BPSC 69th CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 140 of 144

Correct — C, Karachi Session—1931. The Congress met at Karachi at the end of March 1931 under the presidency of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, primarily to endorse the Gandhi–Irwin (Delhi) Pact of 5 March, and there it adopted the Resolution on Fundamental Rights and Economic Policy, dated 31 March 1931 in the Nehru archive's copy. It was drafted by Jawaharlal Nehru, with editorial changes by Gandhi, and it is the first time a Congress session put its name to a charter of rights. What it promised, in about twenty points, was this: free expression of opinion through speech and the press, free assembly and freedom of association; equality before the law irrespective of caste, creed or sex; neutrality of the state in regard to all religions; elections on the basis of universal adult franchise; free and compulsory primary education; protection of the culture, language and script of minorities; a living wage for industrial workers, limited hours, protection of women workers and the right to form unions; state ownership or control of key industries, mineral resources, railways and shipping; and substantial reduction in land revenue and rent. Its most quoted sentence explains why it mattered: 'in order to end the exploitation of the masses, political freedom must include real economic freedom of the starving millions.' As Bipan Chandra puts it, this was the first time the Congress defined what Swaraj would mean for the masses, and the list reads today like a first draft of Part III and Part IV of the Constitution. Two honest qualifications. Sumit Sarkar's reading is that there was 'precious little of socialism' in the twenty points — only 'substantial reductions' in revenue and rent were promised, rural indebtedness went unmentioned and landlordism was untouched. And the rights themselves were not being invented from nothing: the Nehru Report of 1928, drafted for the All Parties Conference, had already proposed universal adult suffrage, equal rights for women, freedom to form unions and the dissociation of the state from religion. What Karachi added was that a Congress session, not a committee, now formally owned the commitment. Neither of the other two dated sessions on the list is close: 1907 is the split and 1922 is the council-entry quarrel.

• (a)Surat Session—1907 — Surat 1907 is the session that produced no resolutions at all, which is precisely why it cannot be the answer. Pherozeshah Mehta had the venue shifted from Nagpur to the Moderate stronghold of Surat, and since the local reception committee chose the president, that secured the election of the moderate Rash Behari Ghosh. On 27 December Tilak's move for an adjournment was ruled out by the reception committee's chairman and the session collapsed into chaos; the Allahabad Convention of April 1908 then made the split definitive by writing a constitution restricting Congress methods to the 'strictly constitutional'. Candidates pick it because it is the most famous early session, but fame is not the same as legislative output.
• (b)Gaya Session—1922 — Gaya, December 1922, was presided over by C. R. Das and turned entirely on one question — whether the Congress should enter the reformed legislative councils to wreck them from within. Council entry was voted down by roughly 1,748 to 890, after which Das and Motilal Nehru announced the Congress-Khilafat Swaraj Party on 1 January 1923, with Das as president. It produced pro-changers and no-changers, not a charter of rights. The date does tempt: 1922 sits in the aftermath of Non-Cooperation, and a candidate reasoning that a rights resolution should follow a mass movement can talk himself into it — but the mass movement that produced the rights charter was Civil Disobedience, nine years later.
• (d)None of the above — Only defensible if you take 'for the first time' hyper-literally and argue that the substance of the rights had already appeared in the Nehru Report of 1928. That objection has real content but it does not carry: the Nehru Report was the output of an All Parties Conference committee under Motilal Nehru, not a resolution of a Congress session, and the stem asks specifically about a session. Since the Karachi session did pass exactly such a resolution on 31 March 1931, the catch-all cannot be right.

The Karachi session sits in a very particular political moment. Gandhi had signed the Delhi Pact with Viceroy Irwin on 5 March 1931, suspending Civil Disobedience in exchange for the release of prisoners, the right to make salt for domestic use and Congress participation in the Second Round Table Conference. Radicals thought he had settled for too little, and their anger sharpened when Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru were hanged on 23 March, six days before the Congress met. Gandhi was greeted with black-flag demonstrations along his route and the Naujawan Bharat Sabha organised a protest against him at Karachi railway station. The session answered on two fronts. It passed a resolution drafted by Gandhi which, 'while dissociating itself from and disapproving of political violence in any shape or form', admired 'the bravery and sacrifice' of the three men; and it endorsed the Delhi Pact — the endorsing resolution being moved by Jawaharlal Nehru, who had spent October to January in Naini jail working out a radical agrarian programme and had proposed a Constituent Assembly as the central nationalist demand. The Fundamental Rights and Economic Policy resolution was the second answer: a promise about what independence would deliver, aimed squarely at the Left critics of the Pact. Officials suspected M. N. Roy's hand in it, and the industrialist Ambalal Sarabhai circulated a note among FICCI members warning that parts of it threatened 'a Government on Russian model'.

