CSS@ Sir Waqas

Source : Trek to Pakistan By Saeed Ahmed

The Round Table Conferences

Introduction
 Round Table Conferences was a series of meetings from 1930 -1932.
 The meetings held in London between Britain and Indian representatives.
 The aim of these conferences were to discuss Indian constitutional
developments.
 The conferences were based on the recommendation of Muhammad Ali Jinnah to Lord
Irwin, the then Viceroy of India and James Ramsay MacDonald, the then British Prime
Minister, and the Simon Commission report.
 The conference resulted from a review of the Government of India Act of 1919,
undertaken in 1927 by the Simon Commission, whose report was published in 1930.

Civil Disobedience Movement

due to The Simon

Report

congress launched Civil

Disobedience movement on
March 1930 under the
leadership of Gandhi.

as a result leaders were arrested

on starting the Civil Disobedience
movement
Due to this , Indain National
Congress did not take part in First
Round Table Conference
First Round Table Conference, 1930
 The First Round Table Conference officially inaugurated by King George V on
November 12, 1930 in Royal Gallery House of Lords at London and chaired by the
Prime Minister
 Ramsay MacDonald presided over the first Round Table Conference

Participants

 The first session (Nov. 12, 1930–Jan. 19, 1931) had 73 representatives,
 Three British political parties sent a total of 16 delegates.
 There were 74 Indian delegates in total.
 58 representatives from political parties in India.
 16 delegates from princely states
 the Indian National Congress did not attend.

Representation Members
Indian princely states Maharajas , Nawabs and Diwans

Muslim League
Aga Khan ,Mohammad Ali Jauhar, Muhammad Shafi, Muhammad Ali Jin
Zafarullah Khan, A.K. Fazlul Huq, Hafiz Ghulam Hussain Hidayat Ullah,
Hindu Mahasabha and its B.S. Moonje, M.R. Jayakar
sympathisers and Diwan Bahadur Raja Narendra Nath

Sikhs
Begum Jahanara Shahnawaz and Radhabai
Women Subbaraya

Liberals

Justice Party

Anglo-Indians
Indian Christians
Key topics of the First Round Table Conference

Defence
services Tej Bahadur Sapru
moved the idea of an
Minorities All-India Federation
supported by ALML
and Princely states

Federal
structure Provinces of
Sindh and NWFP

Dr B R Ambedkar
demanded separate
electorates for the Provincial
‘untouchables’. constitution

Developments of the conference

 No significant breakthrough occurred.
 It developed consensus 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

Outcomes of the conference

o As a result, the First Round Table Conference was deemed
a failure
 Its principal achievement was an insistence on parliamentarianism—an
acceptance by all, including the princes, of the federal principle—and
on dominion status as the goal of constitutional development
 Eventually, 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

Gandhi Irwin Pact

 The Gandhi–Irwin Pact was a political agreement
 signed by Mahatma Gandhi and Lord Irwin, Viceroy of India, on 5 March 1931 before the
Second Round Table Conference in London.

Features of the Pact :

 Discontinuation of the Civil Disobedience movement
 Participation by the Indian National Congress in the Second Round Table Conference.
 Withdrawal of ban on foreign goods of British
 Withdrawal of all ordinances issued by the Government of India imposing curbs on the
activities of the Indian National Congress.
 Release of prisoners arrested during Civil disobedience movement.

Response of Indians
 INC (Indian National Congress ) took as a great victory
 The Vir Bharat treated the pact as a personal victory of M.K Gandhi.

 The Hariana Tilak stated

That government had to bow before the country’s united voices
and great sacrifices

The second Round Table Conference

 The second Round Table Conference lasted from September 7 to
December 1 ,1931.
 Ramsay MacDonald, the British Prime Minister, was now in charge of a National
government
  to address the shortcomings of the First Round Table Conference,

Participants
 23 delegates from Indian princely states.
 80 delegates from Indian Political parties.

Muslim League The Untouchables Indian liberals party Depressed class

Indian National Sikhs Anglo Indians
Congress

Key features of the Conference

 The British supported creating a distinct electorate as a communal reward for
the representation of minorities in India.
 Gandhi rejected this incentive because he disagreed with the notion that
minorities should be treated differently from Hindus.
 Gandhi claimed to be the true representative among all participants and
proposed to dissolve the Minorities committee.
 Gandhi and Ambedkar presented opposing viewpoints on the communal award
of a separate electorate for the untouchables who were regarded as a minority
and were divided based on their ideas, at this Round Table session.

Second Round Table Conference Outcomes

 This conference was failure due to several factorsDue to the

numerous conflicts and differences among the attendees
 Conflict
btw
Ganhi and
Ambedkar

speech Demands of
separate
of factors electorate for
Gandhi untouchables

communal
representat
ion.

Communal Award
 The Communal Award was created by the British prime
minister Ramsay MacDonald on 16 August 1932.
 it is also known as the MacDonald Award.
 This was Britain’s unilateral attempt to resolve the various conflicts
among India’s many communal interests
 The Communal Award was a series of elections awarded to the
depressed classes and minorities.
 The Communal Award, based on the findings of the Indian Franchise
Committee (also called the Lothian Committee), established separate
electorates and reserved seats for minorities, including the depressed
classes which were granted seventy-eight reserved seats

Main Provisions of the Communal Award

 Muslims, Europeans, Sikhs, Indian Christians, Anglo- Indians, depressed classes, women,
and even the Marathas were to get separate electorates
 In the provincial legislatures, the seats were to be distributed on communal basis.
 The existing seats of the provincial legislatures were to be doubled.
 The Muslims, wherever they were in minority, were to be granted a weightage.
  Except in the North West Frontier Province, 3 per cent seats were to be reserved for
women in all provinces.
 The depressed classes to be declared/accorded the status of minority
 The depressed classes were to get ‘double vote’, one to be used through separate
electorates and the other to be used in the general electorates
 Allocation of seats were to be made for labourers, landlords, traders and industrialists.
 In the province of Bombay, 7 seats were to be allocated for the Marathas.

Response of Political parties

•Communal Award as
•strongly disagreeing an attack on Indian
with the Communal unity and
Award, nationalism.

Congress Gandhi

Muslim
Nationalists
league They were also
not happy with
Opposed by all the Award
nationalists

Third Round Table Conference

 The third session was convened on Nov. 17–Dec. 24, 1932.

 The third round table discussion served as the conclusion.

Participants
 There were just 46 only delegates who attend the conference.
  majority of the political leaders were unable to attend.
 Both INC and the British Labour Party declined to attend the conference.
 Jinnah also didn’t attend the conference.
 The princely realms of India were represented by princes and the divans.

Outcomes of Third Round Table Conference

 The absence of the political leaders and Maharajas made this round table session
ineffective, and nothing significant was discussed.
 The recommendations made at this round table conference were written down and
published in a white paper in 1933,
 The result of these deliberations was the Government of India Act, 1935, establishing
provincial autonomy and also a federal system that was never implemented
 In this conference, a college student Chaudhary Rahmat Ali proposed the name of the
new land specially carved out from India for the Muslims.