar in Bombay.

On 24 March 1940 the League passed the Lahore (Pakistan) Resolution, which demanded that the Muslim-majority areas in the north-west and east of India be grouped into independent states. The war years that followed brought the August Offer, individual satyagraha and the Cripps Mission.

Significance of Provincial Autonomy for the National Movement and Partition

What the Ministries Proved to Indians and to the British

The 28 months of Congress rule confirmed the contention that Indian self-government was necessary for radical social change. Congressmen demonstrated that a movement could use state power to further its ends without being co-opted by the colonial state. Council work helped neutralise many hostile elements such as landlords, and the morale of the bureaucracy came down. The administrative work of Indians weakened the myth that Indians were unfit to rule, and the people got a glimpse of the shape of things to come if independence were won.

The British strategy partly failed. They had expected provincial autonomy to split the Congress into a series of provincial fiefdoms, but the Congress High Command was able to control the provincial ministries and to force their resignation in 1939. The record of the ministries showed the strength and cohesion of the Congress.

Effect on Muslim Politics and the Road to Partition

The elections showed the League's weakness and the strength of regional Muslim parties. After the League's poor performance in 1937, communalism was organised as a mass movement among the middle and upper classes. From 1937 to 1939 Jinnah pressed the demand that the Congress should declare itself a Hindu organisation and recognise the League as the sole representative of Indian Muslims. By March 1940 the contest had become a three-way struggle between the Congress, the Muslim League and the British, not a contest between Indians and the British alone.

From Provincial Autonomy to the Constitution of India

The Government of India Act, 1935, influenced the Constitution of India. The Act had provided for a Federal Court, for public service commissions at provincial and federal levels, and for three lists of legislative subjects, and at independence, with relatively few amendments, it became the interim constitution of India and Pakistan. The Constituent Assembly did not start from nothing: Provincial ministers had worked a parliamentary system for 28 months, and the Act supplied the model of governors, ministers answerable to legislatures and legislative lists.

The Assembly also went beyond the Act. The earlier constitutional changes were enacted by the colonial government and were not directly debated by Indians, the Act had no bill of rights, and its federal plan never worked. These gaps left the Assembly a large area of original work.

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• NCERT: Class 12 Themes in Indian History Part III, Chapter 4
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