Indian general election, 1923

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Indian general election, 1923
British Raj Red Ensign.svg
  1920 1923 1926  

145 seats contested

 First partySecond party
  Motilal nehru.jpg No image.svg
Leader Motilal Nehru H. N. Kunzru
Party SP ILP
Seats won3827
Emblem of India.svg
This article is part of a series on the
politics and government of
India

General elections were held in British India in November 1923 for both the Central Legislative Assembly and Provincial Assemblies. The Central Legislative Assembly had 145 seats, of which 105 were elected by the public. [1] [2]

British Raj British rule in the Indian subcontinent, 1858–1947

The British Raj was the rule by the British Crown in the Indian subcontinent from 1858 to 1947. The rule is also called Crown rule in India, or direct rule in India. The region under British control was commonly called British India or simply India in contemporaneous usage, and included areas directly administered by the United Kingdom, which were collectively called British India, and those ruled by indigenous rulers, but under British tutelage or paramountcy, and called the princely states. The whole was also informally called the Indian Empire. As India, it was a founding member of the League of Nations, a participating nation in the Summer Olympics in 1900, 1920, 1928, 1932, and 1936, and a founding member of the United Nations in San Francisco in 1945.

Central Legislative Assembly the lower house of the Imperial Legislative Council

The Central Legislative Assembly was the lower house of the Imperial Legislative Council, the legislature of British India. It was created by the Government of India Act 1919, implementing the Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms. It was also sometimes called the Indian Legislative Assembly and the Imperial Legislative Assembly. The Council of States was the upper house of the legislature for India.

Contents

The Assembly was opened on 21 January 1924 by Viceroy Lord Reading. [3]

Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading British politician

Rufus Daniel Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading, was a British Liberal politician and judge, who served as Lord Chief Justice of England, Viceroy of India, and Foreign Secretary, the last Liberal to hold that post. The second practising Jew to be a member of the British cabinet, Isaacs was the first Jew to be Lord Chief Justice, and the first, and as yet only, British Jew to be raised to a marquessate.

Results

Legislative Assembly

GroupingSeats
Swaraj Party 38
Indian Liberal Party 27
Independents7
Loyalists6
Brahmins3
Gurdwara Sikhs2
Liberals2
Unknown allegiance20
Appointed members40
Total145
Source: The Times [4]

Provincial Assemblies

Results in provincial assemblies Indian Provincial Election 1923.svg
Results in provincial assemblies
ProvinceAnti-Ministerialists Justice Party Swaraj Party OthersIndependentsAppointedUnfilled seats [a] Total
Assam 1439053
Bengal 49873139
Bihar and Orissa 12829103
Central Provinces 5019069
Bombay 32727111
Madras 37441160280127
Punjab 2865093
United Provinces 38841123
Source: The Times, [5] Saroja Sundararajan [6]

a Seats that were unfilled as of 1 January 1924

Members of Central Legislative Assembly

[2] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]

Officials

William Malcolm Hailey, 1st Baron Hailey, known as Sir Malcolm Hailey between 1921 and 1936, was a British peer and administrator in British India.

Charles Alexander Innes British governor of Burma

Sir Charles Alexander Innes was a British civil servant and colonial administrator who served as Governor of the British Crown Colony of Burma from December 1927 to December 1932. He was also formerly chairman of the Mercantile Bank of India.

Sir Atul Chandra Chatterjee was an Indian diplomat and government official who served as the Indian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom from 1925 to 1931 and was member of the governing body of the League of Nations Assembly in 1925 and 1946.

Nominated Non-Officials

P. S. Sivaswami Iyer lawyer, administrator and statesman

Sir Pazhamaneri Sundaram Sivaswami Iyer, KCSI, CIE was a prominent lawyer, administrator and statesman who served as the Advocate General of Madras from 1907 to 1911.

Khan Bahadur Sahibzada Sir Abdul Qayyum Khan KCIE, hailing from Topi, Swabi District, British India was a distinguished educationist and politician. He became the first Chief Minister of the North-West Frontier Province on 1 April 1937. He is also known for establishing the Islamia College, Peshawar on the mould of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan's policy of educating Muslims.

Sir Henry Albert John Gidney FRSE MID was a leader of the Anglo-Indian community of the British Raj for 20 years.

