The Simla Conference

In the summer of 1945, a conference was convened at Simla by the Viceroy, Lord Wavell, who had recently returned from England with the approval of the Newspaper report of the outcome of the Simla Conference British Cabinet to a proposal for reconstituting the Executive Council in consultation with Indian leaders. Gandhi was not a delegate to the conference, though he was consulted by the Viceroy and the Congress working committee.

The conference broke down on the insistence of Jinnah that his party should have an exclusive right to nominate Muslim members of the Viceroy’s Executive Council. This was something which the Congress could not concede without repudiating its national composition.

The British Cabinet Mission of 1946 to India aimed to discuss and plans for the transfer of power from the British Raj to Indian leadership, providing India with independence under Dominion status in the Commonwealth of Nations. Formulated at the initiative of Clement Attlee, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the mission consisted of Lord Pethick-Lawrence, the Secretary of State for India, Sir Stafford Cripps, President of the Board of Trade, and A. V. Alexander, the First Lord of the Admiralty. It was also not supplemented by Lord Wavell, the Viceroy of India at the time.