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Mohammad Rashiduzzaman
The Central Legislature in British India, 1921–47
Parliamentary Experiences
Under the Raj
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Rashiduzzaman, M., author.
Title: The Central Legislature in British India, 1921–47: parliamentary
experiences under the Raj / Mohammad Rashiduzzaman.
Description: Revision of the author’s thesis from 1965 | New York: Peter Lang, 2020.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018060566 | ISBN 978-1-4331-6652-5 (hardback: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4331-6653-2 (ebook pdf) | ISBN 978-1-4331-6653-2 (epub)
ISBN 978-1-4331-6655-6 (mobi)
Subjects: LCSH: India. Legislature—History. | India—Politics and
Government—1919–1947. | India—Colonial influence.
Executive-legislative relations—India—History—20th century.
Legislation—India—History—20th century.
Classification: LCC JQ254 .R3 | DDC 328.5409/041—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018060566 DOI 10.3726/b15953
Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek. Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de/.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)/EDITOR(S)
Mohammad Rashiduzzaman is a retired academic and Professor Emeritus in Political Science at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey, USA. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Durham, England in 1964 as a British Commonwealth Scholar. His Ph.D. thesis on the British Indian central legislature (1921–47) was the co-winner of the British Hansard Society’s Lord Campion Prize in 1965 for the best dissertation on the understanding of representative institutions. He taught at the University of Dhaka, now Bangladesh, before going to Columbia University in New York for his postdoctoral research. Later, he taught at Rowan University. He has written several publications on British India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
ABOUT THE BOOK
The Central Legislature in British India 1921–47: Parliamentary Experiences Under the Raj is an exceptional exposé of Colonial India’s highest legislative body. With its wealth of materials and in-depth description of the former Indian Legislature’s actual working, its political milieu and its institutional development, this book belongs to the larger genre of the British Indian narratives on the constitutional encounters between the rulers and the ruled. This book touches on a critical range of areas essential to our understanding of the British Raj in India. This book adds a significant depth to a neglected quarter of historical knowledge—the chronicle of parliamentary experiences and the representative institution-building in Colonial India. Undeniably, the Central Legislature was the only acknowledged all-India forum where the Indian legislators and the Imperial Executive, time and again, ran into each other. Yet, even at the lowest ebb of the Indian lawmakers’ disillusionment, the two flanks, intermittently, showed a modicum of mutual respect: though limited, the two sides indirectly shared power, went through the motion and contributed to policy-making typically over a strip of non-controversial subjects.
THIS EBOOK CAN BE CITED
This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.
| v →
To the memories of my father and mother
| vii →
Based on the thesis approved for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
by the University of Durham, England (1964) and it was the
co-winner of the Lord Gilbert Campion Award by the British Hansard
Society for Parliamentary Government (1965)
CONTENTS
Preface to the First Edition (1965)
Acknowledgements for the Second Edition
Chapter I. Development of the Central Legislature From 1861 to 1920
Chapter II. The Central Legislature and Indian Politics, 1921 to 1947
Chapter III. Nature of the Electoral System and Elections
Chapter IV. Powers, Privileges, and Procedures in the Central Legislature
