THE FREEDOM MOVEMENT AND THE PARTITION OF INDIAFrustration at the Round Table and the Communal AwardGandhi’s participation in the second Round Table Conference was not worth
all this sacrifice. Moreover, Gandhi insisted on being sent there as the only
representative of the Congress because he did not want to initiate discussions
so much as simply to present the national demand. Once in London,
however, he got involved in dealing with complicated issues like federal
structure and the representation of minorities. He had never wanted to talk
about all this and was out of his depth. A couple of constitutional advisors
should have accompanied him, given this agenda. Gandhi was completely
frustrated, but Irwin—who had got him into this fix and who had returned
home by that time after finishing his term as viceroy—remained completely
aloof from the conference. The viceroy’s Tory colleagues had not liked his
pact-making, but he could point out to them that he had thus averted a
peasants’ revolt in India. Had he also masterminded Gandhi’s discomfiture
at the conference? He could not, of course, be blamed for the Congress
decision to send Gandhi as its sole representative to the conference; but from
a long-term perspective Irwin’s success at getting Gandhi involved in the
process of British-Indian constitutional reforms was of great importance.
Gandhi’s participation in this conference tied the Congress down to British-
Indian constitution-making in a way that was not yet obvious to the
contemporary observers. Princes and untouchables were in the limelight of
this conference. By integrating the princes in a federal British India the
British hoped to get a conservative counterweight against the Congress;
similarly, by means of separate electorates for the untouchables the policy of
‘divide and rule’ would gain additional leverage. Gandhi was particularly
adamant in resisting this latter proposal, but he nevertheless signed a
document by which the British prime minister was called upon to settle the
issue by means of a Communal Award.
Gandhi’s frustration in London was even more acute for reasons which
he could not state. He had hoped to arrive at a pact with the British Prime
Minister just as he had concluded a pact with the viceroy as a prelude to
this summit meeting. Ramsay MacDonald was a veteran leader of the
Labour Party and he was known to be a friend of India. In getting the
mandate of the Congress as its sole representative at the Round Table
Conference and in restricting his mission to placing the national demand
before that conference, he had paved the way for this encounter with the
Prime Minister. He was probably prepared to make substantial concessions
to him just as he had made concessions to Irwin. If MacDonald had been
in a position to make a deal with Gandhi at this stage, Indian history might
have taken a different course, but by the time Gandhi finally met him, his
Labour government had fallen and he had re-emerged as a captive of his
coalition partners in a national government. Gandhi met a sphinx, as he
described his impression of this encounter later on. The unfortunate Prime