CDS (I) 2021 General Knowledge · Question 7 of 120

Correct — D, The Congress agreed to take part in the Second Round Table Conference. That was the heart of the bargain struck in Delhi on 5 March 1931. The Congress had boycotted the first Round Table Conference; the pact brought it in for the second, with Gandhi going to London later that year as the sole Congress representative. The other three options invert what the pact actually contained. On the Government's side it undertook to release political prisoners other than those guilty of violence, to withdraw the ordinances and prosecutions brought against the Civil Disobedience Movement, to return confiscated property of satyagrahis, to allow people on the coast to make salt for their own use, and to permit peaceful picketing of liquor and foreign cloth shops. On the Congress side it undertook to discontinue civil disobedience and to attend the conference. Read the four options against that list and only the last survives.

• (a)The Government would not release those prisoners who had been non-violent. — Exactly backwards. It was the prisoners guilty of violence who were held back; those not convicted of violence were to be released. Reversing the qualifier reverses the concession.
• (b)The Government would not release those prisoners who had indulged in the peaceful picketing of liquor and foreign cloth shops. — Peaceful picketing of liquor and foreign cloth shops was not merely forgiven but expressly permitted to continue under the pact. It was one of the concessions Gandhi obtained, so it cannot be a ground for keeping anyone in jail.
• (c)The Congress did not agree to the suspension of the Civil Disobedience Movement. — Suspending civil disobedience was the Congress side of the bargain and the reason the pact is also called a truce. Without it there was nothing for the Government to concede against.

The pact, formally the Delhi Pact, was signed by Gandhi and the Viceroy Lord Irwin on 5 March 1931, after a year of civil disobedience that had begun with the Dandi march. It was a truce rather than a settlement: the Government made administrative concessions and the Congress called off the movement and joined the constitutional talks in London. The Karachi session of the Congress at the end of March 1931 endorsed it, in the same week that Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru were hanged.

Three of the four options are the real terms of the pact with a negative inserted or a qualifier flipped, which is the standard way this period is examined. The defence against it is to hold the actual list in mind and check each option against it rather than judging by plausibility. Two demands Gandhi pressed and did not get are worth remembering because they are the usual matter of a second question — a public inquiry into police excesses was refused, and the death sentences on Bhagat Singh and his comrades were not commuted. Those refusals are why many in the Congress, and much of the younger nationalist opinion, regarded the pact as falling short of a settlement.

• Signed 5 March 1931 in Delhi between Mahatma Gandhi and Viceroy Lord Irwin; also called the Delhi Pact.
• The Government agreed to release political prisoners not guilty of violence, withdraw ordinances and prosecutions, restore confiscated property and allow salt-making for domestic use near the coast.
• Peaceful picketing of liquor and foreign cloth shops was expressly permitted.
• The Congress agreed to discontinue the Civil Disobedience Movement and to attend the Second Round Table Conference.
• Gandhi's demand for an inquiry into police excesses was refused, and the death sentences on Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru were not commuted.
• The Congress boycotted the first and third Round Table Conferences; Gandhi attended only the second, held in London from September to December 1931.

• Options that flip a qualifier — 'those who had been non-violent' in place of 'those guilty of violence'.
• Assuming the Congress attended all three Round Table Conferences; it joined only the second.
• Believing the pact secured a commutation for Bhagat Singh or an inquiry into police excesses; neither was granted.

As a which-statement-is-correct item on the terms of the pact, or as a chronology question placing it between the Dandi march and the Second Round Table Conference.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, which one of the following was the Government NOT prepared to concede?

  • (a)Withdrawal of the ordinances issued against the Civil Disobedience Movement
  • (b)Permission for peaceful picketing of liquor and foreign cloth shops
  • (c)A public inquiry into police excesses
  • (d)Release of prisoners not convicted of violence

  Answer(c) a public inquiry into police excesses — Gandhi pressed for it and Irwin refused, which is one reason the pact was seen as a truce rather than a settlement.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Mahatma Gandhi attended which of the Round Table Conferences held in London?

  • (a)The first only
  • (b)The second only
  • (c)The first and the second
  • (d)All three

  Answer(b) the second only — the Congress boycotted the first and the third, and Gandhi went to the second in 1931 as its sole representative under the terms of the Delhi Pact.