Gandhian Nationalism (1927-⁠1937) | ISC Class 11 History Notes

This note covers Gandhian nationalism between 1927 and 1937: the Simon Commission and its boycott, the Nehru Report and the demand for Dominion Status, the Lahore session and the Poorna Swaraj Resolution, the Civil Disobedience Movement and its features, the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, the two Round Table Conferences, the resumption of the movement and the Poona Pact, the Government of India Act of 1935, and the elections of 1937 with the working of Congress and non-Congress ministries, followed by the groups that took part, a timeline, a comparison with earlier nationalism and the sources.

What was the background to Gandhian nationalism in 1927?

By the late 1920s the national movement had entered a lull. The Non-Cooperation and Khilafat agitation of 1920 to 1922 had been called off by Mahatma Gandhi after the violence at Chauri Chaura in February 1922, and he had been sentenced to six years' imprisonment in March 1922.

After his release in February 1924 he had turned to social reform, the promotion of khadi and the abolition of untouchability, rather than to mass politics.

Two things changed the scene. First, a new generation of leaders was pressing for a bolder goal than Dominion Status.

Jawaharlal Nehru returned from Europe at the end of 1927 deeply impressed with the Soviet Union, and at the Madras session of December 1927 the Congress passed his resolution declaring complete independence to be its goal. He, Subhas Chandra Bose and the socialists within the Congress argued openly for complete independence.

Second, the British government announced in November 1927 that it would send a commission to report on the working of the constitutional system in India.

Gandhiji himself re-entered politics in 1928. He did not take part in the agitation against the Simon Commission, but he gave it his blessings, as he also did to the peasant satyagraha at Bardoli in the same year, led by Vallabhbhai Patel against an enhancement of land revenue.

The Bardoli Satyagraha succeeded and generated immense sympathy across India, showing that disciplined, localised agitation could work.

Definition: Dominion Status meant self-government for India within the British Empire, on the model of Canada or Australia, with the British Crown as head of state and the British Parliament retaining ultimate sovereignty. It fell short of complete independence, which is why younger nationalists rejected it.

Why was the Simon Commission boycotted?

The Simon Commission was appointed in November 1927 under the chairmanship of Sir John Simon, a senior British lawyer and politician. Its task was to enquire into the working of the Government of India Act of 1919 and to recommend further constitutional changes. It reached India in February 1928.

The reason for its boycott was simple and powerful: all seven members of the Commission were Englishmen. Not one Indian was included.

Indians of every political opinion held that a body which was to decide the future constitution of India had no right to exclude Indians from its membership.

The Congress, the Liberals, the Hindu Mahasabha and the Muslim League led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah all joined the protest, though a section of the League under Muhammad Shafi chose to cooperate with the Commission.

The boycott took the form of demonstrations, hartals and black-flag processions wherever the Commission went, with the slogan "Simon Go Back". The police used lathis on the crowds.

At Lahore on 30 October 1928, Lala Lajpat Rai, the veteran Punjab leader, was badly beaten during a lathi charge on a protest march, and he died on 17 November 1928. The death of "the Lion of Punjab" deepened anger against the government.

The Commission produced its report in 1930. It recommended the abolition of dyarchy in the provinces and the extension of provincial autonomy, but it also recommended that the franchise be extended only gradually and that the communal electorate be retained.

Indian opinion rejected the report. By then the government had already changed course: on 31 October 1929 the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, declared that Dominion Status was the natural goal of India's constitutional progress and promised a Round Table Conference in London.

What did the Nehru Report of 1928 demand?

To answer the Simon Commission with an Indian scheme of their own, an All Parties Conference met in Delhi in February 1928 and, at its Bombay meeting in May 1928, appointed a committee under Motilal Nehru, with Jawaharlal Nehru as its secretary, to draft a constitution for India.

The report was published in August 1928 and is known as the Nehru Report.

Its main recommendations were:

1. India should be given Dominion Status, the same status as the self-governing dominions such as Canada and Australia, within the British Commonwealth.
2. India should have a parliamentary form of government with a bicameral legislature at the centre and a ministry responsible to the legislature.
3. Nineteen fundamental rights should be guaranteed, including equal rights for men and women as citizens, freedom to form unions, and universal adult suffrage.
4. India should be a federation with residuary powers vested in the centre; Sindh should be separated from Bombay, and the North-West Frontier Province should have the same status as the other provinces.
5. Joint electorates should replace separate electorates, with seats reserved for Muslims at the centre and in provinces where they were a minority, but not in the Punjab and Bengal, and for non-Muslims in the North-West Frontier Province.
6. There should be no state religion, and provinces should be formed on a linguistic basis.

