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The Cripps Mission and the Quit India Movement
1.0 Introduction
The Second World War broke out in September 1939 when Nazi Germany invaded Poland in pursuance of Hitler’s scheme for German expansion. Earlier Germany had occupied Austria in March 1938 and Czechoslovakia in March 1939. Britain and France, who had tried their best to placate Hitler, were forced to go to Poland’s aid. The British Government of India immediately joined the war without consulting the Indian National Congress or the elected members of the central legislature.
2.0 Congress Reaction to World War II
The National Congress was in full sympathy with the victims of fascist aggression. It was willing to help the forces of democracy in their struggle against fascism. But, the Congress leaders asked, how was it possible for an enslaved nation to aid others in their fight for freedom? They therefore demanded that India must be declared free - or at least effective power put in Indian hands - before it could actively participate in the war. The British Government refused to accept this demand and tried to pit the religious minorities and Princes against the Congress. The Congress, therefore, asked its ministries to resign. In October 1940, Gandhi gave the call for a limited satyagraha by a few selected individuals. The satyagraha was kept limited so as not to embarrass Britain’s war effort by a mass upheaval in India. The aims of this movement were explained as follows by Gandhi in a letter to the Viceroy:
“The Congress is as much opposed to victory for Nazism as any Britisher can be. But their objection cannot be carried to the extent of their participation in the war. And since you and the Secretary of State for India have declared that the whole of India is voluntarily helping the war effort, it becomes necessary to make clear that the vast majority of the people of India are not interested in it. They make no distinction between Nazism and the double autocracy that rules India”.
2.1 Individual Satyagraha
Vinoba Bhave was the first to offer satyagraha. By 15 May 1941, more than 25,000 satyagrahis had been jailed. Two major changes in world politics occurred during 1941. Having occupied Poland, Belgium, Holland, Norway and France in the West as well as most of Eastern Europe, Nazi Germany attacked its friend the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941. On 7 December Japan launched a surprise attack on the American fleet at Pearl Harbour and joined the war on the side of Germany and Italy. It quickly overran the Philippines, Indo-China, Indonesia, Malaya and Burma. It occupied Rangoon in March 1942. This brought the war to India’s door-step. The recently released Congress leaders denounced Japanese aggression and once again offered to fully cooperate in the defence of India and the Allied cause if Britain transferred the substance of power to India immediately and promised complete independence after the war.
3.0 The Cripps Mission
In March 1942, the British Parliament sent a delegation to India under Sir Stafford Cripps, a Labour Party Politician, in order to negotiate with the Indian National Congress a constitution that would secure Indian support of World War II. The Indian National Congress (INC) found the proposal for the new constitution unsatisfactory, since the draft declaration promised India domination status—but not complete independence—in return for its total cooperation during the war. Furthermore, the talks touched on progressive devolution and distribution of power, but failed to address a time frame toward self-government. Even though Cripps declared that the aim of British policy in India was “the earliest possible realisation of self-government in India”, detailed negotiations between him and the Congress leaders broke down. The British Government refused to accept the Congress demand for the quick & immediate transfer of effective power to Indians. On the other hand, the Indian leaders could not be satisfied by mere promises for the future while the Viceroy retained his autocratic powers in the present. They were anxious to cooperate in the war effort, especially as the Japanese army endangered Indian Territory. But they could do so, they felt, only when a national government was formed in the country. Leaders of Congress and the Muslim league rejected the proposal. As the leader of the INC, Mohandas Gandhi campaigned against the war and increasingly called for Indian independence.
The failure of the Cripps Mission embittered the people of India. While they still fully sympathised with the antifascist forces, they felt that the existing political situation in the country had become intolerable. Their discontent was further fuelled by war-time shortages and rising prices. The period from April to August 1942 was one of daily heightening tension, with Gandhiji becoming more and more militant as Japanese forces moved towards India and the spectre of Japanese conquest began to haunt the people and their leaders.
After the ‘Cripps Mission,’ Gandhi believed the time had come to take action. He wrote a series of articles in Harijan, his newspaper, promoting direct action and urging people to rise up. In order to give effect to his views, the INC adopted the ‘Quit India’ Resolution on July 14, 1942. The resolution stated, “The immediate ending of the British rule in India is an urgent necessity both for the sake of India and for the success of the cause of United Nations,” and demanded complete independence from the British government. The draft also threatened Britain with massive civil disobedience in the case of its failure to accede to the demands.