Three dates and three subjects decide this question, and they can be memorised as a set. Surat 1907 is the split; Gaya 1922 is council entry; Karachi 1931 is fundamental rights and economic policy. Once each session is welded to one subject, the item is instant. If you cannot recall the pairing, reason forward instead. A charter of rights is a statement about the shape of a future state, so it belongs to a phase in which the Congress had already committed itself to complete independence — which happened at Lahore in December 1929 — and had a mass movement behind it whose participants needed to be told what they were fighting for. Only 1931 satisfies both conditions; in 1907 the Congress's stated goal was still self-government within the Empire, and in 1922 it was recovering from the withdrawal at Bardoli. The discriminating fact for the whole item is the pairing of one man with one document: Jawaharlal Nehru drafted the Karachi resolution, and UPSC has asked exactly that twice. Note also what the option list quietly omits — Lahore 1929, which passed the Purna Swaraj resolution and is the session students most often confuse with Karachi, because both are 'the session with the famous resolution'.

• The Karachi session met at the end of March 1931 under the presidency of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel; the Resolution on Fundamental Rights and Economic Policy carries the date 31 March 1931
• The resolution was drafted by Jawaharlal Nehru with editorial changes by Gandhi, and ran to about twenty points covering civil liberties, equality irrespective of caste, creed or sex, state neutrality in religion, adult franchise, free primary education, labour rights and state control of key industries
• Its key sentence: 'in order to end the exploitation of the masses, political freedom must include real economic freedom of the starving millions'
• The session met to endorse the Gandhi–Irwin (Delhi) Pact of 5 March 1931, and it opened six days after the execution of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru on 23 March 1931
• Surat 1907: venue moved from Nagpur by Pherozeshah Mehta, Rash Behari Ghosh elected president, session broke up in disorder on 27 December, and the Allahabad Convention of April 1908 sealed the split
• Gaya 1922: C. R. Das in the chair, council entry defeated by about 1,748 votes to 890, and the Congress-Khilafat Swaraj Party announced on 1 January 1923 with Das as president and Motilal Nehru a secretary
• The 1928 Nehru Report had already proposed universal adult suffrage, equal rights for women, freedom to form unions and dissociation of the state from religion — but as an All Parties Conference document, not a Congress session resolution

• Confusing Karachi 1931 with Lahore 1929 — Lahore passed the Purna Swaraj resolution, Karachi passed the Fundamental Rights resolution
• Crediting the president with the drafting: Sardar Patel presided at Karachi, but Jawaharlal Nehru drafted the resolution
• Assuming the Nehru Report of 1928 was a Congress session resolution; it was an All Parties Conference document, which is why Karachi remains the 'first time' answer

BPSC asks it as a session-to-event match with the years printed inside the options, so the whole item collapses if you have paired each famous session with its one defining act. UPSC has never asked which session it was — it takes that as known and asks who drafted the resolution, which it did in 2005 and again in 2010, the second time even naming Sardar Patel as president inside the stem to remove that ambiguity. The lesson for both exams is to learn the Karachi resolution as a triple: Patel presiding, Nehru drafting, March 1931.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Who drafted the Resolution on Fundamental Rights and Economic Policy adopted at the Karachi session of the Indian National Congress in 1931?

  • (a)Mahatma Gandhi
  • (b)Jawaharlal Nehru
  • (c)Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel
  • (d)Dr. Rajendra Prasad

  Answer(b) Jawaharlal Nehru — he drafted it, with editorial changes by Gandhi; Patel presided over the session but did not draft the resolution.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Karachi session of the Indian National Congress in March 1931 met within a week of which of the following events?

  • (a)The Jallianwala Bagh massacre
  • (b)The Chauri Chaura incident
  • (c)The execution of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru
  • (d)The Lahore session's Purna Swaraj resolution

  Answer(c) The execution of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru — hanged on 23 March 1931, six days before the session, which is why Gandhi was met with black-flag demonstrations on the way to Karachi.