Page 150 - DHIS204_DHIS205_INDIAN_FREEDOM_STRUGGLE_HINDI

Unit 10: National Movements and Indian Independence

The Pact was signed by Gandhiji on behalf of the Congress and by Lord Irwin on behalf of the Notes
Government, a procedure that was hardly popular with officialdom as it placed the Congress on
an equal footing with the Government. The terms of the agreement included the immediate release
of all political prisoners not convicted for violence, the remission of all fines not yet collected, the
return of confiscated lands not yet sold to third parties, and lenient treatment for those government
employees who had resigned. The Government also conceded the right to make salt for consumption
to villages along the coast, as also the right to peaceful and non-aggressive picketing. The Congress
demand for a public inquiry into police excesses was not accepted, but Gandhiji’s insistent request
for an inquiry was recorded in the agreement. The Congress, on its part, agreed to discontinue the
Civil Disobedience Movement. It was also understood that the Congress would participate in the
next Round Table Conference.
The terms on which the Pact was signed, its timing, the motives of Gandhiji in signing the Pact, his
refusal to make the Pact conditional on the commutation of the death-sentences of Bhagat Singh and
his comrades, (even though he had tried his best to persuade the Viceroy to do so), have generated
considerable controversy and debate among contemporaries and historians alike. The Pact has been
variously seen as a betrayal, as proof of the vacillating nature of the Indian bourgeoisie and of
Gandhiji succumbing to bourgeois pressure. It has been cited as evidence of Gandhiji’s and the
Indian bourgeoisie’s fear of the mass movement taking a radical turn; a betrayal of peasants’ interests
because it did not immediately restore confiscated land, already sold to a third party, and so on.
However, as with arguments relating to the withdrawal of the Non-Cooperation Movement in
1922 after Chauri Chaura, these perceptions are based on an understanding which fails to grasp
the basic strategy and character of the Indian national movement. For one, this understanding
ignores the fact which has been stressed earlier — that mass movements are necessarily short-
lived, they cannot go on for ever, the people’s capacity to sacrifice, unlike that of the activists’, is
not endless. And signs of exhaustion there certainly were, in large and important sectors of the
movement. In the towns, while the students and other young people still had energy to spare,
shopkeepers and merchants were finding it difficult to bear any more losses and the support from
these sections, so crucial in making the boycott a success, had begun to decline by September of
1930. In rural India as well, those areas that had begun their resistance early in the year were fairly
quiet in the second half. Through sporadic incidents of resistance and attacks on and clashes with
police continued, this was as true of Bengal and Bihar as it was of Andhra and Gujarat. Those
areas like U.P., which began their no-rent campaigns only at the end of 1930, still had more fight
left in them, but the few instances of militant resistance that carried on and the ability of one or
two regions to sustain activity can hardly be cited as proof of the existence of vast reserves of
energy all over the country. And what was the guarantee that when those reserves were exhausted,
as they were bound to be sooner rather than later, the Government would still be willing to talk?
1931 was not 1946; and as 1932 was to show, the Government could change tack and suppress
with a ferocity that could effectively crush the movement. No doubt the youth were disappointed,
for they would have preferred their world to end ‘with a bang’ rather than ‘with a whimper’; and
surely the peasants of Gujarat were not happy that some of their lands did not come back to them
immediately (they were returned after the Congress Ministry assumed office in Bombay in 1937).
But the vast mass of the people were undoubtedly impressed that the mighty British Government
had had to treat their movement and their leader as an equal and sign a pact with him. They saw
this as a recognition of their own strength, and as their victory over the Government. The thousands
who flocked out of the jails as a result of the pact were treated as soldiers returning from a
victorious battle and not as prisoners of war returning from a humiliating defeat. They knew that
a truce was not a surrender, and that the battle could be joined again, if the enemy so wanted.
Meanwhile, their soldiers could rest and they could all prepare for the next round: they retained
their faith in their General, and in themselves.
The Civil Disobedience Movement of 1930-31, then, marked a critically important stage in the
progress of the anti-imperialist struggle. The number of people who went to jail was estimated at
over 90,000 — more than three times the figure for the Non-Cooperation Movement of 1920-22.
Imports of cloth from Britain had fallen by half; other imports like cigarettes had suffered a similar
fate. Government income from liquor excise and land revenue had been affected. Elections to the

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 145