4.0 Quit India Movement
The Congress now decided to take active steps to compel the British to accept the Indian demand for independence. The All India Congress Committee met at Bombay on 8 August 1942. It passed the famous ‘Quit India’ Resolution and proposed the starting of a Non-violent mass struggle under Gandhi’s leadership to achieve this aim. The resolution declared:
“.... the immediate ending of British rule in India is an urgent necessity, both for the sake of India and for the success of the cause of the United Nations. ... India, the classic land of modern imperialism, has become the crux of the question, for by the freedom of India will Britain and the, United Nations be judged, and the peoples of Asia and Africa be filled with hope and enthusiasm. The ending of British rule in this country is thus a vital and immediate issue on which depends the future of the war and the success of freedom and democracy. A free India will assure this success by throwing all her great resources in the struggle for freedom and against the aggression of Nazism, Fascism and Imperialism”.
Addressing the Congress delegates on the night of 8 August, Gandhi said:
“I, therefore, want freedom immediately, this very night, before dawn, if it can be had. ... Fraud and untruth today are stalking the world. ... You may take it from me that I am not going to strike a bargain with the Viceroy for ministries and the like. I am not going to be satisfied with anything short of complete freedom. ... Here is a mantra, a short one that I give you. You may imprint it on your hearts and let every breath of yours give expression to it. The mantra is: “Do or Die”. We shall either free India or die in the attempt; we shall not live to see the perpetuation of our slavery ...”
4.1 Government’s crackdown
The government, however, was in no mood to either negotiate with the Congress or wait for the movement to be formally launched. The next morning, on August 9, British forces responded by arresting eminent Congress leaders Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, and Azad. Most of Gandhi’s fellow leaders, including all the members of the Party’s Working Committee, were arrested and imprisoned within 24 hours. Following the arrest of major leaders, the young Aruna Asaf Ali presided over the AICC session and hoisted the Indian flag. Although Gandhi specified that the campaign should only use non-violent means, there was nobody to guide the popular agitation.
The Government had been preparing for this eventuality since 1940 and had armed itself with an elaborate Revolutionary Movement Ordinance. For two years a political cat and mouse game was going on between the British and Gandhiji. Gandhiji just refused to walk into the trap set by the British by not making a rash and premature strike. He had carefully built up a momentum with the Individual Satyagraha and a consistent propaganda campaign. But now, the British were unwilling to allow him any more time to pursue his strategy.
In the three to four days after Gandhi’s arrest, the Indian National Congress (INC) was declared an unlawful organization. The news of these arrests left the country aghast and a spontaneous movement of protest arose everywhere, giving expression to the pent up anger of the people. In Bombay, as soon as the news of the arrests spread, lakhs of people flocked to the Gowalia Tank Maidan where a mass meeting had been scheduled and there were clashes with the Government authorities.
Left leaderless and without any organisation, the people reacted in any manner they could. Strikes were called and many workers remained absent en masse. In Ahmedabad, Puna, and Bombay, strikers shut down cotton mills and factories. In Ahmedabad, eight thousand mill workers left their jobs. In cities and towns across the country, students stopped attending school to join the workers in their marches. In a minor uprising in Ballia, Uttar Pradesh, locals established their own independent rule after overthrowing the district administration, breaking open the jail, and releasing incarcerated Congress leaders. All across the country, crowds severed electricity and telephone wires, and uprooted train tracks. Madras and Bengal were the most affected in this respect. In many places the rebels seized temporary control over towns, cities, and villages. British authority disappeared in parts of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Orissa, Andhra, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. In some areas, such as Ballia in Eastern U.P., Tamluk in Midnapore district of Bengal, and Satara district of Bombay, the revolutionaries set up ‘parallel governments’. In general, the students, workers and peasants provided the backbone of the ‘revolt’ while the upper classes and the bureaucracy remained loyal to the Government.
The Government on its part went all out to crush the 1942 movement. Its repression knew no bounds. The Press was completely muzzled. The demonstrating crowds were machine-gunned and even bombed from the air. Prisoners were tortured. The police and secret police reigned supreme. The military took over many towns and cities. Over 10,000 people died in police and military firings. Rebellious villages had to pay huge sums as punitive fines and the villagers had to undergo mass floggings. India had not witnessed such intense repression since the Revolt of 1857.
