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In May 1945, Lord Wavell, the Viceroy of India, went to London and discussed his ideas about the future of India with the British administration. The talks resulted in the formulation of a plan of action that was made public in June 1945. The plan is known as Wavell Plan.

The Plan suggested reconstitution of the Viceroy’s Executive Council in which the Viceroy was to select persons nominated by the political parties. Different communities were also to get their due share in the Council and parity was reserved for Cast-Hindus and Muslims. While declaring the plan, the Secretary of State for Indian Affairs made it clear that the British Government wanted to listen to the ideas of all major Indian communities. Yet he said that it was only possible if the leadership of the leading Indian political parties agreed with the suggestions of the British Government.

To discuss these proposals with the leadership of major Indian parties, Wavell called for a conference at Simla on June 25, 1945. Leaders of both the Congress and the Muslim League attended the conference, which is known as the Simla Conference. However, differences arose between the leadership of the two parties on the issue of representation of the Muslim community. The Muslim League claimed that it was the only representative party of the Muslims in India and thus all the Muslim representatives in the Viceroy’s Executive Council should be the nominees of the party. Congress, which had sent Maulana Azad as the leader of their delegation, tried to prove that their party represented all the communities living in India and thus should be allowed to nominate Muslim representative as well. Congress also opposed the idea of parity between the Cast-Hindus and the Muslims. All this resulted in a deadlock. Finally, Wavell announced the failure of his efforts on July 14. Thus the Simla Conference couldn’t provide any hope of proceeding further.

C. Rajagopalachari’s formula (or C. R. formula or Rajaji formula) was a proposal formulated by Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari to solve the political deadlock between the All India Muslim League and Indian National Congress on independence of India from the British. C. Rajagopalachari, a Congress leader from Madras, devised a proposal for the Congress to offer the League the Muslim Pakistan based onplebiscite of all the peoples in the regions where Muslims made a majority. Although the formula was opposed even within the Congress party,Gandhi used it as his proposal in his talks with Jinnah in 1944. However, Jinnah rejected the proposal and the talks failed.
The CR formula entailed
i. The League was to endorse the Indian demand for independence and to co-operate with the Congress in formation of Provisional Interim Government for a transitional period.
ii. At the end of the War, a commission would be appointed to demarcate the districts having a Muslim population in absolute majority and in those areas plebiscite to be conducted on all inhabitants (including the non-Muslims) on basis of adult suffrage.
iii. All parties would be allowed to express their stance on the partition and their views before the plebiscite.
iv. In the event of separation, a mutual agreement would be entered into for safeguarding essential matters such as defence, communication and commerce and for other essential services.
v. The transfer of population, if any would be absolutely on a voluntary basis.
vi. The terms of the binding will be applicable only in case of full transfer of power by Britain to Government of India.

After the WWII began, British sought cooperation from India. August Offer offered three proposals. Firstly, it called for an immediate expansion of Viceroy’s Executive Council with the inclusion of India representatives; secondly, an advisory body with the members from British India and Indian princely states which were supposed to meet at consequent intervals was established and thirdly, two practical steps were decided to be taken in which it was to come at an agreement with the Indians on the form of the post representatives body should take and the methods by which it should come to a conclusion. It further  planned to draw out the principles and outlines of the Constitution itself.

Congress did not accept the offer.

• Started by Gandhi on 12^th March 1930 with the Dandi March. Reached Dandi on April 6.
• Defiance of forest laws in Maharashtra, Central Province and Karnataka. Refusal to pay chaukidari tax in Eastern India.
• Wide participation of women
• Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan organized Khudai Khidmatgars (aka Red Shirts)
• Nagaland: Rani Gaidilieu
• First RTC, 1930
  • Congress boycotted
• Gandhi-Irwin Pact, 1931
  • Government agreed to release the political prisoners who had remained non-violent
  • Right to make salt for consumption
  • Right to peaceful picketing of liquor and foreign cloth shops
  • Congress suspended the Civil Disobedience Movement
  • Agreed to take part in the second RTC

