The plan of Sir Stafford Cripps envisaged that after the Second World War
- India should be granted complete independence
- India should be partitioned into two before granting independence
- India should be made a republic with the condition that she will join the Commonwealth
- India should be given Dominion status
Explanation
Option (d) is correct
- To gain India’s cooperation in the War, the British Government, headed by Conservative Prime Minister Winston, sent a mission headed by a cabinet minister, Sir Stafford Cripps, to India in March 1942.
- Some of the Cripps proposals, embodied in a Draft Declaration, were:
- Immediately after the war, an Indian union with dominion status would be established, with the right to secede from the Commonwealth.
- Any Indian province could stay outside the Indian Union and directly negotiate with Britain.
- The princely states that did not wish to accede to India could continue in their pre-existing relations with the British crown.
- After the war, a constituent assembly would be set up. The members would be elected by the provincial assemblies and nominated by the rulers in the case of the princely states.
- In the meantime, the actual control of defence and military operations would be retained by the British Government.
- The proposals also promised the protection of minorities. The British government would accept the new constitution subject to two conditions:
- Any province unwilling to join the Union could have a separate constitution and form a separate Union.
- The constitution-making body and the British government would engage in negotiations to draft a treaty that would effect the transfer of power and protect the rights of racial and religious minorities.
- Almost all the Indian parties rejected this Declaration.
- Pandit Nehru and Maulana Azad were the official Congress negotiators with Cripps Mission.
- Mahatma Gandhi called the proposal a post-dated cheque on a tottering bank
