Eternal India Encyclopedia

Eternal India encyclopedia

FREEDOM MOVEMENT

found government repression in full

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. 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. Lahore Session

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 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 Karachi Congress 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 The Second Round Table Conference -1931

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. 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 Communal Award

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.