Dominion Status was thus the central demand of the report. At its Calcutta session in December 1928, presided over by Motilal Nehru, the Congress accepted the report as a compromise between the older leaders, who still accepted the imperial connection, and the younger ones, who wanted complete independence.

The session resolved that if the government did not accept the constitution in the report by 31 December 1929, the Congress would demand complete independence and launch civil disobedience. This is the demand for Dominion Status by 1929.

At the All Parties Convention in Calcutta in December 1928, Muhammad Ali Jinnah asked for one-third of the seats in the central legislature, reservation for Muslims in the Punjab and Bengal on the basis of population, and residuary powers for the provinces. When these amendments were rejected, he set out his own Fourteen Points in March 1929.

Note: Do not confuse the goal of the Nehru Report of 1928 with that of the Lahore session of 1929. The Nehru Report asked for Dominion Status; the Lahore session, a year later, declared Purna Swaraj, complete independence, because Dominion Status had not been granted by the end of 1929.

What was decided at the Lahore session of 1929?

The year of grace ran out without an offer of Dominion Status. When Gandhiji and other leaders met Lord Irwin on 23 December 1929, he could give no assurance that the Round Table Conference would draft a Dominion constitution. The annual session of the Congress was then held at Lahore in the last week of December 1929, on the banks of the Ravi.

Jawaharlal Nehru was elected President, which signified the passing of the baton of leadership to the younger generation. The session was significant for two things: the election of Nehru, and the proclamation of commitment to Purna Swaraj, or complete independence.

The main points of the Poorna Swaraj Resolution, adopted on 31 December 1929, were:

1. The word Swaraj in the Congress creed was to mean complete independence, and the goal of the Congress was declared to be Purna (Poorna) Swaraj, not Dominion Status.
2. The Congress would boycott the proposed Round Table Conference.
3. All Congress members of the central and provincial legislatures were to resign their seats.
4. The All India Congress Committee was authorised to launch a programme of civil disobedience, including non-payment of taxes, whenever it thought fit.
5. All Indians were called on to work for complete independence, and 26 January 1930 was soon fixed as the first Independence Day, to be celebrated everywhere with a public pledge.

At midnight on 31 December 1929 Jawaharlal Nehru hoisted the tricolour flag of independence on the banks of the Ravi. The pledge read out on Independence Day declared that British rule had ruined India economically, politically, culturally and spiritually, and that it was a crime to submit any longer to such rule.

On 26 January 1930, "Independence Day" was observed across the country, with the national flag being hoisted at different venues and patriotic songs being sung.

Gandhiji issued precise instructions as to how the day should be observed. "It would be good," he said, "if the declaration [of Independence] is made by whole villages, whole cities even ... It would be well if all the meetings were held at the identical minute in all the places."

Gandhiji suggested that the time of the meeting be advertised in the traditional way, by the beating of drums. The celebrations would begin with the hoisting of the national flag.

The rest of the day would be spent "in doing some constructive work, whether it is spinning, or service of 'untouchables', or reunion of Hindus and Mussalmans, or prohibition work, or even all these together, which is not impossible".

Participants would take a pledge affirming that it was "the inalienable right of the Indian people, as of any other people, to have freedom and to enjoy the fruits of their toil", and that "if any government deprives a people of these rights and oppresses them, the people have a further right to alter it or abolish it".

What were the causes and features of the Civil Disobedience Movement?

The Civil Disobedience Movement began on 12 March 1930, when Gandhiji set out from his ashram at Sabarmati on the Dandi March.

He reached the sea at Dandi on 5 April and, on the morning of 6 April 1930, made a fistful of salt and thereby broke the salt law. Parallel salt marches were held in other parts of the country, such as C. Rajagopalachari's march from Trichinopoly to Vedaranyam in Tamil Nadu.

The wider causes were the government's refusal to grant Dominion Status by the end of 1929, the mandate of the Lahore session, and the distress caused by the world economic depression that began in 1929, when prices of farm produce fell sharply. On 31 January 1930 Gandhiji sent the Viceroy a list of eleven demands, among them the abolition of the salt tax, and warned that he would launch civil disobedience if they were rejected. Irwin was unwilling to negotiate.

The immediate cause was the salt tax. The state held a monopoly over the manufacture and sale of salt, and people were forbidden from making salt even for domestic use, compelling them to buy it from shops at a high price.

In every Indian household salt was indispensable, so the tax touched every family. Gandhiji called the monopoly "a fourfold curse": it deprived the people of a valuable easy village industry, involved wanton destruction of salt that nature produced in abundance, the destruction itself meant more national expenditure, and "an unheard-of tax of more than 1,000 per cent" was exacted from a starving people.

