In the second Round Table Conference, Mahatma Gandhi represented which of the following parties?

Correct — C. Gandhi went to London for the Second Round Table Conference (September-December 1931) as the sole delegate of the Indian National Congress.

He was there because of the Gandhi-Irwin Pact of March 1931. Congress had boycotted the first conference, and the Pact traded off the suspension of Civil Disobedience against Congress participation in the second.

Delegates were nominated by the British government rather than elected, and Gandhi was the one who went carrying the Congress mandate — option (c).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Communist Party of India — The Communist Party of India had no seat at the conference, and much of its leadership was tied up in the Meerut Conspiracy Case trial at the time. Gandhi was never a member of it.
• (b)
  Muslim League — The Muslim League sent its own delegates to London, Jinnah among them, so it had neither need nor reason for a Congress leader to speak in its name.
• (d)
  All India Forward Bloc — The All India Forward Bloc did not exist in 1931. Subhas Chandra Bose founded it in 1939, after resigning the Congress presidency, so nobody could have represented it in London.

Three Round Table Conferences met in London between 1930 and 1932 to discuss constitutional reform after the Simon Commission report.

Congress stayed away from the first, being then in the middle of the Civil Disobedience Movement. The Gandhi-Irwin Pact of March 1931 suspended that movement and brought Congress into the second, where Gandhi argued that Congress spoke for the whole of India.

The conference broke down over separate electorates for the depressed classes, the demand B.R. Ambedkar pressed. The Communal Award of 1932 conceded it, and the Poona Pact of the same year replaced it with reserved seats.

Key facts

• The Second Round Table Conference met in London from September to December 1931.
• Gandhi attended it as the only representative of the Indian National Congress.
• He went following the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, signed in March 1931.
• B.R. Ambedkar was at the same conference, representing the depressed classes.

Common traps

• Assuming Congress attended all three conferences.
• Placing Gandhi and Ambedkar on the same side in London, when they were opposed there over separate electorates.

No directly related past PYQ was found.