Rau’s Constitutional Solutions to the Political Conundrum

Abstract

In 1945, Viceroy Wavell requested Rau to return to the Reforms Office and help the process of transitioning power from Britain to India. Aware and working with the knowledge of the political problems between the Congress, which wanted a united India, and the Muslim League, which wanted a divided subcontinent by establishing Pakistan, Rau put forward several constitutional solutions. In drafting these constitutional ideas, Rau drew heavily from his experience of working with the Government of India Act, 1935, which, as in a decade before, brought his ideas into conflict with both the British colonial government as well as the main Indian political parties—the Congress and the League.