Elected Non-Officials

Bipin Chandra Pal Indian academic and politician

Bipin Chandra Pal was an Indian nationalist, a freedom fighter, writer, orator and social reformer of Sylheti origin. He was one of the main architects of the Swadeshi movement. He stood against the partition of Bengal.

Kumar Sankar Ray was born in 1882 and was a scion of the zamindar family of Teota. Although initially trained as a barrister he never took up law as his profession. Instead, he entered politics as part of the Swarajya Party, founded by Chittaranjan Das and was elected to the Central Legislative Assembly on a Congress ticket. He was a member of the Council of State until his death in 1944. He was an elder cousin to the nationalist leader Kiran Sankar Roy.

Nilakantha Das Indian activist

Nilakantha Das was an orator, politician and social reformer born in the village Sri Ramchandrapur of Puri district, Bengal Presidency, British India. He was awarded an M. Phil. by the University of Calcutta. He denied a lucrative job under the British Raj and worked as a headmaster of Satyabadi High School. His speeches inspired the youth generation to fight against untouchability and other social evils.

Related Research Articles

Constituent Assembly of India

The Constituent Assembly of India was elected to write the Constitution of India. Following India's independence from Great Britain in 1947, its members served as the nation's first Parliament.

The three Round Table Conferences of 1930–32 were a series of peace conferences organized by the British Government and Indian national congress was participant to discuss constitutional reforms in India. These started in November 1930 and ended in December 1932. They were conducted as per the recommendation of Jinnah to Viceroy Lord Irwin and Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, and by the report submitted by the Simon Commission in May 1930. Demands for Swaraj, or self-rule, in India had been growing increasingly strong. Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Mahatma Gandhi, Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, Srinivasa, Sir Muhammad Zafrulla Khan and Mirabehn are key participants from India. By the 1930s, many British politicians believed that India needed to move towards dominion status. However, there were significant disagreements between the Indian and the British political parties that the Conferences would not resolve. The key topic was about constitution and India which was mainly discussed in that conference.There were three Round Table Conferences,(1930-1932).

Rai Bahadur, abbreviated R.B., was a title of honour bestowed during British rule in India to individuals for their service to the Empire. The title was accompanied by a medal called a Title Badge. Translated, Rao means "prince", and Bahadur means "brave" or "most honourable". The equivalent title for Muslim and Parsi subjects was Khan Bahadur. For Sikhs it was Sardar Bahadur.

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The Imperial Legislative Council was a legislature for British India from 1861 to 1947. It succeeded the Council of the Governor-General of India, and was succeeded by the Constituent Assembly of India and after 1950, was succeeded by Parliament of India.

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General elections were held in British India in 1934. The Indian National Congress emerged as the largest party in the Central Legislative Assembly.

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General elections were held in British India in 1920 to elect members to the Imperial Legislative Council and the Provincial Councils. They were the first elections in the country's modern history.

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General elections were held in British India between 28 October and late November 1926 to elect members of the Imperial Legislative Council and the Provincial Legislative Councils.

General elections were held in British India in September 1930. They were boycotted by the Indian National Congress and marked by public apathy. The newly elected Central Legislative Assembly met for the first time on 14 January 1931.

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References

  1. "Indian Election Results. Strength of Extremists", The Times, 15 December 1923, p11, Issue 43525
  2. 1 2 Alam, Jawaid. Government and Politics in Colonial Bihar, 1921–1937. p. 118.
  3. Rushbrook Williams, L. F. India in 1923 1924. p. 273.
  4. "Indian Legislative Assembly: Balance Of Parties", The Times, 8 January 1924, p6, Issue 43543
  5. "Indian Election Results: Strength Of The Swaraj Party", The Times, 1 January 1924, p11, Issue 43537
  6. Saroja Sundararajan (1989). March to freedom in Madras Presidency, 1916–1947. Madras : Lalitha Publications. pp. 334–339.
  7. East India. 1922. p. 11.
  8. India's Parliament Selections from the proceedings of the second session of the Legislative Assembly and the Council of State. Director, Central Bureau of Information, Gov't of India. 1921.
  9. Mayo, Katherine. Mother India.
  10. Kumar, Ravindra. Selected Works of Vithalbhai J. Patel: 1924.
  11. The Indian Year Book. Bennett, Coleman & Company. 1924.