Simon Commission and the Nehru Report, 1927-28

A seven-member commission arrived in India to decide its constitutional future. Not one member was Indian.

This lesson covers the Simon Commission, the protests it triggered, and India’s own constitutional answer, the Nehru Report. It also shows how the report split nationalists in two directions.

1Who sat on the Simon Commission?

The Commission’s makeup defeated its own purpose.

• The British government set up the Commission to review how the 1919 reforms were working.
• It was to recommend the next step for Indian self-government.
• Sir John Simon led it. It had seven members, and all seven were British.
• Not one Indian sat on it. Yet it existed to judge India’s readiness to govern itself.
• Indian politicians across the spectrum read it as an insult, not an inquiry.
• The Commission’s formal report came in 1930. It recommended replacing dyarchy with responsible government in the provinces.
• The Government of India Act, 1935 followed later.

2What happened when it landed?

India answered with a rare joint boycott.

• The Commission landed at Bombay on 3 February 1928. The city was under hartal.
• Black flags lined the streets. Crowds chanted “Simon Go Back”.
• Both the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League called for a total boycott.
• It was a rare moment of united action. Their politics would soon diverge over the Nehru Report.
• Police met protesters with lathis in other cities too.
• At the Lahore demonstration, Jawaharlal Nehru and Govind Ballabh Pant were beaten alongside Lajpat Rai.
• Pant’s injury stayed with him for life. He later became Union Home Minister.
• See Lala Lajpat Rai.

3What did the Nehru Report propose?

Indian leaders chose to answer the Commission with a constitution of their own.

• An All Parties Conference appointed a committee chaired by Motilal Nehru. His son Jawaharlal served as secretary.
• The Nehru Report was finished on 10 August 1928. It was India’s first major constitutional proposal drafted by Indians.
• It called for dominion status and a federal structure with a strong centre.
• It recommended joint electorates instead of separate ones. It also recommended adult suffrage.
• The All Parties Conference at Lucknow reviewed it from 28 to 31 August 1928.
• The report proved Indians could design a serious constitution without waiting for British experts.

4Who rejected the Nehru Report, and why?

It was rejected from two opposite sides.

• The Muslim League rejected the report because it dropped separate electorates for joint ones.
• Jinnah tried to amend it at the All Parties Convention in Calcutta in December 1928.
• He asked for one-third Muslim representation at the centre, reserved Muslim seats in Punjab and Bengal, and residuary powers for the provinces.
• Congress leaders voted his amendments down.
• In March 1929, Jinnah placed fourteen demands before the League Council in Delhi.
• These were Jinnah’s Fourteen Points. Separate electorates topped the list. See The All-India Muslim League.
• Younger Congress radicals rejected the report from the other side. They wanted full independence, not dominion status.
• Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose were among them. In 1928, Jawaharlal co-founded the Independence for India League.
• The dominion-status demand went nowhere. The sequel was the Lahore Congress and the Purna Swaraj Declaration, 1929.

5How did protest turn into assassination?

Lajpat Rai’s death pushed younger revolutionaries to act.

• Lajpat Rai led a silent anti-Commission march in Lahore on 30 October 1928.
• Police struck him during the lathi charge. He died of his injuries on 17 November 1928.
• His death gave the anti-Commission movement a martyr, just as the Nehru Report was being debated.
• Bhagat Singh had helped found the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army in September 1928.
• On 17 December 1928, Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev shot J.P. Saunders in Lahore, in revenge for the lathi charge.
• See Bhagat Singh: Martyr of the Revolutionary Current.
• The HSRA existed before Lajpat Rai’s death. The death turned it toward the Saunders killing.