By making salt his target, Gandhiji hoped to mobilise a wider discontent against British rule.

The features of the movement were:

1. Defiance of the salt law by making salt illegally, which became the symbol of the whole agitation.
2. Boycott of foreign cloth and British goods, with picketing of shops selling liquor and foreign cloth.
3. Breach of the forest laws by peasants across large parts of India, who had been kept out of the woods in which they had once roamed freely.
4. Strikes by factory workers, boycott of British courts by lawyers, and refusal by students to attend government-run institutions.
5. Resignation of officials from government posts, and the enrolment of thousands of volunteers.
6. Large participation by women, who courted arrest by breaking the salt or liquor laws.

The rulers responded by detaining the dissenters. In the wake of the Salt March, nearly 60,000 Indians were arrested, among them Gandhiji himself. The movement also brought Gandhiji to world attention, since the march was widely covered by the European and American press.

Draw an outline map of Gujarat. Mark Sabarmati, Ahmedabad, Nadiad, Anand, Borsad, Surat and Dandi on the coast.

Draw a broken line from Sabarmati to Dandi to show the route of the march, and label the distance as about 240 miles covered in 24 days.

What were the terms of the Gandhi-Irwin Pact?

The British government convened a series of Round Table Conferences in London to discuss the Indian question. The first meeting was held in November 1930, but without the pre-eminent political leader in India, thus rendering it an exercise in futility.

Gandhiji was released from jail in January 1931, and the following month had several long meetings with the Viceroy, Lord Irwin. These culminated in what was called the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, signed on 5 March 1931.

The main terms were:

1. Civil disobedience would be called off, and the Congress would take part in the second Round Table Conference.
2. All prisoners arrested in connection with the movement would be released, except those guilty of violence.
3. People living in villages along the coast would be allowed to make salt for their own use and for sale within those villages.
4. The government would return confiscated land that had not yet been sold to third parties, and would remit fines that had not yet been collected.
5. Peaceful picketing of shops selling foreign cloth and liquor would be permitted, within the limits of the law.

The pact was criticised by radical nationalists, for Gandhiji was unable to obtain from the Viceroy a commitment to political independence for Indians; he could obtain merely an assurance of talks towards that possible end.

Subhas Chandra Bose and Jawaharlal Nehru were among those who felt that the Congress had gained too little in return for calling off the movement. The government also refused a public enquiry into police excesses and did not commute the death sentence on Bhagat Singh, who was hanged on 23 March 1931. The Congress nevertheless endorsed the pact at its Karachi session in March 1931, which also adopted a resolution on Fundamental Rights and Economic Policy.

Why were the Round Table Conferences inconclusive?

The First Round Table Conference met in London in November 1930. It was attended by the Muslim League, the Liberals, the Princes and representatives of the Depressed Classes, but the Congress was absent because its leaders were in jail.

Without the Congress, no agreement on the future constitution was possible, and the conference achieved nothing.

The Second Round Table Conference was held in London from September to December 1931. Here, Gandhiji was the sole representative of the Congress.

However, his claims that his party represented all of India came under challenge from three parties: from the Muslim League, which claimed to stand for the interests of the Muslim minority; from the Princes, who claimed that the Congress had no stake in their territories; and from the brilliant lawyer and thinker B.R. Ambedkar, who argued that Gandhiji and the Congress did not really represent the lowest castes.

The conference was inconclusive for three reasons. First, the Congress and the Muslim League could not agree on the communal question, since the League demanded separate electorates and a large share of seats.

Second, Ambedkar insisted on separate electorates for the Depressed Classes, which Gandhiji opposed, arguing that separate electorates would "ensure them bondage in perpetuity" and "perpetuate the stigma".

Third, the Princes, who had accepted the idea of an all-India federation at the first conference, now hesitated over the terms on which their states would join it.

Gandhiji returned to India at the end of December 1931 and resumed civil disobedience. The new Viceroy, Lord Willingdon, was deeply unsympathetic to the Indian leader. In a private letter to his sister, Willingdon wrote: "It's a beautiful world if it wasn't for Gandhi ... At the bottom of every move he makes which he always says is inspired by God, one discovers the political manoeuvre."

The government struck at once. Gandhiji was arrested on 4 January 1932, the Congress was declared illegal, and special ordinances gave officials sweeping powers to ban meetings, seize property and jail volunteers. The movement continued under heavy repression through 1932, but it lost strength. The mass movement was suspended in May 1933, continued as individual civil disobedience from August 1933, and was formally withdrawn in April 1934. A Third Round Table Conference met in November and December 1932 without the Congress.

