THE May 1929 elections in Britain spawned the first Labour Party Government, with Ramsay MacDonald (1866-1937) as Prime Minister and Wedgewood Benn (1877-1960) as Secretary of State for India. Soon after coming to power MacDonald, whose Labour Party had always been sympathetic to Indian demands, proclaimed the possibility of an Indian Dominion joining the British Commonwealth of Nations “within a period of months rather than years”.
This was followed on October 31, 1929, by the Viceroy (Lord Irwin)’s announcement, envisaging the attainment of Dominion Status as “the natural issue” of India’s constitutional progress. He also announced the convening of a Round Table Conference (RTC) in London of the representatives of British India, the Indian States and the British political parties, to discuss the Simon Commission Report (June 1929) as well as other proposals and to work out a constitutional scheme for India.
Irwin’s announcement, which represented a great advance over the previous British position, was designed to conciliate Indians on the Simon Commission issue, as well as to meet the long standing Indian demand for full self-governing dominion status and for the convoking of a representative RTC to draw up a new constitution. Irwin had privately consulted both Jinnah and Sapru before the announcement, and Jinnah took the initiative for bringing about a meeting between the Congress leaders and the Viceroy on December 23, but the Congress’s two preconditions for cooperation led to the breakdown of the talks.
Shortly after, on December 31, the Congress adopted “complete independence” as its creed at the Lahore (1931) Congress, and decided upon the RTC boycott and the launching of a civil disobedience movement. Gandhi started his famous, long-trek “Dandi March” on March 12, 1930, and launched the movement on April 6. But except for the Congress, it was not backed by others, most importantly by Muslims.
The first RTC met in London, November 12, 1930 - January 19, 1931. Of the 89 delegates, 57 represented British India, 16 represented Indian States while another 16 represented the three British parties - Labour, Conservative and Liberal. The Congress, of course, went unrepresented, while the Indian representatives were nominated, either directly or indirectly, by the Viceroy. MacDonald enunciated three principles for deliberation at the Conference: (i) a federal framework; (ii) full responsible government for the provinces with necessary safeguards; and (iii) partial responsibility to be introduced at the centre, subject to certain reservations.
On the Muslim side;. the most important members were the Aga Khan, Jinnah, Shafi, Mohammed Ali, Mohammad Zafrullah Khan and Shafaat Ahmad Khan .
Muslim suspicion about a behind-the-scene understanding between the Labour Government and the Hindus increased as the Mahasabha delegates called on MacDonald to arbitrate on the communal question forcing Muslim delegates to seek the support of the other two British parties, while stoutly rejecting the Hindu suggestion.
The Congress’s absence at the RTC was, of course, widely regretted. Hence a week after the conclusion of the first RTC on January l9, the Viceroy lifted the ban on the Congress in order to conciliate it, and the subsequent Gandhi-Irwin Pact of March 5 paved the way for Congress participation in the second RTC (September 7-December 1, 1931).
At this RTC Gandhi, the sole Congress representative, behaved as if he was the sole Indian delegate. He claimed for himself a monopoly of representating the 350 million Indians, including the princely states and “all the Minorities”. This created suspicion about his intentions amongst the princes and minorities.
Inter alia, Gandhi also called for completing the work on the Federal Structure Committee without waiting for the minorities question to be settled, while the Minorities Committee, except for the Sikhs, called for exactly the reverse, entering into a pact and putting up a memorandum incorporating their joint proposals in November.
At the RTC’s concluding session, MacDonald said that the Government would be compelled “to apply a provisional scheme”, in case of continued failure by the delegates themselves to work out a viable agreement. Thus came the Communal Award on August 16, 1932.
Apart from this Award, another important development of the second RTC for Muslim India was that the Indian delegates’ inability to work out an agreement on the basics frustrated Jinnah to a point that he decided upon self-exile. Because as the Manchester Guardian had put it, “Mr. Jinnah’s position at the RTC was unique. The Hindus thought he was a Muslim communalist, the Muslims took him to be pro-Hindu, the princes deemed him to be too democratic, the Britishers considered him to be a rabid extremist - with the result that he was everywhere but nowhere. None wanted him.”
The third RTC was held between November 17 and December 24, 1932, at which, also, the Congress went unrepresented. The Conference simply reaffirmed the decisions already arrived at earlier, and discussed the reports of the sub-committees set up at the second RTC. These decisions were incorporated in the White Paper of March 17, 1933, and a month later was set up a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) under Lord Linlithgow to work out the details.
The work of the RTC was summed up by Sir Samuel Hoare, the new Secretary of State, on December 24, 1932 in two sentences: (i) “... we have already delimited the field upon which the future constitution is going to be built”; (ii) “we have I believe created an espirit de corps amongst all of us that is determined to see the building that is going to be reared ”. And that building in its final shape became the Government of India Act, 1935, the penultimate British Indian constitution.
