Advantages And Disadvantages Of Concessions To Indian Democracy

Register to read the introduction… This certainly did not please political activists in India at the time. Muhammad Ali Jinnah resigned from his post in the government and in Source Q we can see he felt that ‘constitutional rights... [have been]... violated’ and the ‘principles of justice have been uprooted’. However it would be in Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s interests to exaggerate in a letter to the Viceroy in an attempt to make him listen through using such strong words. The source also shows the opinion of one man who is educated and can not represent the true feelings of the entire …show more content…
The 1909 Indian Councils Act was not preceded by violence and the Secretary of State for India, John Morley, made a huge number of reforms during his time in power and was the first Secretary of State to actually have visited India and to have listened to the wants of the Indian people. Along with Viceroy Lord Minto he ended all-white rule in India, with both the Viceroy and the Secretary of State employing Indians as their advisors. Source H shows us that there were improvements made such as extending the franchise and increasing the number of elected Indians, however the source was written in 1996 when all but China were independent of British rule and the attitudes towards empires had become more hostile. However it appears that only middle class educated Indians benefitted from this reform and it could be seen as the British attempting to pacify the more educated Indians and to prevent them from spreading the intelligence and awareness of the situation in India, thereby ‘shoring up’ the British