The Poona Pact of 1932

When the Second Round Table Conference failed to settle the question of the Depressed Classes, the British Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, announced the Communal Award on 16 August 1932. It granted separate electorates to the Muslims, Sikhs, Indian Christians, Anglo-Indians and Europeans, and also to the Depressed Classes, so that they would vote in separate constituencies and elect their own representatives.

Gandhiji regarded this as a mortal blow to Hindu society, since it would divide the community permanently. He began a fast unto death in Yerwada jail on 20 September 1932. His condition worsened, and leaders of all communities appealed to Ambedkar to save his life.

The result was the Poona Pact, signed on 24 September 1932 by Ambedkar and the Hindu leaders, and accepted by Gandhiji. Its main terms were:

1. Separate electorates for the Depressed Classes were abandoned, and they were to vote in the general electorate. For each reserved seat, Depressed Class voters would first choose a panel of four candidates in a primary election.
2. Reserved seats were to be provided for the Depressed Classes in the provincial legislatures, their number being fixed at 148, as against the 71 seats that the Communal Award had given them.
3. In the Central Legislature, 18 per cent of the seats allotted to the general electorate for British India were to be reserved for the Depressed Classes.
4. Adequate representation was to be given to the Depressed Classes in the public services, and the reserved seats were to continue until ended by mutual agreement between the communities.
5. In every province an adequate sum from the education grant was to be earmarked for the education of the Depressed Classes.

Gandhiji broke his fast on 26 September 1932. The pact was a compromise: Ambedkar gained a larger number of reserved seats, but lost the separate electorates that he believed were the only real safeguard for his community.

Gandhiji then turned to a campaign against untouchability. He founded the Harijan Sevak Sangh in 1932 and began the weekly Harijan in 1933, and in 1933 and 1934 he toured the country to campaign for temple entry and the end of untouchability.

What were the main features of the Government of India Act, 1935?

The Government of India Act, 1935 was one of the longest laws ever passed by the British Parliament, and it became the constitutional basis of British India until 1947. It was built on the Simon Commission's report, the discussions of the Round Table Conferences and a White Paper of 1933.

Its main features were:

1. All-India Federation: the Act provided for a federation of the British Indian provinces and the princely states. The states were free to join or stay out, and since they never agreed to join, the federation never came into being.
2. Provincial autonomy: dyarchy was abolished in the provinces, and the provincial governments were given full autonomy, with the Governor acting on the advice of the ministry responsible to the provincial legislature.
3. Dyarchy at the centre: the federal subjects were divided into reserved and transferred subjects. Defence, foreign affairs, ecclesiastical affairs and tribal areas were reserved for the Governor-General, who could act in his own discretion.
4. Bicameral legislature: the federal legislature was to consist of a Council of State and a Federal Assembly, and six provinces, including Bengal, Bombay, Madras and the United Provinces, were also given two houses.
5. Communal electorates: separate electorates were retained for Muslims, Sikhs, Indian Christians, Anglo-Indians and Europeans; the Depressed Classes received reserved seats in the general electorate under the Poona Pact, and special seats were set aside for women and labour. The franchise was widened, but most adults still had no vote.
6. Federal Court: a Federal Court was set up to settle disputes between the provinces and the centre, and the Council of the Secretary of State for India was abolished.
7. Burma separated: Burma was separated from India, and Sindh and Orissa were created as separate provinces.

The Act was criticised by Indian leaders because it gave no real power to the people. The Governor-General and the Governors retained special powers, the franchise was restricted, and the federation depended on the consent of the Princes.

Jawaharlal Nehru called it "a machine with strong brakes but no engine". The Congress rejected the Act, but at its Faizpur session in December 1936 it decided to contest the elections under it.

What were the results of the 1937 elections, and how did the ministries work?

The election results

Elections were held early in 1937 on the basis of a restricted franchise, under the Government of India Act of 1935. The Congress won a comprehensive victory.

It won an absolute majority in five provinces, Madras, the United Provinces, the Central Provinces, Bihar and Orissa, and was the largest party in Bombay. The Muslim League did poorly, winning fewer than a quarter of the seats reserved for Muslims, and did not form a government of its own in any province.

The Congress accepted office in July 1937, after the Viceroy assured it that the Governors would not use their special powers lightly. In the end, eight out of 11 provinces had a Congress "Prime Minister", working under the supervision of a British Governor.