In the end the Government succeeded in crushing the movement. The Revolt of 1942, as it has been termed, was in fact short-lived. However its importance lay in the fact that it demonstrated the depth that nationalist feeling had reached in the country and the great capacity for struggle and sacrifice that the people had developed. It was evident that the British would no longer find it possible to rule India against the wishes of the people.
Although the back of the revolt had mostly been broken by the end of September, by the end of 1942, many railway stations had been attacked, and over a hundred police stations had been burned to the ground.
Since many of the top leaders of Congress were under arrest, many women took on independent roles as leaders by going into hiding and organizing and directing activities from underground. They printed and organized the distribution of leaflets, collected money and weapons, and even provided safe houses to Congress leaders working from the underground. Women also organized prayer meetings and marches, and hoisted nationalist flags.
In one village in Assam, a 15-year-old girl organized a procession of 500 men that marched to the police station determined to plant a flag. When the police ordered her back, she continued forward, and was shot in the chest. Nevertheless, someone in the crowd succeeded in hoisting the flag.
Some national leaders went underground, carrying on the struggle by distributing pamphlets, establishing parallel governments, and broadcasting messages over secret radio stations. The Congress Radio began its first broadcast on August 14. Located ‘somewhere in Bombay,’ and frequently moving around, it broadcast stories of underground activity and directed the Indian people in their struggle against British imperialism. The operation lasted until November 12, when police cut off transmission during a raid. Dr. Usha Mehta, a female student in Bombay, was the brain behind the pirate radio project.
By March 1943, the campaign had largely petered out. Although the “Quit India” campaign failed to bring an end to British colonial rule in India, with many of the country’s leaders behind bars, it intensified the opposition of India’s population’s to the British. It also showed the British that no new effort on their part could establish British rule on a solid footing, and it was only a matter of time before the British government would have to announce unconditional and time-bound withdrawal from the country.
4.2 Gandhi’s 21 day fast
In February 1943, a striking new development provided a new burst of political activity. Gandhiji commenced a fast on 10th February in the Aga Khan palace jail, Pune. He declared the fast would last for twenty-one days. This was his answer to the Government which had been constantly exhorting him to condemn the violence of the people in the Quit India Movement. Gandhiji not only refused to condemn the people’s resort to violence but unequivocally held the Government responsible for it. It was the ‘leonine violence’ of the state which had provoked the people, he said. And it was against this violence of the state, which included the unwarranted detention of thousands of Congressmen that
Gandhiji vowed to register his protest, in the only way open to him when in jail, by fasting.
The popular response to the news of the fast was immediate and overwhelming. All over the country, there were hartals, demonstrations and strikes. Calcutta and Ahmedabad were particularly active. Prisoners in jails and those outside went on sympathetic fasts. Groups of people secretly reached Poona to offer Satyagraha outside the Aga Khan Palace where Gandhiji was being held in detention. Public meetings demanded his release and the Government was bombarded with thousands of letters and telegrams from people from all walks of life — Students and youth, men of trade and commerce, lawyers, ordinary citizens, and labour organizations.
From across the seas, the demand for his release was made by newspapers such as the Manchester Guardian, New Statesmen, Nation, News Chronicle, Chicago Sun, as well as by the British Communist Party, the citizens of London and Manchester, the Women’s International League, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Ceylon State Council. The U.S. Government, too, brought pressure to bear.
A Leaders’ Conference was held in Delhi on 19-20 February and was attended by prominent men, politicians and public figures. They all demanded Gandhiji’s release. Many of those otherwise unsympathetic to the Congress felt that the Government was going too far in its obduracy. The severest blow to the prestige of the Government was the resignation of the three Indian members of the Viceroy’s Executive Council, M.S. Aney, N.R. Sarkar and H.P. Mody, who had supported the Government in its suppression of the 1942 movement, but were in no mood to be a party to Gandhiji’s death.
