RAS question
Lord Curzon established the police commission under:
Correct answer: (A) Sir Andrew Fraser (1902-03).
Lord Curzon appointed the Police Commission of 1902-03 under Sir Andrew Fraser to examine the Indian police system.
Explanation
Lord Curzon’s Police Commission was headed by Sir Andrew Fraser in 1902-03. The cited Ministry of Home Affairs report identifies the second Police Commission as the Fraser Commission and notes that it comprehensively examined the Indian Police system in 1902. That matches the question’s frame: Curzon appointed a commission to review and reform policing, and the name attached to that commission was Fraser. In RAS Modern Indian History, this belongs with Curzon’s wider administrative interventions, such as the Partition of Bengal, the University Act and the reorganisation of the ASI, because questions often test which official or commission was linked to each reform.
Why the other options are wrong
- (B) Sir John Simon is associated here with constitutional reforms, not Curzon’s 1902-03 Police Commission.
- (C) Lord Macaulay is linked here with education, so he does not fit a police reform commission under Curzon.
- (D) Lord Hunter is linked here with the Jallianwala Bagh inquiry, not the Police Commission of 1902-03.
Concept
This tests Curzon-era administrative reforms and the commission-chairperson pairing. It recurs in RAS because Modern Indian History often asks candidates to match colonial reforms with the officials or committees behind them.