The Congress ministries

The Congress ministries held office until October 1939, when they resigned because the Viceroy had declared India a belligerent in the Second World War without consulting Indian leaders. During their two years in office the Congress ministries:

1. Released political prisoners and lifted the ban on several organisations.
2. Introduced measures for the welfare of peasants, including tenancy reform and debt relief in some provinces.
3. Promoted khadi and village industries, and encouraged the use of Hindi and other Indian languages in administration.
4. Improved primary education and public health, took up the Wardha scheme of basic education proposed in 1937, introduced prohibition in parts of several provinces, and took steps for the uplift of the Depressed Classes.
5. Appointed committees to enquire into the conditions of workers and peasants.

The non-Congress ministries

The Punjab, Bengal and Sindh had non-Congress ministries. In the Punjab the Unionist Party under Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan, a party of landholders and rich peasants, passed laws in 1938 to protect agriculturists from moneylenders. In Bengal the Krishak Praja Party under A.K. Fazlul Huq governed in coalition with the Muslim League; it had promised to abolish the zamindari system but could not carry this out.

A critical view

A critical account must also note the limits of the Congress record. Critics argued that the Congress ministries did little for the poorest peasants and for workers, that some acted harshly against strikes, and that the Congress was becoming a party of office-holders. The Muslim League accused the ministries of ill-treating Muslims, notably in its Pirpur Report of 1938, and when they resigned it celebrated 22 December 1939 as a Day of Deliverance.

How did the different groups take part in the movement?

Peasants and workers

Peasants joined the movement in large numbers, especially in Gujarat, the United Provinces and Bihar. They broke the forest laws, refused to pay taxes, and joined the salt marches. Rich peasants such as the Patidars of Gujarat and the Jats of the United Provinces, who grew crops for the market and were hit hard by the fall in prices, refused to pay revenue. Poorer peasants wanted their unpaid rents remitted, but the Congress was unwilling to back no-rent campaigns that would upset landlords.

Factory workers took part on a smaller scale. Railway workers struck in 1930 and dock workers in 1932, and textile workers at Sholapur rose in May 1930, but the Congress was reluctant to take up workers' demands, which it feared would alienate industrialists.

Women

The Salt March was the first nationalist activity in which women participated in large numbers. The socialist activist Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay had persuaded Gandhiji not to restrict the protests to men alone.

Kamaladevi was herself one of numerous women who courted arrest by breaking the salt or liquor laws. Sarojini Naidu led the raid on the Dharasana salt works in May 1930 after Gandhiji's arrest.

The North-West Frontier

In the North-West Frontier Province, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan organised the Khudai Khidmatgars, non-violent volunteers known as the Red Shirts. When they were fired upon in Peshawar on 23 April 1930, soldiers of the Garhwal Rifles refused to fire on the unarmed crowd.

Muslims and the Muslim League

Muslim participation in the Civil Disobedience Movement was much smaller than in the Non-Cooperation Movement. The Muslim League, under Jinnah, had rejected the Nehru Report, and many Muslims felt that the Congress did not protect their interests.

In the Second Round Table Conference the League claimed to stand for the interests of the Muslim minority, and in the elections of 1937 it fared badly.

The Depressed Classes

B.R. Ambedkar argued that the Congress did not really represent the lowest castes, and demanded separate electorates to give them political power.

He wrote that the Depressed Classes were "a class which is undoubtedly not in a position to sustain itself in the struggle for existence", and that for such a community "some share of political power in order that it may protect itself is a paramount necessity".

Gandhiji opposed separate electorates, and the dispute ended in the Poona Pact.

Industrialists

Some very prosperous businessmen and industrialists supported the Congress. Indian entrepreneurs recognised that, in a free India, the favours enjoyed by their British competitors would come to an end. Some, such as G.D. Birla and Purshottamdas Thakurdas, supported the national movement openly; others did so tacitly. Their Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, formed in 1927, opposed colonial control over the economy, though many businessmen grew uneasy when the movement was resumed in 1932.

What is the timeline of Gandhian nationalism, 1927 to 1937?

How does Gandhian nationalism differ from earlier nationalism?

The nationalism of the Moderates and the Extremists before 1919 was largely a movement of professionals and intellectuals.

The Congress had branches in most major cities and towns, and the Swadeshi movement of 1905 to 1907 had broadened its appeal among the middle classes, but the mass of peasants and workers stood outside it.

Gandhian nationalism changed this. By 1922, hundreds of thousands of peasants, workers and artisans had participated in the movement. Many of them venerated Gandhiji, referring to him as their "Mahatma".

They appreciated the fact that he dressed like them, lived like them, and spoke their language. Unlike other leaders he did not stand apart from the common folk, but empathised and even identified with them.

The change was not only in numbers. Gandhiji encouraged the communication of the nationalist message in the mother tongue, rather than in the language of the rulers, English.

The provincial committees of the Congress were reorganised on linguistic regions, rather than on the artificial boundaries of British India. A series of Praja Mandals were established to promote the nationalist creed in the princely states.

