Home › UPPCS › Modern History › Gap Sheets › Commissions and Committees
UPPCS Modern History Gap Sheet: Commissions and Committees.
UPPCS has asked 14 of these. 10 have not been asked yet. Lock the first list, then read the second: it holds what UPPCS has not used yet.
First, the concept
The British answered every crisis with a commission: a famine brought a Famine Commission, unrest in colleges an education commission, a massacre an inquiry committee. So each commission tells you the problem of its decade.
Education is the longest chain: Macaulay 1835 → Wood 1854 → Hunter 1882 → Raleigh 1902 → Sadler 1917 → Hartog 1929 → Wardha 1937 → Sargent 1944.
✅ Already asked (14)
Education
- Hunter Commission (1882) · Primary and secondary education; under Ripon
- Sadler Commission (1917) · Calcutta University; 12-year school, intermediate stage
- Hartog Committee (1929) · Warned of wastage and stagnation in primary schools
- Wardha Scheme of Basic Education (1937) · Gandhi; Zakir Husain committee; learning through a craft
Famine and economy
- Strachey Commission (1880) · First Famine Commission; Famine Code followed
- Lyall Commission (1898) and MacDonnell Commission (1901) · Famines of 1896–97 and 1899–1900
- Indian Industrial Commission (1916) · Thomas Holland
Administration and services
- Aitchison Commission (1886) · Public services; split into Imperial, Provincial, Subordinate
- Fraser Police Commission (1902) · Under Curzon; CID set up
- Muddiman Committee (1924) · Reviewed the working of dyarchy
- Butler Committee (1927) · Relations between the Crown and the princely states
Political inquiries
- Hunter Committee (1919) · Jallianwala Bagh inquiry; Congress held its own inquiry too
- Simon Commission (1927) · Seven members, no Indian; Attlee was one
- Radcliffe Boundary Commission (1947) · Drew the India–Pakistan border
❌ Not asked yet (10)
Items marked 'asked in other exams' have come in UPSC or other state exams, not yet in UPPCS.
Education
- Raleigh Commission (1902) · Universities; led to the Universities Act 1904 asked in other exams
- Sargent Plan (1944) · Free and compulsory education for ages 6–14 within 40 years
Famine and economy
- Whitley Commission (1929) · Royal Commission on Labour asked in other exams
- Campbell Commission (1866) · Orissa famine
- Royal Commission on Agriculture (1926) · Linlithgow chaired it; ICAR (1929) followed
- Hilton Young Commission (1926) · Currency; recommended a central bank (RBI)
Administration and services
- Peel Commission (1859) · Reorganised the army after 1857; more British troops asked in other exams
- Islington Commission (1912) · Public services; Gokhale was a member
- Lee Commission (1923) · Indianisation of services; Public Service Commission (1926)
Political inquiries
- Rowlatt (Sedition) Committee (1918) · Led to the Rowlatt Act 1919 asked in other exams
⚠️ The Hunter Commission (1882) was on education; the Hunter Committee (1919) on Jallianwala Bagh. Raleigh (1902) was on universities, Sadler (1917) on Calcutta University. Hilton Young suggested the RBI; it came in 1935.
'Asked' and 'not asked' are checked against every UPPCS question on this site. 'Not asked yet' does not mean it will surely come.