The Reminiscences of Zafrulla Khan — Page 23
23 REMINISCENCES OF SIR MUHAMMAD ZAFRULLA KHAN the second Roundtable Conference, in 1931, an economic blizzard struck Britain and the pound sterling had to go off gold. Mr. Ramsey MacDonald found himself under the necessity of forming a coalition government and thus the Conservatives came into the government. During the first Roundtable Conference, Mr. Wedgewood Benn, subsequently, Slansgate, was the Secretary of State for India. By the time the second Roundtable Conference convened, that office had passed to Sir Samuel Hoare, subsequently Lord Templewood. From then onwards, Sir Samuel Hoare became the principal architect of the scheme that emerged from the three Roundtable Conferences, first in the shape of the Government White Paper and then in the Report of the Joint Select Committee of both Houses of Parliament. The second Roundtable Conference had this great distinction, that between the two conferences, Lord Irwin, later Lord Halifax, who was then Viceroy, had been able to persuade the Congress, who had boycotted the first Roundtable Conference to participate in the second, and the Congress chose to send only a single delegate in the person of Mr. Gandhi, who was indeed a host in himself, universally respected, not only in India but also in England and in other parts of the world. It was, however, realized only during the actual working of the conference that, however respected and able an individual might be, it is a mistake for a strong and powerful party to be represented only by one individual in a conference. True, no decision was taken by counting of heads, and, therefore, it did not matter very much that a single individual who was backed by all the prestige and weight of his party represented it; but there was a psychological factor involved. When a question was being discussed, one person, whatever contribution he had to make, could make it in one intervention or two or three, and if the representatives of the other parties and interests did not see eye-to-eye with him, and their numbers were large and if they spoke only once each, his view was smothered under the avalanche of opposition. Another development which took place during the second Roundtable Conference was the attempt by Mrs. Sarojni Naidu to bring the Muslims and Mr. Gandhi together so that, if possible, an understanding might be reached between them with regard to what was known as the communal problem, and a common stand could be made in support of whatever might be agreed upon as the immediate objective.