Lahore Congress declares Purna Swaraj and assures Sikhs

Who: The Indian National Congress, meeting under its new president Jawaharlal Nehru, then 40, with Mahatma Gandhi backing his choice. For the Sikhs, the Central Sikh League. Baba Kharak Singh had been elected its president in 1920 and presided over its Gujranwala session in October 1928; Master Tara Singh was its president at the annual meeting of October 1929.

What: The session opened on 29 December 1929. On 31 December it adopted the Purna Swaraj resolution unanimously, making "complete independence" the goal. At midnight Nehru hoisted the tricolour near the Ravi. On 1 January 1930 the Congress approved a Declaration of Independence to be read across India on 26 January 1930, and it backed boycotting British-run legislatures.

The Sikh side had a history behind it. The Nehru Report of August 1928 recommended Dominion Status and joint electorates but made no specific provision for Sikhs, though its one Sikh member, Mangal Singh, signed it. At Gujranwala on 22 October 1928 the Central Sikh League, with Baba Kharak Singh speaking, rejected it and asked for 30 per cent of Punjab seats if communal representation stayed. On 30 December 1928 League delegates walked out of the All-Parties Convention in Calcutta. At the League's annual meeting in October 1929 Baba Kharak Singh proposed boycotting the Lahore session, but Master Tara Singh, the League's president that year, opposed that, and Gandhi and other Congress leaders urged the League not to stay away.

At Lahore the Congress working committee dropped the Nehru Report, and the Congress adopted a motion assuring Sikhs and Muslims that it would accept no constitutional solution that did not satisfy them. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism adds that Congress leaders led by Gandhi met Baba Kharak Singh and his colleagues and promised that no arrangement lacking "full satisfaction to the Sikhs" would be accepted. A Sikh conference held in Lahore at the same time, with Baba Kharak Singh presiding, again demanded 30 per cent of Punjab assembly seats.

Where: Lahore, with the flag ceremony near the Ravi.

Why it mattered: It set complete independence as the Congress goal. It also put a Congress assurance to the Sikhs on the record, at a time when Sikh leaders were divided over how far to work with the Congress. The assurance was a political statement, a motion and a promise by Congress leaders, and not a provision of any constitution.