WHILE the Civil Disobedience Movement drew a massive countrywide response, British colonialists initiated discussions on various aspects of a new constitutional arrangement. The First Round Table Conference (RTC-I) which began in London in January 1931 was boycotted by Gandhi and the Congress. Gandhi in fact assured the nation that this time round there would be no stopping the movement till the goal was reached. Yet it did not take Gandhi long to eat his words. On 5 March, 1931 Gandhi signed a pact with Viceroy Irwin virtually on the lines of RTC-I.

Historical researches have shown that this climbdown had more to do with growing bourgeois pressure for conciliation and constitutional participation than anything else. Gandhi also joined the Second RTC in October 1931, but when nothing came out of it he had to renew the Civil Disobedience Movement in January 1932. The administration was of course quick to arrest all leaders and unleash severe repression. By the second half of 1932, Gandhi beat a retreat and began to concentrate on Harijan welfare. This shift, however, enabled him to foil the British gameplan of introducing a separate electorate for the “untouchables”; he launched a fast unto death and eventually succeeded in securing an agreement between caste Hindu and untouchable leaders which came to be known as the Poona Pact. According to this pact, the joint Hindu electorate stayed, but more seats were reserved for the “untouchables” than were promised by the British under the separate electorate plan.

Gandhi's emphasis on Harijan welfare enabled the Congress to secure broad allegiance of this significant social base, a base which stood by the Congress till recently. But on this front too, he confined himself to limited social reforms and largely humanitarian work without opposing the caste system as a whole or touching the basic socio-economic concerns of the so-called untouchables and low caste people. In fact Gandhi combined his pro-Harijan activities with a categorical defence of the reactionary Varnasrama system. Ambedkar strongly differed with him on this score. The social reform movement in Maharashtra launched earlier by Jotiba Phule and Pandita Ramabai was far more advanced. In south India too, the movement against untouchability took on a radical thrust and adopted a higher agenda. In Tamil Nadu, “Periyar” E V Ramaswamy Naicker's Self-Respect Movement openly denounced Brahmanism, he hailed the Soviet Union and opened his journal, Kudi Arasu (The Republic), to the atheist and socialist writings of Singaravelu, Chettiar. In neighbouring Kerala, the movement of the Ezhava community led by Sri Narayana Guru went beyond the bottom-line of temple-entry rights to wider social reforms.

Meanwhile, the focus of the Congress went on to shift away from mass struggles to participation in elections and provincial governance. This was the period of consolidation of the Indian bourgeoisie. The Great Depression of 1929-32 signified both a crisis as well as an opportunity for Indian capitalists. Old colonial ties in trade and industry loosened a bit; the share of non-traditional items went up in imports as that of textile declined; and with British companies setting up subsidiary units in diverse fields, the industrial map of India spread beyond the Bombay-Ahmedabad region to Bengal and south India. The fledgling Indian bourgeoisie wanted the Congress to switch over from the agitational mode to participation in governance so that it could best exploit the unfolding opportunities.

In August 1935, British Parliament passed the Government of India Act. Though the Act did not meet even the minimum demands raised by the Congress in the course of the Civil Disobedience Movement and RTC negotiations, the party participated in the 1937 elections held on the basis of this new Act. The Congress won absolute majorities in five out of the eleven provinces (Madras, Bihar, Orissa, Central Provinces and United Provinces), but it also succeeded in forming governments in Bombay, North West Frontier Province and eventually in Assam as well.