Government of India Act 1935

The Government of India Act 1935 (25 & 26 Geo. 5. c. 42) was an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was the constitution and governing document of British India in its final years, until its independence and partition into the dominions of India and Pakistan.

Among other innovations, the Government of India Act 1935 established Burma and Aden as separate Crown colonies (both at the time part of British India), created the Reserve Bank of India and the Federal Court of India, created public service commissions both at the provincial and federal levels, and established the province of Sindh.

Intended to lead naturally to a self-governing Dominion of India, it granted some autonomy to the governments of the provinces of British India and established direct elections to provincial legislatures, expanding the electorate to roughly ten percent of the then-population of India.

However, it was widely criticised for containing safeguards that continued to enable the British government and its viceregal representatives to exercise excessive control over the finances, defence and administration of the provinces; leading to low Indian support for the British war effort in the ensuing Second World War and eventually the widespread Quit India Movement in 1942. Plans for a permanent federal dominion were ultimately shelved on the outbreak of war in 1939.

A version of the Act modified by the Indian Independence Act 1947 continued to govern the dominions of India and Pakistan after gaining independence from the sovereignty of the United Kingdom until both countries adopted their own constitutions in 1950 and 1956 respectively. The longest Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom until the Greater London Authority Act 1999—large sections of the Government of India Act 1935 continue as part of the statutes and constitutions of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.