Gandhi-Irwin Pact

Terms and negotiation

The pact followed roughly a year of civil disobedience triggered by the Salt March of 1930, during which tens of thousands of Congress supporters, including Gandhi, had been imprisoned. Meeting directly with Gandhi over several sessions, Irwin agreed to release most political prisoners held for non-violent civil disobedience, to withdraw the emergency ordinances used to suppress the movement, and to permit limited, local production of salt by coastal residents without duty. In return, Gandhi agreed to call off the movement and to represent Congress at the Second Round Table Conference in London, where constitutional reform for India was under discussion.

Reception and outcome

The agreement was controversial within the nationalist movement. Some in Congress felt Gandhi had secured too little in exchange for suspending a mass movement that still had momentum, and had failed to obtain the reprieve of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev, who were hanged shortly after the pact was signed for their role in the killing of a police officer, an outcome that provoked criticism of Gandhi from more militant nationalists. Gandhi attended the Round Table Conference in London later that year as the sole Congress representative, but the talks made little constitutional progress, and Irwin's successor as Viceroy, Lord Willingdon, took a harder line, leading to the resumption of civil disobedience in early 1932. The pact is generally treated as a temporary truce rather than a lasting settlement, notable chiefly as the first instance of the colonial government negotiating directly with Congress as an equal party.