THREE ROUND TABLE CONFERENCE & COMMUNAL AWARD

FIRST ROUND TABLE CONFERENCE (NOVEMBER 1930-JANUARY 1931)

• This was the first ever conference arranged betWeen the British and the Indians as equals.
• While the Congress and most business leaders’boycotted the First RTC, the Muslim League, the Hindu Mahasabha, the Liberals and princes attended it.

GANDHI-IRWIN PACT

On January 25, 1931 Gandhi and all other members of the CWC were released unconditionally. The CWC authorised Gandhi to initiate discussions with the viceroy As a result of these discussions,apact was signed between the viceroy, representing the British Indian Government, and Gandhi, representing the Indian people, in Delhi on February 14, 1931. This Delhi Pact, also known as the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, placed the Congress on an equal footing with the Government.

Irwin on behalf of the Government agreed on

1. immediate release of all political prisoners not convicted of

violence;

2. remission of all fines not yet collected;
3. return of all lands not yet sold to third parties;
4. lenient treatment to those government servants who had resigned;
5. right to make salt in coastal villages for personal consumption (not

for sale);

6. right to peaceful and non-aggressive picketing; and
7. withdrawal of emergency ordinances.

The viceroy, however, turned down two of Gandhi’s demands—

(i) public inquiry into police excesses, and

(ii) commutation of Bhagat Singh and his comrades’ death sentence

to life sentence.

Gandhi on behalf of the Congress agreed—

(i) to suspend the civil disobedience movement, and

(ii) to participate in the next RTC.

KARACHI CONGRESS SESSION 1931

In March 1931, a special session of the Congress was held at Karachi to

endorse the Gandhi-Irwin or Delhi Pact. Six days before the session (which was held on March 29) Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru had been executed. Throughout Gandhi’s route to Karachi, he was greeted with black flag demonstrations by the Punjab Naujawan Bharat Sabha, in protest against his failure to secure commutation of the death sentence for Bhagat and his comrades.

The Delhi Pact was endorsed.

• The goal of purna swaraj was reiterated. Two resolutions were

adopted—one on Fundamental Rights and the other on National Economic

Programme— which made the session particularly memorable. The resolution

on Fundamental Rights guaranteed—

* free speech and free press

* right to form associations

* right to assemble

* universal adult franchise

* equal legal rights irrespective of caste, creed and sex

* neutrality of state in religious matters

* free and compulsory primary education

* protection to culture, language, script of minorities and linguistic

Groups.

SECOND RTC AND SECOND CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE MOVEMENT

The Second Round Table Conference, which the Congress had agreed to

attend under the Delhi Pact, was held in London in December 1931. The session ended with MacDonald’s announcement of:

(i) two Muslim majority provinces—NWFP and Sindh;

(ii) the setting up of Indian Consultative Committee;

(iii) three expert committees—finance, franchise and states;

(iv) the prospect of a unilateral British Communal Award if Indians

failed to agree.

The Government failed to concede the basic Indian demand of freedom.

Gandhi returned to India on December 28, 1931. On December 29, the CWC

decided to resume the civil disobedience movement.After the CWC had decided to resume the civil disobedience movement, the new Viceroy Willingdon refused a meeting with Gandhi on December 31. On January 4, 1932, Gandhi was arrested.

COMMUNAL AWARD AND POONA PACT

The Communal Award was announced by the British Prime Minister,Ramsay

MacDonald, in August 1932. This was yet another expression of British

policy of divide and rule.                                              The Muslims, Sikhs and Christians had already been recognised a minorities. The Communal Award declared the depressed classes also to be minorities, and entitled them to separate electorates’.

Gandhi’s Response

Gandhi saw the Communal Award as an attack on Indian unity and nationalism. Gandhi demanded that the depressed classes be elected through joint and if possible a wider electorate through universal franchise, while expressing no objection to the demand for a larger number of reserved seats. And to press for his demands, he went on an indefinite fast on September 20, 1932.

Poona Pact was Signed by B.R. Ambedkar on behalf of the depressed classes in September 1932, the Pact abandoned separate electorates for the depressed classes. But the seats reserved for the depressed classes were increased from 71 to 147 in provincial legislatures and 18 per cent of the total in the central legislature. The Poona Pact was accepted by the Government as an amendment to the Communal Award.

THIRD RTC 1932

Amidst the struggle of 1932, the Third RTC was held in November, again without Congress participation. The discussions led to the formulationof the Act of 1935.