Lord Willingdon
Topic: The National Movement: Gandhian Era · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 3 "Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement"
Meaning
Lord Willingdon was Viceroy of India from 1931 to 1936. He came after Lord Irwin. Unlike Irwin, he would not hold talks with Gandhi and disliked him deeply. When Gandhi came back from the failed Second Round Table Conference, Willingdon used harsh repression, meaning force and mass arrests, to crush the movement. Under his rule, Civil Disobedience was broken.
Example
In 1932, Congress restarted Civil Disobedience. Willingdon's government declared Congress illegal and jailed its leaders. The movement slowly lost strength and had faded by 1934. In a private letter, Willingdon wrote that the world would be a very beautiful place if it were not for Gandhi.
Don't confuse with
- Lord Irwin: Viceroy from 1926 to 1931. He talked with Gandhi and signed the Gandhi–Irwin Pact in March 1931. Willingdon chose force instead of talks.
Related concepts
- Eleven demands of Gandhi 1930
- Salt monopoly
- Salt satyagraha
- Sabarmati Ashram
- Civil disobedience movement
- Vedaranyam salt march
- Dharasana satyagraha 1930
- Sarojini Naidu
- Abdul Ghaffar Khan
- Khudai Khidmatgar