Spectrum Test: Civil Disobedience Movement & Round Table Conferences - UPSC MCQ

Tej Bahadur Sapru

• ​Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru was an eminent lawyer, political leader in India during the British Raj.
• Tej Bahadur Sapru was born in 1875 in Aligarh, in a Kashmiri Hindu family.
• He was educated at Agra College.
• Sapru criticized Mahatma Gandhi's leadership.
• He also criticized the Non-Cooperation Movement and the Salt Satyagraha.
• He acted as a mediator which helped him to broker the Gandhi-Irwin Pact.
• Gandhi-Irwin Pact resulted at the end of the Salt Satyagraha.
• He also acted as a mediator to end the Poona Pact, an agreement between Gandhi, B.R. Ambedkar and the British government.

On November 2, 1929, a conference of prominent national leaders issued a 'Delhi Manifesto' which put forward certain conditions for attending the Round Table Conference: 

1. That the purpose of the Round Table Conference should be not to determine whether or when dominion status was to be reached but to formulate a constitution for implementation of the dominion status (thus acting as a constituent assembly) and the basic principle of dominion status should be immediately accepted; 

2. That the Congress should have majority representation at the conference; and 

3. There should be a general amnesty for political prisoners and a conciliation policy; Gandhi and Motilal Nehru and other political leaders met Lord Irwin in December 1929 (after the viceroy had narrowly escaped after a bomb was detonated meaning to hit the train he was travelling in). 

The correct answer is 1, 3, 4.
Key Points

1. On 31 January 1931 Gandhi announced an eleven point ultimatum for Lord Irwin; if these demands were met by 11 March, he declared, there would be no civil disobedience and the Congress would participate in any conference.
2. It was a compromise formula, which included, six 'issues of general interest', like reduction of military expenditure and civil service salaries, total prohibition, discharge of political prisoners not convicted of murder, reform of the CID and its popular control and changes in the Arms Act.
3. Three 'specific bourgeois demands', like lowering of the rupee-sterling exchange rate, protective tariff on foreign cloth and reservation of coastal traffic for Indian shipping companies.
4. And two 'basically peasant themes', i.e., 50 percent reduction of land revenue and its subjection to legislative control and abolition of salt tax and government salt monopoly. It was a mixed package to appeal to a wide cross-section of political opinions and unite the Indians once again under one overarching political leadership.
5. However, Commutation of the death sentence for Bhagat and his comrades was not a part of Gandhi's eleven demands. Hence, 2 is wrong.

• Wherever possible civil disobedience of the salt law should be started. 

• Foreign liquor and cloth shops can be picketed. 

• We can refuse to pay taxes if we have the requisite strength. 

• Lawyers can give up the practice. 

• Public can boycott law courts by refraining from litigation. 

• Government servants can resign from their posts.

• Once the way was cleared by Gandhi's ritual at Dandi, defiance of the salt laws started worldwide.

•  

  Nehru's arrest in April 1930 for defiance of the salt law evoked huge demonstrations in Madras, Calcutta and Karachi. 

•  

  Gandhi's arrest came on May 4, 1930, when he had announced that he would lead a raid on Dharasana Salt Works on the west coast. 

•  

  Massive protests followed Gandhi's arrest in Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta, and Sholapur, where the response was the most fierce. After Gandhi's arrest, the CWC sanctioned: 

• non-payment of revenue in ryotwari areas; 

• no-chowkidari-tax campaign in zamindari areas; and 

• violation of forest laws in the Central Provinces.

The leader of the civil disobedience movement in Orissa was Gopabandhu Chaudhuri. He was a prominent Indian nationalist and freedom fighter from Odisha. Along with another freedom fighter, Madhusudan Das, he played a key role in the movement for the creation of a separate province of Odisha. He was a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi and actively participated in the Non-Cooperation Movement and the Civil Disobedience Movement.

• Champaran and Saran were the first two districts to start salt satyagraha. In landlocked Bihar, manufacture of salt on a large scale was not practicable, and at most places, it was a mere gesture. 

• In Patna, Nakhas Pond was chosen to make salt and break the salt law under Ambika Kant Sinha. 

• However, very soon, a very powerful no-chaukidari tax agitation replaced the salt satyagraha (owing to physical constraints in making salt). 

• By November 1930, sale of foreign cloth and liquor dramatically declined and collapsed in several parts like the Barhee administration region of Munger.

The correct option is D: Neither of them.

Both statements are incorrect.

1. Muslim participation in the Civil Disobedience Movement was significant, especially in the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh) and Bengal. While there were appeals by some Muslim leaders to stay away from the movement, others actively participated in it.

2. While some traders' associations and commercial bodies opposed the movement, others supported it. The All India Spinners Association, for example, actively supported the movement and promoted the use of khadi. The National Union of Bank Employees also supported the movement by going on strike.

1. immediate release of all political prisoners not convicted of violence; 

2. remission of all fines not yet collected; 

3. the return of all lands not yet sold to third parties; 

4. lenient treatment to those government servants who had resigned; 

5. right to make salt in coastal villages for personal consumption (not for sale); 

6. right to peaceful and non-aggressive picketing; and 7 withdrawal of emergency ordinances. 

However, the viceroy turned down two of Gandhi's demands- (i) public inquiry into police excesses and (ii) commutation of Bhagat Singh and his comrade's death sentence to life sentence.

Gandhi on behalf of the Congress agreed- 

(i) to suspend the civil disobedience movement, and 

(ii) to participate in the next Round Table Conference on the constitutional question around the three lynch-pins of the federation, Indian responsibility, and reservations and safeguards that may be necessary for India's interests (covering such areas as defence, external affairs, the position of minorities, financial credit of India and discharge of other obligations).

• free speech and free press 

• right to form associations 

• right to assemble 

• universal adult franchise 

• equal legal rights irrespective of caste, creed and sex 

• neutrality of the state in religious matters 

• free and compulsory primary education protection to culture, language, the script of minorities and linguistic groups