On November 8, 1927, simultaneous announcements were made by Lord\nIrwin in the Imperial Legislative Assembly and by the Prime Minister in the\nHouse of Commons that the British government had decided to appoint the Indian\nStatutory Commission of seven members of the British Parliament under the chairmanship of Sir John\nSimon, in fulfilment of its obligations \nunder the Government of India Act, 1919, to review the working of Montague-Chelmsford\nreforms to determine as to what further action should be taken to extend,\nrestrict or modify the degree of responsible government introduced by them. The\nexclusion of Indians from the Commission created an uproar. Feelings of Indians were clearly conveyed by\nVithalbhai Patel, Chairman of the Legislative \nAssembly, to Birkenhead, Secretary of State for India, when he met him\nin London. Patel even hinted that a purely English Commission on its visit to\nIndia might be boycotted by the people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Viceroy was, however, confident of winning the support and\ncooperation of both the Muslims and the princes, his best friends and allies.\nHe also wanted to seek the support of the Indian National Congress, but was\napprehensive of Gandhiji\u2019s attitude in the matter. Gandhiji felt that\nEngland and the English Parliament had\nno moral claim to be the judges of what Indians ought to do. The Congress\naccordingly decided at its Madras session to boycott the Commission. It also\nasked the Congressmen not to serve upon the Central and Provincial Select\nCommittees nor give evidence before the Commission. It, however, resolved to frame a Swaraj<\/em> constitution for\nIndia with the help of other parties. The leaders of other parties like Muslim\nLeague, Hindu Mahasabha, All India Liberal Federation, etc., also declared in a\njoint statement to abstain from the proceedings of the Commission. The\nsignatories were Tej Bahadur Sapru, Annie Besant, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Ali\nImam, Abdul Rahim, Chimanlal Setelvad and Dinshaw Petit. Unfortunately, the\nBritish imperialists were quite cold to both the aspirations of the people and\nthe dictates of reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The matter came up for consideration before the Central Assembly on\nFebruary 26, 1928. Lala Lajpat Rai initiated the discussion by moving a\nresolution. \u201cThis Assembly recommends to the Governor-General-in-Council to\nconvey to His Majesty\u2019s Government the Assembly\u2019s entire lack of confidence in\nthe Parliamentary Commission which has been appointed to review the\nconstitution of India.\u201d He declared that he had no faith in the proposed\nCommission which was both to act as the jury and the judge, the principle being\ndetrimental and violative of the concept and content of justice. Jayakar\nchallenged the constitutional propriety of appointing an all-Englishman\nCommission to work as arbiters of India\u2019s destiny. Jinnah pleaded that the\nIndians should have an equal right to make an enquiry and make recommendations\nin the matter so vital to them. Malaviya pleaded that the national honour was\nat stake. The resolution was approved by 68 votes to 62 recording disapproval\nof the Assembly to the appointment of the Commission. The Assembly also heard\nthe echoes of Vande Mataram<\/em> when the resolution was passed. Never did\nthe public opinion respond with such unanimous vehemence to the constitutional\nproblem of this nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In utter disregard of the public sentiments, the Simon Commission started its work. Sir\nJohn Simon and other members visited India twice from February 3 to\nMarch 31, 1928 and from October 11, 1928 to April 13, 1929 amidst protests\nand demonstrations. During their first tour, they engaged themselves in the\nexamination of the relevant data which the government was able to supply to\nthem. On their second visit, they toured various parts of the country and held\ntheir sessions at Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, Poona, Patna, Calcutta, Shillong, Rangoon, Nagpur and\nMadras. Finally, they came to Delhi and deliberated for two weeks with the\nGovernment of India. On April 13, 1929, they went back to England.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the meanwhile, the Congress Working Committee convened an\nall-party conference to draft the Swaraj constitution for the country on\nFebruary 12, 1928 in accordance with the decision taken by the annual session\nof the party at Madras. The conference decided that the objective of the new\nframework of the constitution was the establishment of a full responsible\ngovernment. It met again at Bombay on May 19, 1928. As there were differences\nbetween various parties, the conference\ndecided to appoint a sub-committee for determining the broad principles upon\nwhich the new constitution could be framed. Motilal Nehru was to be the\nChairman of the sub-committee. Among other members were Tej Bahadur Sapru, Ali\nImam, Subhas Chandra Bose, M. S. Aney, N.\nM. Joshi, Mangal Singh, etc. They held various meetings and submitted their\nreport to the all-party conference held at Lucknow in August 1928. The main\nrecommendations were: the dominion status, the bicameral parliament consisting\nof the Senate and the House of Representatives, a federal structure, provincial\nautonomy, executive to be responsible to the legislature, elections on the\nbasis of the joint electorates and reservation of seats in the assemblies for\nthe minorities. The Congress accepted the report at its session held in\nNovember 1928 at Calcutta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The all-party conference, which was subsequently held at Calcutta in\nDecember 1928, found sharp differences among various leaders, especially those belonging to the\ncommunal bodies like the Muslim League and the Hindu Mahasabha. Jinnah proposed\nvarious amendments, all of which were rejected. This made him hostile. He\nbrought forth his fourteen points claiming separate electorate, reservation of\none-third seats for Muslims both in the Central Cabinet and Legislative\nAssembly, full religious liberty and adequate safeguards for minorities. The Hindu Mahasabha denounced the report as\npro-Muslim. The national unanimity on the constitutional problem was thus not\nachieved. As Maulana Azad subsequently commented, \u201cThe Muslims were fools to\nask for safeguards and the Hindus were greater fools to refuse them.\u201d In any\ncase, the great patriots of the nation failed to resolve their minor\ndifferences based on mutual distrust and suspicion and to place a commonly\naccepted constitution before the British government.\n\nAs has been stated earlier, the Simon Commission was greeted with\nprotests and demonstrations. The day the Commission landed at Bombay on\nFebruary 3, 1928, the nation observed a complete hartal in all important towns. There were protest\nmeetings and big demonstrations. They waved black flags and shouted slogans \u201cGo\nback, Simon\u201d. It was a complete boycott. At certain places, it became a big\ntask for the police to ensure safe escort of the members of the Commission. The\npolice made use of force and charged the\ncrowds with lathis. Two of such deplorable incidents took place at Lahore and\nLucknow on October 30 and November 30, 1928, respectively. At Lahore, the\npolice lathi-charged the peaceful demonstrators led On November 8, 1927, simultaneous announcements were made by Lord Irwin in the Imperial Legislative Assembly and by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons that the British government had decided to appoint the Indian Statutory Commission of seven members of the British Parliament under the chairmanship of Sir John Simon, in fulfilment of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":471,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470\/revisions\/471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nby Lala Lajpat Rai. A young white police officer aimed his lathi blow with full\nfury and strength at Lala Lajpat Rai\u2019s chest.
\n He died on November 17, 1928 as a result\nof the injuries inflicted during the\nlathi charge. His death sent a wave of indignation and sorrow throughout the\ncountry. At Lucknow, Jawaharlal Nehru and Gobind Ballabh Pant were also beaten up\nsavagely on November 30, 1928. The lathi \nblow which Pant received disabled him for the rest of his life. All this\nwas an insult to the forces of nationalism, the revolutionaries among whom\nattempted to avenge it with many otherwise reprehensible acts.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"