The Motilal Nehru Report 1928 was a report by a committee headed by Pt. Motilal Nehru. This committee was created when Lord Birkenhead, Secretary of State of India asked the Indian leaders to draft a constitution for the country. The report, which demanded a Dominion Status for India was considered by the Congress.
Background
in its annual session of 1928 held at Calcutta. While Jawahar Lal Nehru and Subhash Chandra Bose were in favour of complete swaraj, most of leaders were satisfied with the dominion status for the time being.
At the annual session of the Congress in Madras in December 1927, a resolution was passed which advocated the boycott of the Simon Commission “at every stage and in every form“. Other factions of the politicians also joined the suit.
On February 3, 1928 a complete Hartal was observed in Mumbai on the day when Simon Commission landed in Bombay. Wherever the commission goes, people came out in processions and show him “Simon Go Back”.
But the commission had to do its duty. It visited twice in 1928 and 1929 and finally submitted its report in May 1930.
But, it was not to be accepted by the Indian Leaders. The secretary of state for India was Lord Birkenhead, who threw a challenge to these congressmen to prepare a draft of constitution of India. The political leaders accepted the challenge and this was followed by a call for All party conference in February and May 1928.
The outcome of the All Parties Conference was that a committee was appointed under the Chairman ship of Motilal Nehru, to draft the proposed constitution. Jawaharlal Nehru was secretary of the committee and Ali Imam, Tej Bahadur Sapru, M.S. Aney, Mangal Singh, Shuaib Qureshi, Subhas Chandra Bose and G. R. Pradhan were its members.
The committee prepared a draft constitution called
The draft constitution was prepared which was called “Nehru Committee Report“. This report was submitted on August 28, 1928 at the Lucknow conference of all the parties. But Jinnah Voted against this report.
Key Points of Nehru Report
The main points of the Nehru report were as follows:
- India would be given Dominion status. This means independence within the British Commonwealth.
- India will be a federation which shall have a bicameral legislature at the centre and Ministry would be responsible to the legislature.
- Governor General of India would be the constitutional head of India and will have the same powers as that of British Crown.
- There will be no separate electorate.
- The draft report also defined the citizenship and fundamental rights.
The novel features of the Nehru Committee Report were almost accepted by the Indian leaders. The next session of the Congress was held in Calcutta in December 1928. In this session, the Nehru Report was accepted by a majority vote. The congress gave an ultimatum to the British Government to accept the recommendation of the report by December 31, 1929, and also threatened for another mass movement in case the report is not accepted. The report was not accepted by the Government.
Was Nehru Report a Reversal of Lucknow Pact?
Yes. The Motilal Nehru Committee Report, published in 1928 recommended reservation of seats for Muslims only in provinces where they were in a minority. The report proposed to abolish separate electorates, to discard reservation of seats for Muslim majorities in the Punjab and Bengal and to reject the principle of weightage for Muslim minorities. This was a reversal of the Lucknow Pact. The Nehru Report asked for a political status of India as a dominion, which should be the same as that of British dominions like Canada, south Africa. It asked for a similar reservation for Hindus in NWFP. The provinces of Sindh and Karnataka shall be separate any further reorganization of proposed report was good but not practical. The joint and mixed concept was practically unacceptable for the Muslim league.