Second Round Table Conference

Members of the Indian Liberal Party such as Tej Bahadur Sapru, C.Y. Chintamani and Srinivasa Sastri appealed to Gandhi to talk with the Viceroy. Gandhi and Irwin reached a compromise which came to be called the Gandhi-Irwin Pact (the Delhi Pact).

The second Round Table Conference was held in London from September 7, 1931 to December 1, 1931.

The Indian National Congress nominated Gandhi as its sole representative. A. Rangaswami Iyengar and Madan Mohan Malaviya were also there.

There were a large number of Indian participants, besides the Congress.

The princely states were represented by Maharaja of Alwar, Maharaja of Baroda, Nawab of Bhopal, Maharaja of Bikaner, Maharao of Kutch, Rana of Dholpur, Maharaja of Indore, Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, Maharaja of Kapurthala, Maharaja of Nawanagar, Maharaja of Patiala, Maharaja of Rewa, Chief Sahib of Sangli, Raja of Sarila, Sir Prabhashankar Pattani (Bhavnagar), Manubhai Mehta (Baroda), Sardar Sahibzada Sultan Ahmed Khan (Gwalior), Sir Muhammad Akbar Hydari (Hyderabad), Mirza Ismail (Mysore), Col. K.N. Haksar (Jammu and Kashmir), T. Raghavaiah (Travancore), Liaqat Hayat Khan (Patiala). The Muslims were represented by Aga Khan III, Maulana Shaukat Ali, Muhammad Ali Jinnah,

A.K. Fazlul Huq, Muhammad Iqbal, Muhammad Shafi,

Muhammad Zafarullah Khan, Syed Ali Imam, Maulvi

Muhammad Shafi Daudi, Raja Sher Muhammad Khan of Domeli, A.H. Ghuznavi, Hafiz Hidayat Hussain, Sayed Muhammad Padshah Saheb Bahadur, Dr. Shafa’at Ahmad Khan, Jamal Muhammad and Nawab Sahibzada Sayed Muhammad Mehr Shah. Hindu groups were represented by

M.R. Jayakar, B.S. Moonje and Diwan Bahadur Raja Narendra Nath. The Liberals at the conference were J. N. Basu, C.Y. Chintamani, Tej Bahadur Sapru, V.S. Srinivasa Sastri and Chimanlal Harilal Setalvad. The Justice Party sent Raja of Bobbili, Arcot Ramasamy Mudaliar, Sir A.P. Patro and Bhaskarrao Vithojirao Jadhav. The Depressed Classes were represented by B.R. Ambedkar and Rettamalai Srinivasan. Sardar Ujjal Singh and Sardar Sampuran Singh represented the Sikhs. The Parsis were represented by Cowasji Jehangir, Homi Mody and Phiroze Sethna. Indian Christians were represented by Surendra Kumar Datta and A.T. Pannirselvam. Industry was represented by Ghanshyam Das Birla, Sir Purshottamdas Thakurdas and Maneckji Dadabhoy. Labour was represented by N. M. Joshi, B. Shiva Rao and V. V. Giri. The representatives for Indian women were Sarojini Naidu, Begum Jahanara Shahnawaz and Radhabai Subbarayan. The universities were represented by Syed Sultan Ahmed and Bisheshwar Dayal Seth. Representatives of Burma and from the provinces of Sindh, Assam, Central Provinces and the NWFP also attended.

The Government of India was represented by C.P. Ramaswami Iyer, Narendra Nath Law and M. Ramachandra Rao. Not much was expected from the conference because of the following reasons.

● By this time, Lord Irwin had been replaced by Lord Willingdon as viceroy in India. Just before the conference began, the Labour government in England had been replaced by a National Government which was an uneasy coalition between Labour and Conservatives. The British were also angered by the increased revolutionary activities which had claimed many European lives in India.

● The Right Wing or Conservatives in Britain led by Churchill strongly objected to the British government negotiating with the Congress on an equal basis. They,

instead, demanded a strong government in India. The Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald headed the Conservative- dominated cabinet with a weak and reactionary secretary of state for India, Samuel Hoare.

● At the conference, Gandhi (and therefore the Congress) claimed to represent all people of India against imperialism. The other delegates, however, did not share this view. Historians point out that many of the delegates were conservative, government loyalists, and communalists, and these groups were used by the colonial government to neutralise the efforts of Gandhi. Because of the participation of a large number of groups, the British government claimed that the Congress did not represent the interests of all of India.

● Gandhi pointed out that there was a need of a partnership between Britain and India on the basis of equality. He put forward the demand for the immediate establishment of a responsible government at the centre as well as in the provinces. He also reiterated that the Congress alone represented political India. Saying that the untouchables were Hindus, and thus not to be treated as a minority, he discarded the idea of a separate electorate for them. He also said there was no need for separate electorates or special safeguards for Muslims or other minorities. Many of the other delegates disagreed with Gandhi.

● The session soon got deadlocked on the question of the minorities. Separate electorates were being demanded by the Muslims, depressed classes, Christians and Anglo-Indians. All these came together in a ‘Minorities’ Pact’. Gandhi fought desperately against this concerted move to make all constitutional progress conditional on the solving of this issue.

● The princes were also not too enthusiastic about a federation, especially after the possibility of the formation of a Congress government at the centre had receded after the suspension of civil disobedience movement.

Outcome The lack of agreement among the many delegate groups meant that no substantial results regarding India’s constitutional future would come out of the conference. The session ended with MacDonald’s announcement of:

(i) two Mulsim majority provinces—North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Sindh;

(ii) the setting up of an Indian Consultative Committee;

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

(iv) the prospect of a unilateral British Communal Award if Indians failed to agree.

The government refused to concede the basic Indian demand of freedom. Gandhi returned to India on December 28, 1931.