The Nehru Report
The constitution outlined by the Nehru report was for Indian enjoying dominion status within the British Commonwealth. Some of the important elements of the report–
Unlike the eventual Government of India Act 1935 it contained a Bill of Rights.
All power of government and all authority - legislative, executive and judicial - are derived from the people and the same shall be exercised through organizations established by, or under, and in accord with, this Constitution.
There shall be no state religion; men and women shall have equal rights as citizens.
There should be federal form of government with residuary powers vested in the center.(Some scholars, such as Moore 1988 considered the Nehru Report proposal as essentially unitary rather than federal.);
It included a description of the machinery of government including a proposal for the creation of a Supreme Court and a suggestion that the provinces should be linguistically determined.
It did not provide for separate electorates for any community or weightage for minorities. Both of these were liberally provided in the eventual Government of India Act 1935. However, it did allow for the reservation of minority seats in provinces having a minorities of at least ten percent, but this was to be in strict proportion to the size of the community.
The language of the Commonwealth shall be Indian, which may be written either in Devanagari, Hindi,Telugu, Kannada, Marathi,Gujarati,Bengali, Tamil or in Urdu character. The use of the English language shall be permitted.
Unlike the eventual Government of India Act 1935 it contained a Bill of Rights.
All power of government and all authority - legislative, executive and judicial - are derived from the people and the same shall be exercised through organizations established by, or under, and in accord with, this Constitution.
There shall be no state religion; men and women shall have equal rights as citizens.
There should be federal form of government with residuary powers vested in the center.(Some scholars, such as Moore 1988 considered the Nehru Report proposal as essentially unitary rather than federal.);
It included a description of the machinery of government including a proposal for the creation of a Supreme Court and a suggestion that the provinces should be linguistically determined.
It did not provide for separate electorates for any community or weightage for minorities. Both of these were liberally provided in the eventual Government of India Act 1935. However, it did allow for the reservation of minority seats in provinces having a minorities of at least ten percent, but this was to be in strict proportion to the size of the community.
The language of the Commonwealth shall be Indian, which may be written either in Devanagari, Hindi,Telugu, Kannada, Marathi,Gujarati,Bengali, Tamil or in Urdu character. The use of the English language shall be permitted.
The Nehru Report, along with that of the Simon Commission was available to participants in the three Indian Round Table Conferences 1930-1932. However, the Government of India Act 1935 owes much to the Simon Commission report and little, if anything to the Nehru Report.
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