In these different ways nationalism was taken to the farthest corners of the country.

What sources tell us about Gandhian nationalism?

Historians reconstruct the period from several kinds of sources, and each has to be read with care.

Writings and speeches of Gandhiji and his contemporaries, including both his associates and his political adversaries, are a major source.

Speeches allow us to hear the public voice of an individual, while private letters give us a glimpse of his or her private thoughts.

In letters we see people expressing their anger and pain, their dismay and anxiety, their hopes and frustrations in ways in which they may not express themselves in public statements. But the private-public distinction often breaks down.

Many letters are written to individuals, and are therefore personal, but they are also meant for the public. Gandhiji regularly published in his journal, Harijan, which he started in 1933, letters that others wrote to him.

Nehru edited a collection of letters written to him during the national movement and published A Bunch of Old Letters in 1958.

Autobiographies give an account of the past that is often rich in human detail, but they are retrospective accounts written very often from memory. Jawaharlal Nehru wrote An Autobiography in prison in 1934 and 1935 and published it in 1936.

They tell us what the author could recollect, what he or she saw as important, or how a person wanted his or her life to be viewed by others.

Government records are another vital source, for the colonial rulers kept close tabs on those they regarded as critical of the government.

The letters and reports written by policemen and other officials were secret at the time, but now can be accessed in archives.

The fortnightly reports prepared by the Home Department from the early twentieth century were based on police information from the localities, but often expressed what the higher officials saw, or wanted to believe.

During the Salt March of 1930 the Home Department was unwilling to accept that Gandhiji's actions had evoked any enthusiastic response from the masses.

The march was seen as a drama, an antic, a desperate effort to mobilise people who were unwilling to rise against the British and were busy with their daily schedules, happy under the Raj.

Yet the same reports record that in Nagpur a meeting to congratulate Gandhi on the start of his march was attended by a crowd of over 3,000 people, and that in Bengal "ladies are attending these meetings in increasing numbers".

Newspapers, published in English as well as in the different Indian languages, tracked Gandhiji's movements and reported on his activities, and also represented what ordinary Indians thought of him.

They should not be seen as unprejudiced, since they were published by people who had their own political opinions and world views. The accounts published in a London newspaper would be different from the report in an Indian nationalist paper.

The American newsmagazine Time first scorned Gandhiji's looks, writing with disdain of his "spindly frame" and his "spidery loins", and claimed that he "sank to the ground" at the end of the second day's walking; but within a week it had changed its mind, and saluted him as a "Saint" and "Statesman".

Going beyond the syllabus

The years 1927 to 1937 show a pattern that runs through the rest of the freedom struggle: a British constitutional offer that falls short of Indian demands, a Congress campaign of mass defiance, a negotiated settlement that satisfies neither side, and a return to agitation.

The same pattern can be seen in the Cripps Mission of 1942 and the Cabinet Mission of 1946.

The Government of India Act of 1935 also supplied much of the machinery, and many of the words, of the Constitution of independent India, including the federal structure, the office of the Governor and the emergency provisions.

The decade also shows how the Congress had to hold together groups with very different aims. Peasants wanted lower rents and the end of begar, workers wanted better wages, women wanted a place in public life, and the Depressed Classes wanted political safeguards of their own.

Gandhiji's method was to bring these demands under one non-violent campaign, and to negotiate with the government on behalf of all of them. That method worked best when the government was willing to talk, as in 1931, and worst when the communities fell out over separate electorates, as in 1932.

Reading the decade this way helps a student see the Civil Disobedience Movement not as a single event but as a chain of campaigns, pacts and constitutional experiments, each shaping the next.

Glossary

• Purna Swaraj: Complete independence, adopted as the goal of the Congress at the Lahore session of December 1929.
• Dominion Status: Self-government within the British Empire, with the Crown as head of state, as demanded by the Nehru Report.
• Satyagraha: Non-violent resistance based on truth and the appeal to the conscience of the oppressor.
• Civil disobedience: Deliberate and peaceful breaking of unjust laws to force the government to change them.
• Hartal: A general strike, with shops and workplaces closed, observed as a mark of protest.
• Picketing: A form of demonstration in which people block the entrance to a shop, factory or office.
• Communal Award: The 1932 order of the British Prime Minister granting separate electorates to the Depressed Classes and other minorities.
• Separate electorate: A constituency in which only members of one community may vote and stand for election.
• Dyarchy: A system in which subjects are divided between those run by ministers and those reserved for the Governor.
• Provincial autonomy: The grant of full self-government to the provinces under the Act of 1935.
• Federation: A union of provinces and princely states under a central government, as proposed in the Act of 1935.
• Khadi: Hand-spun and hand-woven cloth, adopted by Gandhiji as a symbol of self-reliance and boycott of foreign cloth.
• Praja Mandal: A nationalist organisation set up in a princely state to promote the Congress creed.
• Franchise: The right to vote in elections, which was restricted to a small section of the population in 1937.

