Partition of Bengal — Key Changes

Entry	Year	Description	Impact
2 & 3 Geo. V, c.6, s.4	1912	The Government of India Act, 1912 made consequential amendments after Bengal’s administrative reorganisation. Section 4 and the Schedule changed the First Schedule to the Indian Councils Act, 1909: entries for the Lieutenant-Governor’s councils of the Bengal Division and Eastern Bengal and Assam were removed, and entries for the Governor’s council in Bengal and the Lieutenant-Governor’s council in Bihar and Orissa were inserted. Each new entry specified fifty nominated and elected additional members as the statutory maximum. This was a change to the council framework, not a declaration that every council actually contained fifty members.	The amendment helps explain why undoing the 1905 partition did not simply restore every earlier administrative arrangement. The law had to recognise institutions appropriate to the reorganised provinces. The Act’s preamble records proclamations dated 22 March 1912 concerning Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, and Assam; its Schedule then adjusted the legal references. For a map-and-institutions answer, distinguish the territory, the officer governing it and the associated council. The fifty-member ceiling should not be confused with universal suffrage, elected-majority government or a count of the whole council.