ABSTRACT
In 1930, when Jinnah arrived in London to attend the Round Table Conference, he had good reasons for optimism. In 1924, Jinnah’s Independent Party in the Central Assembly had teamed up with the Swaraj Party headed by Motilal Nehru in demanding a Round Table Conference for revision of the Act of 1919. The British Government’s dilemma was aptly summed up at that time by the Manchester Guardian: ‘Since the British could neither govern nor get out of India, it was necessary to devise a constitution that seemed like self-government in India and British Raj at Westminster.’ Interestingly, Samuel Hoare, who was later to pilot the Reforms Bill through the Parliament, assured a committee of the Conservative Party in 1930 that it was possible for Britain to ‘yield semblance of responsible government and yet retain in our hands the realities and verities of British control’.
