Was Gandhi-Irwin Pact a Retreat?

Gandhi’s decision to suspend the civil disobedience movement as agreed under the Gandhi-Irwin Pact was not a retreat, because:

(i) mass movements are necessarily short-lived;

(ii) capacity of the masses to make sacrifices, unlike that of the activists, is limited; and

(iii) there were signs of exhaustion after September 1930, especially among shopkeepers and merchants, who had participated so enthusiastically.

No doubt, youth were disappointed: they had participated enthusiastically and wanted the world to end with a bang and not with a whimper. Peasants of Gujarat were disappointed because their lands were not restored immediately (indeed, they were restored only during the rule of the Congress ministry in the province). But many people were jubilant that the government had been made to regard their movement as significant and treat their leader as an equal, and sign a pact with him. The political prisoners, when released from jails, were given a hero’s welcome.