Condition of India

This is the first Indian edition of Condition of India, an incisive report on the situation as it obtained in India under the ordinance rule in 1932 following the failure of the Round Table Conference in 1931 and the incarceration of Gandhi in early 1932. Prepared by a delegation to India sponsored by the India League, it is based on its findings during an extensive on the spot investigation all over India. The delegation consisted of Monica Whately, Ellen Wilkinson, Leonard W. Matters and V.K. Krishna Menon. The volume was published in 1934 despite a good deal of opposition from official quarters and was promptly proscribed in India. n the present edition, Suhash Chakravarty has provided an exhaustive introduction giving rational contexts and historical perspectives to the report which has been described by him as an illuminating document on the nature of British rule in India in 1932 barely two decades before the end of the Raj. The report emphasized that the ordinances were directed against an unarmed and non-violent people irrespective of age or gender and led by a frail but determined leader with a unique vision. The rule gave rise to an official ordinance mind, at once arrogant, authoritarian, repressive and callous and the ascendancy of a brutal police force as the principal executive authority. The civil disobedience movement had been extended to rural India and was enriched by an extensive participation of women, peasants and working class. The Indian National Congress had become a mass movement and, at places, adopted socialist aspiration and reiterated its democratic character. The report is an essential source material for this turbulent period that left behind a heritage of ill will and racial bitterness.