RAS question
The Cabinet Mission Plan (1946) proposed which constitutional arrangement for India?
Correct answer: (A) A three-tier federal structure with grouped provinces and a weak center.
The Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946 proposed a three-tier constitutional arrangement for India, with a Union, groups of provinces, and provinces, while keeping the Centre limited to defence, foreign affairs, and communications.
Explanation
The Cabinet Mission Plan tried to avoid both a fully unitary India and an immediate partition. The Mission rejected handing power to two separate sovereign states, but it also recognised Muslim League anxieties about Hindu-majority dominance in a strong central government. Its answer was a loose, three-tier design: a Union of India for defence, foreign affairs and communications; provincial groups with their own executives and legislatures; and provinces holding all subjects outside the Union list, including residuary powers. The plan also grouped provinces into Sections A, B and C for constitution-making. That is why option A captures the core constitutional arrangement: federation in form, but with a deliberately weak Centre and grouped provinces.
Why the other options are wrong
- (B) The plan was framed to set up machinery for India to decide its future constitution and an interim government, not to continue British rule for another 20 years.
- (C) The Cabinet Mission dealt with a Union, provinces, provincial groups and a Constituent Assembly; it did not propose direct election of a President of India.
- (D) The Mission explicitly declined to recommend transfer of power to two separate sovereign states, so immediate partition into India and Pakistan was not its proposal.
Concept
This tests the constitutional negotiations of 1946, especially how the Cabinet Mission tried to reconcile unity, provincial autonomy and communal claims. RAS repeats this theme because it links modern Indian history with the making of the Constitution and the politics of Partition.