Common errors and misconceptions

• Misconception: The Simon Commission included one Indian member. Correct: All seven members were Englishmen, and that is why it was boycotted.
• Misconception: The Lahore session demanded Dominion Status. Correct: It declared Purna Swaraj, complete independence, as the goal.
• Misconception: The Gandhi-Irwin Pact granted independence to India. Correct: It only called off civil disobedience, released prisoners and allowed salt manufacture along the coast.
• Misconception: The First Round Table Conference was attended by Gandhiji. Correct: The Congress was absent because its leaders were in jail; Gandhiji attended only the Second Conference.
• Misconception: The Poona Pact granted separate electorates to the Depressed Classes. Correct: It abolished separate electorates and gave reserved seats in the general electorate instead.
• Misconception: The Act of 1935 gave India full independence. Correct: It gave provincial autonomy but kept the Governor-General's special powers and set up no responsible government at the centre.
• Misconception: The Congress won the elections of 1937 in all provinces. Correct: It formed ministries in eight out of 11 provinces; the Punjab, Bengal and Sindh had non-Congress ministries.

Exam-style questions with model answers

Q1. State any two reasons why the Simon Commission was boycotted by Indians. [2 marks]

1. All seven members of the Commission were Englishmen, and no Indian was included, although the body was to decide India's future constitution.
2. Indians of all parties held that a commission without Indian members had no right to frame proposals for India, so they greeted it with black flags and the slogan "Simon Go Back".

Q2. State any two terms of the Gandhi-Irwin Pact of March 1931. [2 marks]

1. Civil disobedience would be called off, and the Congress would take part in the Second Round Table Conference.
2. All prisoners arrested in connection with the movement would be released, except those guilty of violence, and salt manufacture would be allowed along the coast.

Q3. Explain any three main points of the Poorna Swaraj Resolution adopted at Lahore in December 1929. [3 marks]

1. The Congress defined Swaraj as complete independence and declared Purna Swaraj to be its goal, rejecting Dominion Status.
2. It decided to boycott the Round Table Conference and called on all Congress members of the legislatures to resign their seats.
3. It authorised the All India Congress Committee to launch civil disobedience, including non-payment of taxes, and 26 January 1930 was then fixed as Independence Day.

Q4. Why did the Round Table Conferences of 1930 and 1931 fail? Give any four reasons. [4 marks]

1. The First Conference was boycotted by the Congress, whose leaders were in jail, so no agreement was possible without the largest Indian party.
2. At the Second Conference Gandhiji's claim that the Congress represented all of India was challenged by the Muslim League, the Princes and Ambedkar.
3. The Congress and the Muslim League could not agree on separate electorates and the share of seats for Muslims.
4. Ambedkar insisted on separate electorates for the Depressed Classes, which Gandhiji opposed, and the Princes hesitated over the terms on which their states would join a federation.

Q5. Explain the main features of the Civil Disobedience Movement of 1930 to 1934. [5 marks]

1. The movement began on 12 March 1930 with the Dandi March from Sabarmati, and Gandhiji broke the salt law at Dandi on 6 April 1930, making the salt tax the symbol of the struggle.
2. It involved the boycott of foreign cloth and British goods, picketing of shops selling liquor and foreign cloth, and the burning of foreign cloth.
3. Peasants broke the forest laws, factory workers went on strike, lawyers boycotted British courts and students left government institutions.
4. Women participated in large numbers for the first time, led by Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay and Sarojini Naidu, and courted arrest by breaking the salt or liquor laws.
5. The government replied with mass arrests, nearly 60,000 Indians being arrested in the wake of the Salt March, and the movement was suspended under the Gandhi-Irwin Pact in March 1931 and resumed later.

Q6. Explain the main features of the Government of India Act of 1935. [5 marks]

1. It provided for an All-India Federation of the British Indian provinces and the princely states, but the states never joined, so the federation never came into being.
2. It abolished dyarchy in the provinces and granted provincial autonomy, with the Governor acting on the advice of the ministry.
3. It introduced dyarchy at the centre, reserving defence, foreign affairs, ecclesiastical affairs and tribal areas for the Governor-General.
4. It set up a bicameral federal legislature, retained separate electorates for Muslims and other minorities, and gave the Depressed Classes reserved seats under the Poona Pact.
5. It provided for a Federal Court, separated Burma from India, and created Sindh and Orissa as separate provinces.

