An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India

by Shashi Tharoor

The 1937 elections saw the Indian National Congress being elected to rule eight provinces; the party won an astonishing 617 of the 739 ‘general’ seats it contested, and even 25 of the 59 seats reserved exclusively for Muslims. Several other parties, and 385 Independents, also won seats. Trailing a distant second to the Congress was the Muslim League, which failed to win even a plurality of the seats reserved for Muslims, winning just 106 of the 1,585 seats at stake and failing to take control of any province. The domestic political contest, it seemed, had been decisively settled in favour of the inclusive, pluralist, multi-ethnic party, the Congress. But those who saw it that way had spoken too soon. The Congress’s victory was far from determinant. Though the elections involved some 15.5 million voters and marked a significant step forward in the creation of representative governance, most key powers were still retained by the viceroy, and no elections were held to the central government, which continued to be run by him.