In the event, the review was conducted ahead of time by the Simon Commission, whose report proposed the scrapping of diarchy, and the introduction of a much larger degree of responsible government in the provinces.

This proposal was controversial in Britain, demonstrating the rapidly widening gulf between British and Indian opinions as to the desirability, extent, and speed of progress towards, the promised system of self-government contained in the 1919 Act's preamble.

Although the Simon Commission had taken evidence in India, it had met with opposition there, and its conclusions weren't accepted by Congress (the largest political party).

In an attempt to involve Indians more fully in working out a new constitutional framework, a series of Round Table Conferences were then held in the early 1930s, attended at times by representatives from India's main political parties, as well as from the princely states.

The agreement was reached in principle that a federal system of government should be introduced, comprising the provinces of British India and those princely states that were willing to accede to it.

However, the division between Congress and Muslim representatives proved to be a major factor in preventing agreement on much of the important detail of how federation would work in practice.

[1] A joint parliamentary select committee, chaired by Lord Linlithgow, reviewed the white paper proposals for a year and a half between April 1933 and November 1934, amidst much opposition from Winston Churchill and other backbench Conservatives.

The House of Commons approved the Joint Select Committee report in December after an emollient speech by Conservative leader Stanley Baldwin, who stated that he respected the principled position of the bill's opponents and that he did not wish feelings in his own party to become permanently embittered.

A significant element in British political circles doubted that Indians were capable of running their country on this basis, and saw Dominion status as something that might, perhaps, be aimed for after a long period of gradual constitutional development, with sufficient "safeguards".

However, in the case of the proposed federation of India, there was a further complication in incorporating such a set of rights, as the new entity would have included nominally sovereign (and generally autocratic) princely states.

'Given the enormous powers and responsibilities which the Governor-General must exercise his discretion or according to his individual judgment, it is obvious that he (the Viceroy) is expected to be a kind of Superman.

This speech reflected the point of view of the die-hard Tories who were horrified by the prospect that someday there might be a Viceroy appointed by a Labour government.'

A close reading of the Act[6] reveals that the British government equipped itself with the legal instruments to take back total control at any time they considered this to be desirable.

But the reality is lacking, for the powers in defence and external affairs necessarily, as matters stand, given to the governor-general limit vitally the scope of ministerial activity, and the measure of representation given to the rulers of the Indian States negatives any possibility of even the beginnings of democratic control.

It will be a matter of the utmost interest to watch the development of a form of government so unique; certainly, if it operates successfully, the highest credit will be due to the political capacity of Indian leaders, who have infinitely more serious difficulties to face than had the colonial statesmen who evolved the system of self-government which has now culminated in Dominion status.

These various meetings – and in due course G. D. [Birla], before his return in September, met virtually everyone of importance in Anglo-Indian affairs – confirmed G.D.'s original opinion that the differences between the two countries were largely psychological, the same proposals open to opposed interpretations.

He had not, probably, taken in before his visit how considerable, in the eyes of British conservatives, the concessions had been… If nothing else, successive conversations made clear to G.D. that the agents of the Bill had at least as heavy odds against them at home as they had in India.

[9]From the moment of the Montagu statement of 1917, the reform process needed to stay ahead of the curve if the British were to hold the strategic initiative.

Thus the grudging conditional concessions of power in the Acts of 1919 and 1935 caused more resentment and significantly failed to win the Raj the backing of influential groups in India which is desperately needed.

The funding for the British responsibilities and foreign obligations (e.g. loan repayments, pensions), at least 80 per cent of the federal expenditures, would be non-votable and be taken off the top before any claims could be considered for (for example) social or economic development programs.

The Viceroy, under the supervision of the Secretary of State for India, was provided with overriding and certifying powers that could, theoretically, have allowed him to rule autocratically.

Autocracy was "a principle which is firmly seated in the Indian States," he pointed out; "round it burn the sacred fires of an age-long tradition," and it should be given a fair chance first.

Autocratic rule, "informed by wisdom, exercised in moderation and vitalized by a spirit of service to the interests of the subject, may well prove that it can make an appeal in India as strong as that of representative and responsible institutions."

This spirited defence brings to mind Nehru's classic paradox of how the representatives of the advanced, dynamic West allied themselves with the most reactionary forces of the backward, stagnant East.

'[9]'I don't believe that… it is impossible to present the problem in such a form as would make the shop window look respectable from an Indian point of view, which is really what they care about while keeping your hand pretty firmly on the things that matter.

(Speech by Mr Bhulabhai DESAI on the Report of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Indian Constitutional Reform, 4 February 1935)[14]However, the Liberals and even elements in the Congress were tepidly willing to give it a go: "Linlithgow asked Sapru whether he thought there was a satisfactory alternative to the scheme of the 1935 Act.

Gandhi was not over-worried, said Birla, by the reservation of defence and external affairs to the centre, but was concentrating on the method of choosing the States' representatives.

When the bill passed, he denounced it in the House of Commons as "a gigantic quilt of jumbled crochet work, a monstrous monument of shame built by pygmies".