Sentence Correction

ayushiiitm wrote:Before its independence in 1947, Britain ruled India as a colony and they would relinquish power only after a long struggle by the native people.
A. Before its independence in 1947, Britain ruled India as a colony and they would relinquish power
B. Before independence in 1947, Britain had ruled India as a colony and relinquished power
C. Before its independence in 1947, India was ruled by Britain as a colony and they relinquished power
D. Before independence in 1947, India had been ruled as a colony by Britain, which relinquished power
E. Before independence in 1947, India had been a colony of the British, who relinquished power

MY TAKE:
A and B out: modifier before its independence in 1947 modifies Britain
C and D out: they and which respectively could refer to India or Britain in the sentence
E:should also be wrong since who could modify either India or Britain

Now this is a standard question from MGMAT, so no doubt of authenticity.

I have the following doubts:

1. Why 'who' in E does not create a problem (isnt it also used as a relative pronoun)
2. Why use of 'its' is correct in A and C. (isnt there a rule that possessive pronoun should not be used before stating the noun that it is referring. I have adapted this rule from a OG10 problem 'teachings of Sikhs', where a 'those' was used)
The explanation for this question states The exclusion of the pronoun its in the beginning of the sentence (see answer choices A and C) is incidental. The sentence would have been correct with the pronoun its as well.


Lot of doubt here. Experts help please

OA is E

loveusonu wrote:I find nothing wrong with E.
Who is used for 'British'. British are not any object, but a group of people only. To me it doesn't violate anything.

D: which, by default, refers to immediate noun so which can also be correct. I can only see 1 problem with D i.e "ruled as a colony" doesn't make sense to me.

ayushiiitm wrote:
Now the second 'its' doubt remains

Stacey Koprince wrote:Received a PM asking me to reply. ayushiiitm, I'm glad that you wrote out your thoughts in your original post; a lot of people don't do that and they should!

Stacey Koprince wrote:Received a PM asking me to reply. ayushiiitm, I'm glad that you wrote out your thoughts in your original post; a lot of people don't do that and they should!

Your reasoning for eliminating A and B is right.

Your reasoning for eliminating C is possibly right - not specific enough. Your reasoning for D, and E is not right.

Your reasoning for C is on the right track, I think, but it's more complicated than what you wrote. C reads (in full):
Before its independence in 1947, India was ruled by Britain as a colony and they relinquished power only after a long struggle by the native people.

The word "and" indicates parallelism. The two parallel parts are "India was ruled..." and "they relinquished power..."

The structural expectation here is that the pronoun "they," which is functioning as the subject of the second clause, should refer to the subject of the first clause, India. India is a country. It is a single country. It is singular. You can't refer to the singular India with the plural pronoun they.

Further, the logical expectation is that the pronoun "they" refers to the British people, who are the ones who relinquished power. This is also a problem because the British (people) don't appear in the sentence. Only the country Britain appears in the sentence - and Britain is again just one country, so it is singular.

Phew. Okay, on to D. The setup "comma which" is a noun modifier setup. Based on this placement, it CANNOT refer to the subject, India. It must refer to the immediately preceding noun or noun phrase. In this case, the previous noun is "Britain." The "comma which" modifier, then, refers to Britain. There is nothing wrong with this part of the sentence.

This choice, honestly, is the weakest in terms of being able to eliminate - it could be better written. The problem is "ruled as a colony by Britain." When a prepositional phrase follows a noun, as "by Britain" follows the noun "colony," all we know for sure is that the prepositional phrase modifies that noun. The verb in the sentence ("ruled," in this case) does not necessarily apply to the prepositional phrase. So, for example "India had been ruled as a colony by Britain" could actually mean "India was NEARby Britain, and separately India was ruled as a colony, and the sentence doesn't mention who actually did the ruling."

Choice E uses a "comma who" setup, which is similar to the "comma which" setup described above in that it refers to the immediately preceding noun or noun phrase. In this case, that noun is "British." The British are people, so it is appropriate (indeed, required) to use the relative pronoun "who" to discuss these people.