Eternal India Encyclopedia

FREEDOM MOVEMENT

Eternal India

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yer, now posing as a Fakir of the type well

known in the east, striding half-naked up the

steps of the viceregal palace, while he is still

organising and conducting a defiant cam-

paign of civil disobedience, to parley on equal

terms with the representative of the King-Em-

peror.’

The Karachi Congress

The Congress met in Karachi on 29th

March 1931, six days after Bhagat Singh's,

Sukhdev's and Rajguru's execution. The

Karachi session called for Purna Swaraj, but

also accepted the Gandhi-Irwin pact which

opened the way for re-consideration of objec-

tives.

A resolution was adopted on Fundamen-

tal Rights and Economic Policy which repre-

sented the party's political, economic, and

social programme of democracy for the future.

The Karachi session represented the political

victory of the Gandhian policy of eliminating

conflicts both internal and external, through

the logic of persuasion.

The Second Round Table

Conference -1931

The Congress decided to participate in

the Second Round Table Conference. Instead

of sending a fairly large delegation which the

Government was willing to accommodate,

only Gandhiji was selected to represent the

Congress.

The Second Round Table Conference

was held from September to December 1931.

Gandhiji arrived and was given a warm

welcome from the British working class. He

stayed in the East End of London and toured

Lancashire. At the conference, the British

Ministers and many of the communal leaders

had already found a way of keeping the na-

tionalists at bay.

The Muslim communalists at the confer-

ence, like the Agha Khan, stood for the most

reactionary interests bent on preserving them-

selves under the protection of British imperi-

alism. The Hindu and Sikh communalists

were equally willing toplay into the hands of

imperialism, thereby frustrating Gandhi's ef-

forts to present a united front at the confer-

ence. On December 11, 1931, the Second

Round Table Conference came to an end when

Macdonald outlined the main points of the

proposed Government of Indian Act, which

would provide for a strong federal centre and

provincial autonomy giving a limited measure

of self-government to the provinces. On his

return to India on December 28,1931 Gandhi

found government repression in full

swing.

He sought an interview with the Viceroy Lord

Willingdon, who refused to see him.

1932-34: The WiHingdon government

decided to take sterner measures of repression

against the entire national movement than

those taken by Irwin in 1930. On January 1,

1932, Gandhiji revived the Civil Disobedi-

ence Movement. On Jan 4th, Gandhi and

Vallabhbhai Patel, the Congress president,

were arrested. Gandhiji expressed that civil

disobedience movement should be carried out

individually and not en masse. Gandhi's arrest

sparked off a nationwide agitation which was

harshly repressed. By May some 80,000 people

had been arrested. The movement continued

until it was withdrawn in April 1934.

Communal Award

At the Second Round Table Conference,

the proceedings were confined almost entirely

to the claims and counter - claims of the

Muslim League, Hindu Mahasabha, the Sikhs,

the ‘Depressed Classes’, Anglo-Indians, and

Indian Christians, all clamouring for separate

electorates and reserved assembly seats.

Since no agreement was possible the

British Government decided to announce a

communal award on its own. In August 1932

the British Prime Minister published the

Communal Award which he had promised at

the Round Table Conference. The Award

allotted separate electorates to 11 minority

groups including the ‘

Depressed Classes'.

Angered by the fact that Macdonald had dealt

with them as though they were outside the

Hindu pale, Gandhi announced from Yerwada

Jail in Poona that he would go on a fast unto

death against the award. This prompted caste

Hindu leaders and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar to rush

to Gandhi's bedside for discussions. The

upshot of these discussions was the Poona

Pact under which untouchables would forego

separate electorates in return for a bigger

share of legislative seats. The Poona Pact was

accepted by the Government as an amend-

ment to the communal award. Gandhiji broke

his fast. On May 20,1934, the civil disobedi-

ence movement was officially terminated by

the Congress.

1935 : On August 4, the New Government

of India Act received royal assent. As per the

Act, the dyarchical system in the provinces

came to an end and the entire administration

came to be entrusted to the elected

representatives in the legislature. The Congress

decided to work the reforms introduced by the

Act of 1935. It swept the polls in elections

held in 1937 in General or predominantly

Hindu seats. The Muslims wanted to form a

coalition Ministry with the Congress in each

province but this was not acceptable to the

Congress. This led to a parting of ways

between the Congress and Mohammad Ali

Jinnah who publicly declared that the ‘Muslims

can expect neither justice nor fair play under

the Congress Government.’ He became the

unquestioned leader of the Muslims and was

elected year after year as president of the

Muslim League.

1936-40 The Congress formed Minis-

tries in 7 out of the 11 provinces. With the

outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 the

Congress objected to the fact that India had

been dragged into the war without her con-

sent. The Congress ministries resigned. The

Congress offered to co-operate in the war if at

least a provisional national government was

set up. This was rejected by the British and the

Congress inaugurated in October 1940 an in-

dividual civil disobedience campaign under

the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. On April

29, 1939, Subhas Bose resigned the president-

ship of the Congress, On March 22, 1940, the

Muslim League session at Lahore demanded

Pakistan.

Lahore Session

The idea of Pakistan as a soveriegn state

was revived by Jinnah who declared at the

1940 Lahore session of the Muslim League

that the Muslim nation must have a separate

independent state. The idea that the Muslims

constituted a separate nation was first mooted

in 1930 by Muhammed Iqbal, once the poet of

Indian nationalism. In his Presidential ad-

dress at the Allahabad session of the Muslim

League, he said : ‘I would like to see the

Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind,

and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single

state. Self-government within the British

empire or without the British empire, the for-

mation of a consolidated North-West Indian

Muslim state appears to to be the final destiny

of the Muslims, at least of North-West India’.

A few years later an Indian Muslim student at

Cambridge University Rahmat Ali, coined the

name PAKSTAN (from Punjab, Afghaniaor

NWFP, Kashmir, Sindh and Baluchistan). The

League resolution neither referred to Pakstan

or Pakistan - the Land of the Pure - as it came

to be called nor did it define the term ‘

Separate

independent state

’ but it indicated that a point

of no return had been reached in relations be-

tween the Congress and the Muslim League.

On August 8, 1942 the All-India Congress Commit-

tee adopted a resolution, in favour of starting a mass

struggle, known as the Quit India resolution.