Q7. Give a critical account of the elections of 1937 and the working of the Congress ministries. [6 marks]

1. The elections were held in 1937 on the basis of a restricted franchise, so only a small section of the population could vote, and the Act of 1935 left real power with the Governors.
2. The Congress won a comprehensive victory, with an absolute majority in five provinces, and formed ministries in eight out of 11 provinces, while the Muslim League won fewer than a quarter of the Muslim seats.
3. The Congress ministries released political prisoners, lifted bans on organisations, and introduced tenancy reform and debt relief in some provinces.
4. They promoted khadi and village industries, encouraged Indian languages in administration, and improved primary education and public health.
5. Critics argued that the ministries did little for the poorest peasants and workers and that the Congress was becoming a party of office-holders, the Muslim League accused them of ill-treating Muslims, and the Governors could still override them.
6. The ministries resigned in October 1939, when the Viceroy declared India a belligerent in the Second World War without consulting Indian leaders.

Q8. How did Gandhian nationalism differ from the nationalism of the period before 1919? [6 marks]

1. Before 1919 the movement was largely a matter of professionals, lawyers and landlords; under Gandhiji hundreds of thousands of peasants, workers and artisans joined it.
2. Earlier leaders relied on petitions and resolutions; Gandhiji introduced satyagraha, non-cooperation and civil disobedience.
3. The earlier goal was reform within the Empire; the Lahore session of 1929 declared Purna Swaraj as the goal.
4. Gandhiji adopted the dhoti, the charkha and khadi as symbols, and encouraged the use of the mother tongue instead of English.
5. He reorganised the provincial committees on linguistic regions and set up Praja Mandals in the princely states, taking nationalism to the farthest corners of the country.
6. He insisted on non-violence as the supreme dharma, and called off movements whenever they turned violent, as at Chauri Chaura in 1922.

Key takeaways

• The Simon Commission of 1927 was boycotted because all its members were Englishmen, and the boycott made it a national issue.
• The Nehru Report of 1928 demanded Dominion Status, and the Calcutta Congress gave the government until the end of 1929 to accept it.
• The Lahore session of December 1929 adopted Purna Swaraj and elected Jawaharlal Nehru as President.
• The Civil Disobedience Movement began with the Dandi March on 12 March 1930 and made the salt tax its symbol.
• The Gandhi-Irwin Pact of March 1931 called off civil disobedience but won no commitment to independence.
• The Second Round Table Conference failed because the Congress, the League, the Princes and Ambedkar could not agree.
• The Poona Pact of 1932 replaced separate electorates with reserved seats for the Depressed Classes.
• The Act of 1935 gave provincial autonomy but kept real power with the Governors and the Governor-General.
• The Congress won the elections of 1937 and formed ministries in eight out of 11 provinces, resigning in October 1939.

Test yourself

Who chaired the Simon Commission, and when did it reach India?

Sir John Simon chaired the Commission, which was appointed in November 1927 and reached India in February 1928. All seven of its members were Englishmen, which is why it was boycotted.

What was the central demand of the Nehru Report?

The Nehru Report of 1928 demanded Dominion Status for India, with joint electorates in place of separate ones; the Calcutta Congress then gave the government until the end of 1929 to accept it.

When did Gandhiji break the salt law at Dandi?

Gandhiji began the Dandi March from Sabarmati on 12 March 1930, reached Dandi on 5 April, and on 6 April 1930 made a fistful of salt and thereby broke the salt law.

Why did Gandhiji begin a fast unto death in September 1932?

He began the fast on 20 September 1932 in Yerwada jail to protest against the Communal Award of Ramsay MacDonald, which granted separate electorates to the Depressed Classes and would, he believed, divide Hindu society permanently.

How many provinces had Congress ministries after the elections of 1937?

Eight out of 11 provinces had a Congress "Prime Minister", working under the supervision of a British Governor. The Congress had won an absolute majority in five provinces.

Why did the Congress ministries resign in October 1939?

The Second World War broke out in September 1939, and the Viceroy declared India a belligerent without consulting Indian leaders. When negotiations with the Viceroy broke down, the Congress ministries resigned in October 1939.

What did the Government of India Act of 1935 provide for the princely states?

It provided for an All-India Federation of the provinces and the princely states, but the states were free to join or stay out. Since they never agreed to join, the federation never came into being.

Who led the Bardoli Satyagraha of 1928?

Vallabhbhai Patel led the peasant movement in Bardoli, a taluka in Gujarat, against the enhancement of land revenue. The movement succeeded and generated immense sympathy in many parts of India.