But the Viceroy and his officials remained unmoved. Guided by Winston Churchill’s statement to his Cabinet that ‘this our hour of triumph everywhere in the world was not the time to crawl before a miserable old man who had always been our enemy,” they arrogantly refused to show any concern for Indian feelings. The Viceroy contemptuously dismissed the consequences of Gandhiji’s possible death: ‘Six months unpleasantness, steadily declining in volume, little or nothing at the end of it.’ He even made it sound as if he welcomed the possibility: ‘India would be far more reliable as a base for operations. Moreover, the prospect of a settlement will be greatly enhanced by the disappearance of Gandhi, who had for years torpedoed every attempt at a settlement.” While an anxious nation appealed for his life, the Government went ahead with finalizing arrangements for his funeral. Military troops were asked to stand by for any emergency. Generous provision was made for a plane to carry his ashes and for a public funeral and a half-day holiday in offices. But Gandhiji, as always, got the better of his opponents, and refused to oblige by dying.
The fast had done exactly what it had been intended to do. The public morale was raised, the anti-British feeling heightened, and an opportunity for political activity provided. A symbolic gesture of resistance had sparked off widespread resistance and exposed the Government’s high-handedness to the whole world. The moral justification that the Government had been trying to provide for its brutal suppression of 1942 was denied to it and it was placed clearly in the wrong.
British officers released Mahatma Gandhi from prison in May 1944, due to poor health, while many of his followers and fellow leaders remained behind bars.
After the suppression of the Revolt of 1942, there was hardly any political activity inside the country till the war ended in 1945. The established leaders of the national movement were in jail, and no new leaders arose to take their place or to give a new lead to the country. In 1943, Bengal was plunged into the worst famine in recent history. Within a few months, over three million people died of starvation. There was deep anger among the people for the Government could have prevented the famine from taking such a heavy toll of life. This anger, however, found little political expression.
5.0 Important questions of the Movement
The debate on the Quit India Movement has centered around two questions.
5.1 Spontaneous or Organized?
First, the element of spontaneity of 1942 was certainly larger than in the earlier movements, though even in 1919-22, as well as in 1930-31 and 1932, the Congress leadership allowed considerable room for an initiative and spontaneity. In fact, the whole pattern of the Gandhian mass movements was that the leadership chalked out a broad programme of action and left its implementation at the local level to the initiative of the local and grass roots level political activists and the masse. Even in the Civil Disobedience Movement of 1930, perhaps the most organized of the Gandhian mass movements, Gandhiji signaled the launching of the struggle by the Dandi March and the breaking of the salt law, the leaders and the people at the local levels decided whether they were going to stop payment of land revenue and rent, or offer Satyagrahi against forest Laws, or picket liquor shops, or follow any of the other items of the programme. Of course, in 1942, even the broad programme had not yet been spelt out clearly since the leadership was yet to formally launch the movement. But, in a way, the degree of spontaneity and popular initiative that was actually exercised had sanctioned by the leadership itself. The resolution passed by the AICC on 8 August 1942 clearly stated: “A time may come when it may not be possible to issue instruction or for instructions to reach our people, and when no Congress committees can function. When this happens, every man and woman who is participating in this movement must function for himself or herself within the four corners of the general instructions issued. Every Indian who desires freedom and strives for it must be his own guide.”
Apart from this, the Congress had been ideologically, politically and organizationally preparing for the struggle for a long time. From 1937 onwards, the organization had been revamped to undo the damage suffered during the repression of 1932-34. In political and ideological terms as well, the Ministries had added considerably to Congress support and prestige. In East U.P. and Bihar, the areas of the most intense activity in 1942 were precisely the ones in which considerable mobilization and organizational work had been carried out from 1937 onwards.’ In Gujarat, Sardar Patel had been touring Bardoli and other areas since June 1942 warning the people of an impending struggle and suggesting that no- revenue campaigns could well be part of it. Congress Socialists in Poona had been holding training camps for volunteers since June 1942) Gandhiji himself, through the Individual Civil Disobedience campaign in 1940-41, and more directly since early 1942, had prepared the people for the coming battle, which he said would be ‘short and swift.’ In any case, in a primarily hegemonic struggle as the Indian national movement was, preparedness for struggle cannot be measured by the volume of immediate organizational activity but by the degree of hegemonic influence the movement base acquired over the people.
5.2 How can violence be justified?
How did the use of violence in 1942 square with the Congress policy of non-violence? For one, there were many who refused to use or sanction violent means and confined themselves to the traditional weaponry of the Congress. But many of those, including many staunch Gandhians, who used ‘violent means’ in 1942 felt that the peculiar circumstances warranted their use. Many maintained that the cutting of telegraph wires and the blowing up of bridges was all right as long as human life was not taken. Others frankly admitted that they could not square the violence they used, or connived at with their belief in nonviolence, but that they did it all the same. Gandhiji refused to condemn the violence of the people because he saw it as a reaction to the much bigger violence of the state. In Francis Hutchins’ view, Gandhiji’s major objection to violence was that its use prevented mass participation in a movement, but that, in 1942, Gandhiji had come round to the view that mass participation would not be restricted as a result of violence.
