Events on March 5 in history

The British Raj: Gandhi-Irwin Pact is signed.

The GandhiIrwin Pact was a political agreement signed by Mahatma Gandhi and Lord Irwin, Viceroy of India, on 5 March 1931 before the Second Round Table Conference in London. Before this, Lord Irwin, the Viceroy, had announced in October 1929 a vague offer of 'dominion status' for British-occupied India in an unspecified future and a Round Table Conference to discuss a future constitution. The Second Round Table Conference was held from September to December 1931 in London. This movement marked the end of the Civil Disobedience Movement in India. Arrest of Abdul Ghaffar Khan in April 1930 and Mahatma Gandhi in May 1930 resulted in protests in Peshawar and Sholapur respectively.

"The two leaders" As Sarojini Naidu described Gandhi and Lord Irwinhad eight meetings that totaled 24 hours. Gandhi was not impressed by Irwin's sincerity. The terms of the "Gandhi-Irwin Pact" fell manifestly short of those Gandhi prescribed as the minimum for a truce.Below are the proposed conditions:

Discontinuation of the Salt March by the Indian National Congress

Participation by the Indian National Congress in the Second Round Table Conference

Withdrawal of all ordinances issued by the Government of India imposing curbs on the activities of the Indian National Congress

Withdrawal of all prosecutions relating to several types of political offenses (Rowlatt Act) except those involving violence

Release of prisoners arrested for participating in the Salt March

Removal of the tax on salt, which allowed the Indians to produce, trade, and sell salt legally and for their own private use

Many British officials in India, and in Great Britain, were outraged by the idea of a pact with a party whose avowed purpose was the destruction of the British Raj. Winston Churchill publicly expressed his disgust "...at the nauseating and humiliating spectacle of this one-time Inner Temple lawyer, now seditious fakir, striding half-naked up the steps of the Viceroys palace, there to negotiate and parley on equal terms with the representative of the King Emperor."In reply, His Majesty's Government agreed to:-

Withdraw all ordinances and end prosecutions

Release all political prisoners, except those guilty of violence

Permit peaceful picketing of liquor and foreign cloth shops

Restore confiscated properties of the satyagrahis

Permit free collection or manufacture of salt by persons near the sea-coast

Lift the ban over the CongressThe Viceroy, Lord Irwin, was at this time directing the sternest repression Indian nationalism had known, but did not relish the role. The British-run Indian Civil Service and the commercial community favoured even harsher measures. But Ramsay MacDonald, the British Prime Minister, and William Benn, His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for India, were eager for peace, if they could secure it without weakening the position of the Labour government in Whitehall. They wanted to make a success of the Round Table Conference and knew that this body, without the presence of Gandhi and the Congress, could not carry much weight. In January 1931, at the closing session of the Round Table Conference, Ramsay MacDonald went so far as to express the hope that the Congress would be represented at the next session. The Viceroy took the hint and promptly ordered the unconditional release of Gandhi and all members of the Congress Working Committee. To this gesture Gandhi responded by agreeing to meet the Viceroy.

Gandhi's motives in concluding a pact with Lord Irwin, the Viceroy, can be best understood in terms of his technique. The satyagraha (quest for truth) movements were commonly described as "struggles", "rebellions" and "wars without violence". Owing, however, to the common connotation of these words, they seemed to lay a disproportionate emphasis on the negative aspect of the movements, namely, opposition and conflict. The object of satyagraha was, however, not to achieve the physical elimination or moral breakdown of an adversarybut, through suffering at his hands, to initiate a psychological processes that could make it possible for minds and hearts to meet. In such a struggle, a compromise with an opponent was neither here nor treason, but a natural and necessary step. If it turned out that the compromise was premature and the adversary was unrepentant, nothing prevented the satyagrahi from returning to non-violent battle which aimed at coercing the oppressor to accept the real truth and not the truth that had been imposed via violence and oppression.

This was the second high-level meeting between Gandhi and a Viceroy in 13 years and should be read in the context of the MontaguChelmsford Reforms that were the basis of the Government of India Act, 1919.

The British Raj (; from Hindi rāj: kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent from 1858 to 1947. The rule is also called Crown rule in India, or direct rule in India. The region under British control was commonly called India in contemporaneous usage and included areas directly administered by the United Kingdom, which were collectively called British India, and areas ruled by indigenous rulers, but under British paramountcy, called the princely states. The region was sometimes called the Indian Empire, though not officially.As "India", it was a founding member of the League of Nations, a participating nation in the Summer Olympics in 1900, 1920, 1928, 1932, and 1936, and a founding member of the United Nations in San Francisco in 1945.This system of governance was instituted on 28 June 1858, when, after the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the rule of the British East India Company was transferred to the Crown in the person of Queen Victoria (who, in 1876, was proclaimed Empress of India). It lasted until 1947, when the British Raj was partitioned into two sovereign dominion states: the Union of India (later the Republic of India) and the Dominion of Pakistan (later the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the People's Republic of Bangladesh). At the inception of the Raj in 1858, Lower Burma was already a part of British India; Upper Burma was added in 1886, and the resulting union, Burma was administered as an autonomous province until 1937, when it became a separate British colony, gaining its own independence in 1948. It was renamed Myanmar in 1989.