Simon Commission

The 1919 Act had provided that a Royal Commission would be appointed ten years after the Act to report on its working. In November 1927, two years before schedule, the British government announced the appointment of such a commission—the Indian Statutory Commission. The commission submitted its report in 1930. It recommended that dyarchy be abolished, responsible government be extended in the provinces, a federation of British India and the Princely States be established, and that communal electorates be continued.

Three Round Table Conferences were called by the British government to consider the proposals. Subsequently, a White Paper on Constitutional Reforms was published by the British government in March 1933 containing provisions for a federal set-up and provincial autonomy. A joint committee of the Houses of the British Parliament was set up under Lord Linlithgow to further consider the scheme. Its report submitted in 1934 said that a federation would be set up if at least 50 per cent of the princely states were ready to join it. The bill prepared on the basis of this report was passed by the British Parliament to become the Government of India Act of 1935.