"The Prince of Wales was due in Calcutta on 24 December, and any more violent disorder there had to be prevented at all costs..... During the next two months over 30,000 people were arrested in India as a whole, and of the top leadership of the Non-Cooperation Movement

Non-cooperation movement

The non-cooperation movement was a significant phase of the Indian struggle for freedom from British rule which lasted for years. This movement, which lasted from September 1920 to February 1922 and was led by Mohandas Gandhi, and supported by the Indian National Congress. It aimed to resist...

, only Gandhi remained free…. There was a very real danger for the government that its new wave of repression would drive the Liberals and Moderates back into the Congress camp, which would have been disastrous. Malaviya had been urging the viceroy for some time to call a round-table conference with Gandhi and the Moderates.] In mid-December, Reading agreed, promising at the same time to release the political prisoners, end the repressive measures, and even grant 'full provincial autonomy' if Gandhi would call off the non-co-operation movement….[footnote 1] At first, Gandhi agreed. But he quickly changed his mind, wiring Malaviya: ‘Non-co-operation can cease only after satisfactory result conference. In no case have I authority to decide for Congress.’ His ‘private notes’ made at the time give a more complex, perhaps more revealing, reason for his decision: ‘I am sorry,' he wrote, 'that I suspect Lord Reading of complicity in the plot to unman India for eternity.’[footnote 2]

"There is little doubt that if Gandhi had agreed to attend the conference, the Moderates would have joined forces with him to achieve substantial constitutional concessions. Reading was prepared to give full responsible government to the provinces, despite the doubts of London and most of the senior governors. He told Montagu: ‘I ... was prepared to act on my own responsibility if the proper assurances had been forthcoming.’ This would have been not merely a step but a giant leap towards self-government, advancing the eventual transfer of power by a full 15 years. But it was not to be…. at a stormy annual session of Congress in Ahmedabad

Ahmedabad

Ahmedabad also known as Karnavati is the largest city in Gujarat, India. It is the former capital of Gujarat and is also the judicial capital of Gujarat as the Gujarat High Court has its seat in Ahmedabad...

, Gandhi came under attack both from those who wanted to seek an accommodation with the government and those who wanted more militant action immediately. But in the end, as always, Gandhi carried the day, His rejection of Reading's offer was confirmed, and he was given dictatorial powers over non-co-operation.[footnote 5] He announced that the postponed campaign of 'offensive civil disobedience' in Bardoli would go ahead.

"Although they had been upset by Gandhi's intransigence, some of the Moderates were still hoping to find some way of bringing Gandhi and Reading together, to achieve the positive constitutional advances they knew were possible. Jinnah and Malaviya called an all-parties conference in Bombay …. Gandhi attended 'informally', after Congress had agreed to postpone the start of civil disobedience until the end of the month. The motions calling for a round-table conference were passed unanimously, [footnote 3] But then Gandhi threw another spanner in the, refusing to take part. Obsessed with putting full-scale satyagraha to the test, he decided that a conference 'for devising a scheme of full swaraj

Swaraj

Swaraj can mean generally self-governance or "self-rule", and was used synonymously with "home-rule" by Gandhi but the word usually refers to Gandhi's concept for Indian independence from foreign domination. Swaraj lays stress on governance not by a hierarchical government, but self governance...

 [is] premature. India has not yet incontestably proved her strength'."[footnote 4]

"Lord Reading, the Liberal Viceroy

Governor-General of India

The Governor-General of India was the head of the British administration in India, and later, after Indian independence, the representative of the monarch and de facto head of state. The office was created in 1773, with the title of Governor-General of the Presidency of Fort William...

 (1921-6), had reached the end of his tether…. faced with massive demonstrations looming against the Prince of Wales in Calcutta, he wavered add asked for permission to convene a round table, conference and offer concessions-possibly full provincial autonomy. An emergency meeting of the Cabinet India Committee refused him outright and told him to arrest Gandhi, who was still at large, forthwith. Still smarting over the Irish Treaty of the previous week, they were not prepared to retreat again at the bidding of a nervous Viceroy whose character some of them doubted. Gandhi was arrested in March 1922 and jailed for six years (though he was out in two). Civil disobedience collapsed."

"The situation was in fact critical. The influence of the Government had so gravely declined that in various quarters both in India and in England it was suggested that the only course was for the Viceroy to call a Round Table Conference in an attempt to reach an agreed settlement of India's political problems. But Lord Reading set his face against all such hints and proposals, and not only declared his intention of refusing to take the initiative in summoning such a conference but also of rejecting the proposal if made by anybody else. For he realized that there could be no compromise with the out-and-out extremists, who at this time were in full control of the non-co-operation movement; as he himself wrote: 'The truth is, the more I consider the question of a Round Table Conference, the more I lean to the conclusion that unless the non-co-operationists make very material changes in their programme, it will not be possible to conciliate them.'"

See also

• British Empire
  British Empire
  The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
  
  
• British Raj
  British Raj
  British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
  
  
• Secretary of State for India
  Secretary of State for India
  The Secretary of State for India, or India Secretary, was the British Cabinet minister responsible for the government of India and the political head of the India Office...
  
  
• India Office
  India Office
  The India Office was a British government department created in 1858 to oversee the colonial administration of India, i.e. the modern-day nations of Bangladesh, Burma, India, and Pakistan, as well as territories in South-east and Central Asia, the Middle East, and parts of the east coast of Africa...
  
  
• Governor-General of India
  Governor-General of India
  The Governor-General of India was the head of the British administration in India, and later, after Indian independence, the representative of the monarch and de facto head of state. The office was created in 1773, with the title of Governor-General of the Presidency of Fort William...
  
  
• Indian Civil Service
• Government of India Act
  Government of India Act
  The term Government of India Act refers to any one of a series of Acts passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom to regulate the government of British India, in particular:...
  
  
• Nehru Report
  Nehru Report
  The "Nehru Report" was a memorandum outlining a proposed new Dominion constitution for India. It was prepared by a committee of the All Parties Conference chaired by Motilal Nehru with his son Jawaharlal acting as secretary...
  
  
• History of Bangladesh
  History of Bangladesh
  The history of Bangladesh as a nation state began in 1971, when it seceded from Pakistan. Prior to the creation of Pakistan in 1947, modern-day Bangladesh was part of ancient, classical, medieval and colonial India....
  
  
• History of India
  History of India
  The history of India begins with evidence of human activity of Homo sapiens as long as 75,000 years ago, or with earlier hominids including Homo erectus from about 500,000 years ago. The Indus Valley Civilization, which spread and flourished in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent from...
  
  
• History of Pakistan
  History of Pakistan
  The 1st known inhabitants of the modern-day Pakistan region are believed to have been the Soanian , who settled in the Soan Valley and Riwat almost 2 million years ago. Over the next several thousand years, the region would develop into various civilizations like Mehrgarh and the Indus Valley...