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Unit 14: Map II

encourage its member to enter into legislative councils (established under Montford Reforms of Notes
1919) by contesting elections in order to wreck the legislature from within and to use moral
pressure to compel the authority to concede to the popular demand for self-government.
Under the 1919 Act, a statutory commission was to be appointed by the British Government at the
end often years from the passing of the Act to inquire into the working of the system of government
in the country and to recommend further reforms. Thus the commission was scheduled to be
appointed in 1929. It was actually appointed two years earlier in 1927. The commission consisted
of seven members of the British Parliament. It was headed by Sir John Simon. As all its members
were British, the Congress decided to boycott it. The Commission arrived in India in Feb. 1928. It
was greeted with black flags and hostile demonstrations everywhere it went. In one such
demonstration at Lahore, Lala Lajpat Rai was seriously injured in a wanton police lathi-charge on
the demonstrators. Lalaji died soon after from wounds received during the demonstration.
Also called the ‘Salt Satyagraha’. To achieve the goal of complete independence, Gandhiji launched
another civil disobedience movement. Along with 79 followers, Gandhiji started his famous march
from Sabarmati Ashram on March 20,1930, for the small village Dandi to break the Salt Law.
While Gandhiji was marching to Dandi,
Congress leaders and workers had been busy at various levels with the hard organizational tasks
of enrolling volunteers and members, forming grassroot Congress Committees, collecting funds,
and touring villages and towns to spread nationalist messages.
On reaching the seashore on April 6,1930, he broke the Salt Law by picking up salt from the
seashore. By picking a handful of salt, Gandhiji inaugurated the Civil Disobedience Movement, a
movement that was to remain unsurpassed in the history of the Indian National Movement for the
countrywide mass participation it unleashed. The movement became so powerful that it sparked
off partriotism even among the Indian soldiers in the Army. The Garhwal soldiers refused to fire
on the people at Peshawar.
Early in 1931 two moderate statesmen, Sapru and Jayakar, initiated efforts to bring about
rapprochement between Gandhiji and the government. Six meetings with Viceroy Lord Irwin
finally led to the signing of a pact between the two on March 5, 1931, whereby the Congress called
off the movement and agreed to join the Second Round Table Conference. 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 land not yet sold to third parties,
and lenient treatment of all the government officials who had resigned.
The Simon Commission report submitted in 1930 formed the basis for the Government of India
Act 1935. The new Government of India Act received the royal assent on August 4,1935. The Act
continued and extended all the existing features of the Indian constitution. Popular representation,
which went back to 1892, dyarchy and ministerial responsibility, which dated from 1921, provincial
autonomy, whose chequered history went back to eighteenth century presidencies, communal
representation, which first received recognition in 1909, and the safeguards devised in 1919, were
all continued and in most cases extended. But in addition there were certain new principles
intro-duced. It provided for a federal type of government.
The Act of 1935 was condemned by nearly all sections of Indian public opinion and was unanimously
rejected by the Congress. The Congress demanded instead, the convening of a Constituent Assembly
elected on the basis of adult franchise to frame a constitution for an independent India.
On August 8, 1942, the Congress in its meeting at Bombay passed a resolution known as ‘Quit
India’ resolution, whereby Gandhiji asked the British to quit India and gave a call for ‘Do or die’
to his countrymen. On August 9, 1942, Gandhiji was arrested but the other leaders continued the
revolutionary struggle. Violence spread throughout the country, several government officers were
destroyed and damaged, telegraph wires were cut and communication paralyzed. The movement
was, however, crushed by the government.

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