IOR/R/3/1/1-IOR/R/3/1/79

The purpose and scope of these reports was originally defined in two Despatches to India issued by the Secretary of State - Reforms No 1 of 17 March 1937 and Reforms No 3 of 25 March 1937 (see L/PJ/8/581 and L/PO/45 ff.393-96). It was felt that with the coming into force of the provisions of the 1935 Government of India Act relating to provincial autonomy, both the Secretary of State and the Viceroy should be kept regularly informed of the trend of events - political, economic and administrative - in each province. This was to be done primarily by confidential fortnightly reports from the Governors to the Viceroy, including their personal views on current developments, accompanied by purely factual fortnightly reports prepared by their Chief Secretaries. Copies of these two types of reports, addressed to the Viceroy, were forwarded to the India Office from all Governors' provinces between 1937 and 1947. These are to be found among the records of the India Office’s Political Department (L/PJ/5/128-288).

The set listed here is one of a limited number of sets of the correspondence printed for Lord Linlithgow on the Viceroy's private press and subsequently deposited in the India Office. It consists only of the Governors’ reports during Lord Linlithgow’s period of office. The Chief Secretaries’ and Chief Commissioners’ reports are not present. On the other hand the printed set does include Lord Linlithgow’s letters to the Governors which are absent from the set in L/PJ/5.