• Indian Statutory Commission chaired by Simon to go into the question of further constitutional reform
• All its seven members were Englishmen. Clement Attlee was one of the members.
• Lord Birkinhead was the secretary of state at that time
• At its Madras session in 1927 INC decided to boycott the commission “at every stage and in every form”
  • ML and Hindu Mahasabha supported Congress
• Nehru Report, 1928
  • Dominion status
  • Contained Bill of Rights
  • No state religion
  • Federal form
  • Linguistically determined provinces
  • No separate electorates
  • All Party Convention, held at Calcutta in 1928, failed to pass the report
  • Muslim league rejected the proposals of the report
  • Jinnah drafted his fourteen points
  • Hindu Mahasabha and Sikh League also objected
• Poorna Swaraj
  • Resolution passed at the Lahore session in 1929
  • On 31 December 1929, the tri-color was hoisted
  • On 26 January 1930, Independence Day was celebrated

• Emergence of socialism in the 1920s in the nationalist ranks
  • JL Nehru and SC Bose
  • Raised the question of internal class oppression by capitalists and landlords
  • MN  Roy became the first Indian to be elected to the leadership of the Communist International
  • Muzaffer Ahmed and SA Dange were tried in the Kanpur Conspiracy Case
  • 1925: Communist Party of India was formed
  • All India Trade Union Congress
  • Various Strikes: Bombay textile mills, Jamshedpur, Kharagpur
• Bardoli Satyagraha (1928)
  • Peasants under the leadership of Sardar Patel organized no tax campaign
• Indian Youth were becoming active
  • First All Bengal Conference of Students  held in 1928 presided by JL Nehru
• Hindustan Republican Association: 1924
  • Kakori Conspiracy Case (1925)
  • Four, including Ram Prasad Bismil and Ashfaqulla Khan were hanged.
• Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (1928)
  • On 17^th December 1928, Bhagat Singh, Azad and Rajguru assassinated Saunders
  • Bhagat Singh and BK Dutt threw bomb in the Central Legislative Assembly on 8 April 1929 to let the people know of their changed political objectives
• Chittagong Armoury Raid: 1030, Surya Sen
  • Participation of young women

• Three important peasant movements of the early twentieth century:
  • Kisan Sabha and Eka movements in Avadh in UP
  • Mappila rebellion in Malabar
  • Bardoli Satyagrah in Gujarat
• The UP Kisan Sabha was set up in February 1918 through the efforts of Gauri Shankar Mishra and Indra Narain Dwivedi with the support of Madan Mohan Malviya.
• By June 1919, it had established about 450 branches in 173 tehsils of the province.
• In August 1921, Mappila (Muslim) tenants rebelled. Their grievances related to lack of any security of tenure, renewal fees, high rents and other oppressive labndlord exactions.
• The no-tax movement was launched in Bardoli taluq of Surat district in Gujarat in 1928.

• There were some working class movements in second half of 19^th century. However, they were impulsive and not very well organized.
• The early nationalists had a lukewarm attitude towards the question of workers. This war because initially Congress wanted to focus on issues which were of common concern to all the people of India.
• There was a difference in attitude of the nationalists towards workers in indigenous and European enterprises.
• The most important feature of the labour movement during the Swadeshi days was the shift from agitation and struggles on purely economic questions to the involvement of the worker with the wider political issues of the day.
• The All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) was founded in 1920.
• IN 1918 Gandhi founded the Ahmedabad Textile Labour Association.
• The AITUC in November 1927 took a decision to boycott the Simon Commission and many workers participated in the massive Simon boycott demonstrations.
• Alarmed by worker’s movement, the government enacted repressive laws like the Public Safety Act and Trade Disputes Acts and arrested the entire radical leadership of the labour movement and launched the Meerut Conspiracy Case against them.
• The labour movement suffered a major setback partially due to this government offensive and partially due to a shift in stance of the communist led wing of the movement.
• From the end of 1928, the communists stopped aligning them with the national movement.
• Communists got isolated within the AITUC and were thrown out in the split of 1931.
• BY 1934, the communists re-entered the mainstream nationalist politics.
• The working class of Bombay held an anti-war strike on 2 October, 1939.
• With the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union in 1941, the communists changed their policy and asked the people to support the allied forces instead of holding anti-war strikes.
• The communists dissociated themselves from the Quit India movement launched in 1942.
• The last years of colonial rule also saw a remarkably sharp increase in strikes on economic issues all over the country – the all India strike of the post and telegraph department employees being the most well known among them.