First Round Table Conference

The first Round Table Conference was held in London between November 1930 and January 1931. It was opened officially by King George V on November 12, 1930 and chaired by Ramsay MacDonald.

This was the first conference arranged between the British and the Indians as equals.

The Congress and some prominent business leaders refused to attend, but many other groups of Indians were represented at the conference.

The Indian princely states were represented by the Maharaja of Alwar, Maharaja of Baroda, Nawab of Bhopal, Maharaja of Bikaner, Rana of Dholpur, Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, Maharaja of Nawanagar, Maharaja of Patiala (Chancellor of the Chamber of Princes), Maharaja of Rewa, Chief Sahib of Sangli, Sir Prabhashankar Pattani (Bhavnagar), Manubhai Mehta (Baroda), Sardar Sahibzada Sultan Ahmed Khan (Gwalior), Akbar Hydari (Hyderabad), Mirza Ismail (Mysore), Col. Kailas Narain Haksar (Jammu and Kashmir). The Muslim League sent Aga Khan III (leader of British- Indian delegation), Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar, Muhammad Shafi, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Muhammad Zafarullah Khan,

A.K. Fazlul Huq, Hafiz Ghulam Hussain Hidayat Ullah, Dr.Shafa’at Ahmad Khan, Raja Sher Muhammad Khan of Domeli and A.H. Ghuznavi. The Hindu Mahasabha and its sympathisers were represented by B.S. Moonje, M.R. Jayakar and Diwan Bahadur Raja Narendra Nath. The Sikhs were represented by Sardar Ujjal Singh and Sardar Sampuran Singh. For the Parsis, Phiroze Sethna, Cowasji Jehangir and Homi Mody attended. Begum Jahanara Shahnawaz and Radhabai Subbarayan represented Women. The Liberals were represented by J.N. Basu, Tej Bahadur Sapru, C.Y. Chintamani,

V.S. Srinivasa Sastri and Chimanlal Harilal Setalvad. The Depressed Classes were represented by B.R. Ambedkar and Rettamalai Srinivasan. The Justice Party sent Arcot Ramasamy Mudaliar, Bhaskarrao Vithojirao Jadhav and Sir

A.P. Patro. Labour was represented by N.M. Joshi and B. Shiva Rao. K.T. Paul represented the Indian Christians, while Henry Gidney represented the Anglo-Indians, and the Europeans were represented by Sir Hubert Carr, Sir Oscar de Glanville (Burma), T.F. Gavin Jones, C.E. Wood (Madras). There were also representatives of the landlords (from Bihar, the United Pronvinces, and Orissa), the universities, Burma, the Sindh and some other provinces.

The Government of India was represented by Narendra

Nath Law, Bhupendra Nath Mitra, C.P. Ramaswami Iyer and

M. Ramachandra Rao.

Outcome Nothing much was achieved at the conference. It was generally agreed that India was to develop into a federation, there were to be safeguards regarding defence and finance, while other departments were to be transferred. But little was done to implement these recommendations and civil disobedience continued in India.

The British government realised that the participation of the Indian National Congress was necessary in any discussion on the future of constitutional government in India.