Sessions of Congress and Resolutions

• Lahore session - Congress passed the Poorna Swaraj resolution in December 1929 in the Lahore session.
• Jawaharlal Nehru was the president of the December 1929 Lahore session.
• Calcutta session - In September 1920, Congress held a special session in Calcutta under the presidentship of Lala Lajpat Rai.
• The session was met to pass the resolution of the Non-Cooperation Movement.
• Amritsar session - 1919 session congress held in Amritsar to condemn the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in the city.
• The session was held under the presidentship of Motilal Nehru.
• Banaras session - 1905 Banaras session was held under the presidentship of Gopal Krishna Gokhale.
• In this session, the resolution of the boycott of British goods was put forward as resentment against the partition of Bengal.

Simon Commission

• Simon commission was also referred to as the Indian Statuary Commission was a group of seven members of Parliament under Sir John Simon.
• Simon Commission which was sent by the British Government was boycotted by Indian politicians.
• Indian politicians Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi, Jinnah, the Muslim League, and Indian National Congress.
• They were opposing because out of seven members there was no member from India.
• Lord Irwin was Viceroy of India at the time of commission took place.
• Lala Lajpat Rai was martyred while he was protesting against the Simon Commission at Lahore.
• The outcome of the Simon Commission was the Government of India Act, 1935.

Communal Award

• The Communal Award, announced by Ramsay MacDonald on 16 August 1932.
• The background to the Poona Pact was the Communal Award of August 1932 which provided a separate electorate for depressed classes.
• In 1932, B.R. Ambedkar negotiated the Poona Pact with Mahatma Gandhi.
• The Poona Pact was an acceptance by the Hindu upper-class that the depressed classes constituted the most discriminated sections of Indian society.
• The Award of 1932 was built on the notion of separate electorates that the British government had already put in place through the Morley-Minto Reforms (1909) and the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms (1919).

Poona Pact

• Poona Pact refers to an agreement between Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi signed on September 24, 1932.
• This Pact ended the fast that Gandhi had undertaken in the jail to protest against British Prime Minister Ramsay Macdonald’s award of a separate electorate to the Depressed Classes.
• It was signed during the time of Lord Willington.
• The Poona Pact refers to the agreement signed in 1932 to provide the depressed classes with the reservation of the electoral seats in the British India Parliament.
• It was signed by Madan Mohan Malviya on the behalf of Mahatma Gandhi and B.R. Ambedkar at Yerwada Central Jail in Pune.

Round Table Conferences

• The three Round Table Conferences of 1930–1932 were a series of peace conferences organized by the British Government and Indian political personalities to discuss constitutional reforms in India.

• The First Round Table Conference was to discuss the Simon Commission but it was totally boycotted by the Indian National Congress.
• Gandhi Ji only participated in the 2nd Roubd table conference, the discussion was not fruitful as Gandhiji could not agree with British Prime Minister Ramsay Mac Donald on his policy of communal representation and refusal of the British Government on the basic Indian demand for freedom.
• Third Round Table Conference was attended by only forty-six delegates since most of the main political leaders of India were in prison.
• The Labour Party from Britain and Indian National Congress refused to attend.
• In this conference, a college student Chaudhary Rahmat Ali proposed the name of the new land specially carved out from India for the Muslims, The name of this land was Pakistan.
• B.R. Ambedkar and Tej Bahadur Sapru took part in all the Three Round Table Conferences.