SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The thesis consists of a preliminary examination of the development of Indian politics in the mid-1930s, especially their reaction to the Government of India Act, 1935, the consequent provincial elections of 1937. The period has recently been opened to research through the availability of official records and private and party papers in India and England. Newspapers and secondary sources have also been used. Chapter 1 looks at the way in which British policy towards the elections and electoral arrangements formulated, and at whether there were specific attempts to influence their outcome. Working from an ideal type of a nationalist party as a bourgeois-led consensus movement, chapter 2 analyses the composition of the Indian National Congress and other parties, their relations to other political and social structures, their policies, their relations with each other, and the effect on them of contesting elections. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between Congress and communal groups. The themes of the previous chapter are developed in chapter 3 by focussing on the election campaign as a time when existing problems had to be resolved and new ones were created. Chapter 4 presents the results of a study of the socio-economic and political backgrounds of the successful candidates. This supplements the conclusions reached in the previous two chapters. Chapter 5 attempts to present the election results as fully and as accurately as possible.