| Abstract |
"The Round Table Conference (RTC) met over three sessions in London between 1930-1932, its aim being to sketch out the next stage of India's constitutional advance within the British empire. Although it led directly to the Government of India Act of 1935, the conference is unanimously read as a failure. It failed to win over the Indian National Congress, it failed to reconcile communal demands, and it failed to entice the Princely States into immediate federation. As such, the RTC features in neither histories of imperial nor international conferences, nor is it acknowledged as a predecessor of the wave of decolonial conferences that began in the 1950s. This book argues that the RTC demands serious attention as a vital site of Indian and imperial politics in the interwar years. It explores four conference geographies, which balance an attention to imperial governmentality with evidence of "diplomatic subaltern" labour. The role of dominion, dyarchy and community are explored as "imaginary geographies". The conference method, staff and its palace locations expose conference "infrastructures". Spaces of official hospitality, socialising and domestic networking highlight London as a "conference city". And, finally, the "representational spaces" of the conference are read through petitions and protests, and the ways in which the conference was represented as a failure. The book concludes by asking who gained through this representation and by showing what we gain through exploring the conference as a teeming political, social and material space"-- Provided by publisher. |
