Modern India · Topic 17 of 20
Purna Swaraj, Salt Satyagraha, Round Table Conferences and the 1935 Act
The Basics
By late 1929, the one-year grace period set at Calcutta in December 1928 was ending. The government had not accepted a Dominion Status constitution. This set the stage for Congress to act on its warning.
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After the Lahore Congress adopted Purna Swaraj at midnight on 31 December 1929, Congress needed to turn this leadership decision into something ordinary Indians could feel and act on. So its first task in the new year was to fix a day on which the whole country would publicly affirm the pledge of independence.
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By early 1930 the Lahore Congress had declared Purna Swaraj. The Independence Day pledge of 26 January 1930 had asked people to prepare for civil disobedience, but it failed to stir mass enthusiasm. Gandhi needed an issue that could link this abstract freedom to everyday life and unite all classes.
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Once the salt law was broken at Dandi, defiance spread quickly across British India. People chose the form of protest that suited their own grievance.
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The Simon Commission report was rejected by Indians since it had no Indian members. The Viceroy Lord Irwin and British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald of the Labour Government then agreed to hold a Round Table Conference in London with British and Indian representatives.
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By January 1931, the government badly needed the Congress to join the next Round Table Conference. The first one in London had shown that talks without Indian leaders were pointless. On 25 January 1931, Viceroy Lord Irwin ordered the unconditional release of Gandhi and the entire Congress Working Committee. This conciliatory move let the Congress respond 'freely and fearlessly' to hints from the British Prime Minister about future talks.
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The Indian National Congress met at Karachi in March 1931 to endorse the Gandhi-Irwin Pact.
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Gandhi sailed for London on 29 August 1931 to attend the Second Round Table Conference, held from 7 September to 1 December 1931. He went as the Indian National Congress's sole official representative, though other Indians such as Madan Mohan Malaviya and A. Rangaswami Iyengar also attended in different capacities.
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Gandhi landed in Bombay on 28 December 1931 after the failed Second Round Table Conference. He found that Viceroy Willingdon had already begun a fresh cycle of repression. Jawaharlal Nehru and Abdul Ghaffar Khan were in jail. The Congress had been declared illegal. Ordinances banned meetings and boycotts. In the North-West Frontier Province, the Khudai Khidmatgars led by Ghaffar Khan faced severe repression over revenue collection. Ghaffar Khan was arrested on 24 December 1931, and Peshawar district was occupied by the army. In Bengal, draconian ordinances and mass detentions continued in the name of fighting terrorism. In September 1931, police had fired on political prisoners in Hijli Jail, killing two. In the United Provinces, Congress led a campaign for rent reduction and against evictions.
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By late 1932, the Round Table Conferences had failed to produce an agreed scheme for minority representation. Into this vacuum stepped the British prime minister, Ramsay MacDonald, who had chaired the minorities committee and now offered to mediate and decide the matter himself.
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Long before the Poona Pact, the ground for Ambedkar's politics had already been prepared. Gopal Baba Walangkar published Vital-Vidhvansak. It was the first monthly journal aimed at untouchable readers. This showed that organised dalit voices existed even in the 19th century. Ambedkar was born into a scheduled caste. He was scarred by discrimination in his own childhood. He carried this tradition forward with a sharper political edge.
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After the Poona Pact, Gandhi launched a nationwide Harijan campaign against untouchability.
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By the end of 1932, the colonial government had crushed the Civil Disobedience Movement. British policy makers knew that repression alone could not hold back nationalist politics forever. They decided that constitutional reform should follow repression. The aim was to weaken the Congress from within, not just crush it from outside.
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