The great significance of this historic movement was that it placed the demand for independence on the immediate agenda of the national movement. After Quit India there could be no retreat. Any future negotiations with the British Government could only be on the manner of the transfer of power. Independence was no longer a matter of bargain. And this became amply clear after the War.
QUIT INDIA MOVEMENT
- Quit India moment, a civil disobedience movement, was launched at the Bombay session of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) by Mahatma Gandhi on August 8, 1942.
- Britain had entered World War II and since it was war time, this movement gained worldwide attention.
- In 1939, the Governor General Lord Linlithgow had, without consultations with Indian leaders, brought India into the War. The Muslim League supported the War, but Congress was divided; Indian nationalists were unhappy.
- The Indian political situation was complicated by the new conservative government under Winston Churchill, who held a grudge against the Indians. The conservatives were not sympathetic with Indian freedom fighters.
- In July 1942, the Congress Working Committee at Wardha passed a resolution termed The Wardha Resolution (also known as Quit India Resolution). It recommended a non-violent mass protest under Mahatma Gandhi.
- On 8 August 1942, the resolution was passed at the Bombay AICC session to stage Quit India movement and on the same day in evening, Gandhi in a speech given at Gowalia Tank Maidan, Bombay urged the people and the leaders to take part in this movement. “Do or die” was his call, complete freedom his desire!
- Almost the entire leadership of the INC was imprisoned without trial within hours of Gandhi's speech, as it was war time. People in thousands were arrested without any enquiry or trial.
- Quit India movement failed to get support from many, including the Viceroy's council (consisting mostly of Indians), the All India Muslim League, the princely states, Civil and Military administration of the government, RSS, Hindu Mahasabha and many Indian businessmen who were making money from heavy wartime spending.
- In parallel, Netaji Subash Chandra Bose took charge of the Indian National Army (INA) and with support of Japan and other countries, fought against the British forces in the war.
- Across India, students in thousands took inspiration from Netaji Bose and registered their protest.
- A group of seven young students on 8 August 1942 tried to hoist the Indian National flag on the Patna Collectorate building. They were shot dead by the police!
- The Americans consistently supported India's cause. President Franklin D. Roosevelt put pressure on PM Winston Churchill to give in, and free India. Churchill never caved in.
- When the British faced threats from Japan on the eastern font, they arrested Gandhiji and imprisoned him.
- On 9 August, 1942 because most leaders were in prison, a new leader Aruna Asaf Ali presided over the AICC session and hoisted the national flag. Subsequently the Congress was banned.
- Though there was lack of leadership, tens of thousands of people protested; workers and factory employees remained absent en masse. There were strikes and demostrations.
- Following violence more than 100,000 people were sent to prison; heavy fines were levied. In some places the police shot many protesters dead; hundreds of Indians lost their lives and many important leaders who escaped arrest went underground. It was unruly and chaotic. All the while, the World War II was raging.
- Due to persistent persecution and suppression by the British, the Quit India Movement failed.
- The British government indicated that Indians could expect freedom only after India's participation in the War.
- The British took enormous beating in the WW II. Hitler and other Axis forces were defeated due to the strength and resolve of Americans and Russians. The Russians defeated the Nazi army, taking advantage of the harsh winter condition. As for Americans, the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the WWII in favour of the allied forces. (Germany, Japan and Italy were the Axis powers)
- Britain not only lost its prestige as a strong military power but also its financial stability. This was good for India.
- With the nation against the British and their long years of misrule and racial discrimination, and the public protest against governance increasing daily, the British decided it was time to leave!
- Since the Quit India movement, the Indian leaders had continued their struggle against the British. At last, after many events and incidents (including the RIN revolts and the INA trials at Red Fort), after long deliberations and discussion, they left India leaving behind a divided India.
World War II
was the biggest and deadliest war in history,
involving more than 30 countries. Sparked by the 1939
Nazi invasion of Poland, the war dragged
on for six bloody years until the Allies
defeated Nazi Germany and Japan in 1945
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