Which of the following statements is/are correct? 1. During the Second Round Table Conference held in London in 1931, the British Government refused to accept the basic nationalist demand for freedom. 2. India was granted dominion status in 1932. 3. Viceroy Lord Willingdon adopted a policy of reconciliation with Congress. 4. The Civil Disobedience Movement was started with the breaking of salt laws. Select the answer using the code given below:
- (a)2 and 3 only
- (b)4 only
- (c)1 and 4 only
- (d)1, 2 and 4
Correct — B, 4 only. That is the option marked for this paper. Statement 4 is beyond argument: the Civil Disobedience Movement opened with Gandhi's march to Dandi in March 1930 and the breaking of the salt law on 6 April, the salt monopoly being picked precisely because salt was indispensable in every Indian household and yet nobody was allowed to make it. Statement 2 is false — India was not given dominion status in 1932. What the Round Table Conferences fed into was the Government of India Act 1935; dominion status came only on 15 August 1947, under the Indian Independence Act. Statement 3 is false and NCERT says so in as many words: after Gandhi returned from London, ‘the new Viceroy, Lord Willingdon, was deeply unsympathetic to the Indian leader’, and his term is remembered for the ordinances and mass arrests that followed, not for reconciliation. That leaves statement 1, and this card does not think it is false. NCERT calls the second conference ‘inconclusive’ and notes that even at the Gandhi–Irwin stage no commitment to political independence could be got out of the Viceroy; the standard nationalist account says flatly that the British refused the basic demand for freedom. On that reading the answer is (c), 1 and 4 only. The case for stopping at 4 alone is that the conference is often described as collapsing over the minorities question, with Ramsay MacDonald undertaking at the end to hand down a Communal Award, rather than as an explicit refusal of freedom. Both readings are set out here so that you can see what the item turns on.
- (a)2 and 3 only — Takes the two statements that are certainly false and leaves out the one that is certainly true. Dominion status did not come in 1932, and Willingdon was hostile to the Congress, not conciliatory.
- (d)1, 2 and 4 — Fails on statement 2 alone. India remained a dependency after 1932; the Government of India Act 1935 that grew out of the conferences offered provincial autonomy and a federation that never came into being, not dominion status.
Three Round Table Conferences met in London between 1930 and 1932 to settle India's constitutional future. The Congress boycotted the first. Gandhi attended the second, from September to December 1931, as the Congress's sole representative, after the Gandhi–Irwin Pact of March 1931 had suspended civil disobedience. In London his claim to speak for all of India was challenged from three sides — by the Muslim League for the Muslim minority, by the Princes for their own territories, and by Ambedkar for the lowest castes. The conference produced no constitutional advance. Gandhi came home, civil disobedience resumed, and Willingdon's government answered with ordinances and mass arrests. The proposals that did survive were consolidated into the Government of India Act 1935.
The item is a four-statement filter and it can be solved without settling the argument over statement 1. Statement 2 dates dominion status to 1932, which is wrong by fifteen years, so every option containing 2 falls — that removes (a) and (d) at once. Statement 4 is textbook-true, which removes any option that excludes it. What is left is a choice between 4 alone and 1 with 4, and the whole item turns on how strictly you read ‘refused to accept the basic nationalist demand for freedom’. Since this paper has no published key, treat statement 1 as the contested cell and do not build a memory rule on it. Statements 2, 3 and 4 are the ones worth carrying away.
- The Second Round Table Conference met in London in the latter part of 1931 with Gandhi as the Congress's only representative.
- His claim to represent all of India was contested there by the Muslim League, the Princes and B. R. Ambedkar.
- NCERT records that the new Viceroy, Lord Willingdon, was deeply unsympathetic to Gandhi after his return.
- The Civil Disobedience Movement began with the Dandi March, satyagrahis picking up natural salt on 6 April 1930.
- India became a dominion on 15 August 1947 under the Indian Independence Act; the Round Table Conferences led instead to the Government of India Act 1935.
- Dating dominion status to the 1930s. It came in August 1947.
- Confusing Irwin, who negotiated with Gandhi, with Willingdon, who did not.
- Assuming the Third Round Table Conference achieved nothing at all; its proposals fed into the 1935 Act.
As a multi-statement filter mixing one date error, one viceroy error and one safe fact, so that the codes can be narrowed before the hard statement is judged.
Consider the following statements : 1. The discussions in the Third Round Table Conference eventually led to the passing of the Government of India Act of 1935. 2. The Government of India Act of 1935 provided for the establishment of an All India Federation to be based on a Union of the provinces of British India and the Princely States. Which of the statements given above is/are correct ?
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 2 only
- (c) Both 1 and 2
- (d) Neither 1 nor 2
Answer(c) Both 1 and 2
What the conferences actually produced. That UPSC item traces the London discussions to the 1935 Act and its all-India federation, which is the answer to the question of what India got in place of the freedom the second conference did not concede.
Which one of the following began with the Dandi March?
- (a) Home Rule Movement
- (b) Non-Cooperation Movement
- (c) Civil Disobedience Movement
- (d) Quit India Movement
Answer(c) Civil Disobedience Movement
Settles statement 4 of this item on its own. The march to Dandi and the breaking of the salt law opened the Civil Disobedience Movement in 1930.
Which one of the following statements about the Gandhi-Irwin Pact of 1931 is correct?
- (a) The Government would not release those prisoners who had been non-violent.
- (b) The Government would not release those prisoners who had indulged in the peaceful picketing of liquor and foreign cloth shops.
- (c) The Congress did not agree to the suspension of the Civil Disobedience Movement.
- (d) The Congress agreed to take part in the Second Round Table Conference.
Answer(d) The Congress agreed to take part in the Second Round Table Conference.
The step immediately before this one. The pact of March 1931 is what took Gandhi to London later that year, and the terms he could not get from Irwin are the same terms the conference failed to deliver.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Round Table Conferences of 1930 to 1932 led most directly to which of the following?
- (a)The Government of India Act, 1935
- (b)The Indian Councils Act, 1909
- (c)The Rowlatt Act, 1919
- (d)The Indian Independence Act, 1947
Answer(a) The Government of India Act, 1935 — the proposals of the conferences were consolidated into a White Paper and then into that Act.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which Viceroy was in office when Gandhi returned from the Second Round Table Conference and civil disobedience was resumed?
- (a)Lord Irwin
- (b)Lord Willingdon
- (c)Lord Linlithgow
- (d)Lord Wavell
Answer(b) Lord Willingdon — NCERT describes him as deeply unsympathetic to Gandhi, and his government answered the renewed movement with ordinances and arrests.