Consider the following events: 1. Muslim League Resolution for Pakistan 2. Gandhi-Irwin Pact 3. Dandi March 4. Second Round Table Conference Which one of the following is the correct chronological order of the given events (earliest to latest)?

Correct — B, 3, 2, 4, 1. The three events of the early 1930s belong to a single chain, and the chain fixes their order without any need to recall exact dates. Gandhi began the Salt March from the Sabarmati Ashram on 12 March 1930 and broke the salt law at Dandi on 6 April, launching the Civil Disobedience Movement; that comes first. The movement filled the jails, the First Round Table Conference of 1930 met without the Congress and achieved nothing, and the deadlock was broken by the Gandhi-Irwin Pact of 5 March 1931, under which the government released political prisoners and conceded the right to make salt for domestic use, and the Congress suspended civil disobedience and agreed to attend the next conference. That agreement is what carried Gandhi to London for the Second Round Table Conference from September to December 1931, where he went as the sole representative of the Congress and where the talks broke down over separate electorates for the minorities; that is the third event. The fourth stands nine years later and in a different political world: the Muslim League's resolution at its Lahore session on 23 March 1940, which demanded that the Muslim-majority areas of the north-west and the east be grouped into independent states, and which is remembered as the Pakistan Resolution.

• (a)2, 3, 1, 4 — Puts the Gandhi-Irwin Pact before the Dandi March, which reverses cause and effect — the pact was the settlement of the movement the march began — and then strands the 1940 League resolution before the 1931 conference.
• (c)3, 4, 2, 1 — Starts correctly with the Dandi March but sends Gandhi to the Second Round Table Conference before the pact that made his attendance possible. The Congress boycotted the first conference; only the Gandhi-Irwin Pact brought it to the second.
• (d)2, 3, 4, 1 — Gets the last two right and the first two the wrong way round. The pact of March 1931 came a year after the march of March 1930, not before it.

The Civil Disobedience Movement runs from the Salt March of 1930 to its final withdrawal in 1934, and the Round Table Conferences are the constitutional negotiations that ran alongside it. The first conference met in London in November 1930 without the Congress. The Gandhi-Irwin Pact of March 1931 ended that boycott. The second, from September to December 1931, was the only one Gandhi attended, and it failed over the question of separate electorates, which led on to the Communal Award of 1932 and the Poona Pact. The third met in 1932 without the Congress, and the whole process fed into the Government of India Act of 1935.

Chronology items are best solved by argument rather than by recall, and this one is unusually well suited to it. Ask what caused what. A pact that suspends a movement cannot precede the movement's opening act, so the march must come before the pact. A conference the Congress attends only because a pact allowed it must come after the pact. And the Muslim League's demand for Pakistan belongs to the war years, not to the early thirties, so it is last. Those three arguments alone leave only one code standing. The habit is worth keeping because the examiner reuses this set: an officially keyed NDA paper of 2022 asks for the order of the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, the Second Round Table Conference and two earlier peasant movements, and the same reasoning solves it.

• The Dandi March ran from 12 March to 6 April 1930, from Sabarmati to the coast at Dandi, and opened the Civil Disobedience Movement.
• The Gandhi-Irwin Pact was signed on 5 March 1931; the government released political prisoners and allowed salt-making for domestic use, and the Congress suspended civil disobedience and agreed to attend the Round Table Conference.
• The Second Round Table Conference met in London from September to December 1931, with Gandhi as the sole Congress representative; it broke down over separate electorates for the minorities.
• The Muslim League adopted its resolution at Lahore on 23 March 1940, demanding that the Muslim-majority areas of the north-west and east be grouped into independent states.
• Lord Irwin was Viceroy at the time of the Salt March and the pact; the failure of the second conference led to the Communal Award of 1932 and then the Poona Pact.

• Placing the Gandhi-Irwin Pact before the Salt March because both fall in March; the march is March 1930 and the pact March 1931.
• Assuming Gandhi attended all three Round Table Conferences; he attended only the second.
• Reading the Lahore Resolution as naming Pakistan — the word does not appear in it, and the name came from the press and from the League's opponents.

Almost always as a chronology of three to five events, sometimes mixed with peasant movements or with the Round Table Conferences taken separately.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following was a term of the Gandhi-Irwin Pact of March 1931?

  • (a)Immediate grant of Dominion Status to India
  • (b)Release of political prisoners not convicted of violence, and the right to make salt for domestic use
  • (c)Abolition of the salt tax altogether
  • (d)Formation of an interim national government

  Answer(b) Release of political prisoners not convicted of violence, and the right to make salt for domestic use — in return the Congress suspended civil disobedience and agreed to attend the Round Table Conference.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  At which session did the Muslim League adopt the resolution of 23 March 1940 that is remembered as the Pakistan Resolution?

  • (a)Karachi
  • (b)Lucknow
  • (c)Lahore
  • (d)Dacca

  Answer(c) Lahore — the resolution was adopted at the League's Lahore session on 23 March 1940 and demanded that Muslim-majority areas be grouped into independent states.