On the 83rd anniversary of the Quit India movement, Utkarsh Mishra/Rediff recalls the conditions under which the Congress, led by Mahatma Gandhi, launched the final struggle for independence.
August 8, 1942. Gowalia Tank Maidan in Bombay was to witness the beginning of Mahatma Gandhi's 'last' and 'biggest' struggle.
Thousands had gathered on the ground, now known as the August Kranti Maidan in Mumbai, where the All India Congress Committee meeting was going on since the previous day.
The meeting was expected to ratify the 'Quit India' resolution that was passed by the Congress Working Committee in Wardha on July 14.
When Gandhi rose to speak, the sea of Congress workers and supporters that cheered and roared at the arrival of their leaders, listened to him in complete silence.
'I am about to launch the biggest fight of my life,' he announced, saying that this time, he was not going to be satisfied with 'anything short of complete freedom'.
'Nothing less than freedom,' said Gandhi, and exhorted the gathering with these electrifying words, '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.'
Although the resolution as well as Gandhi's address specified that this struggle would be non-violent, the government called it a 'declaration of war' and arrested all the top Congress leaders in one fell swoop.
Thus began the mass movement that came to be known as 'Quit India', although the resolution gave it no such name.
It was after years of alternating between confrontation and compromise that the Congress had decided to strike the final blow against the Empire.
A Tenuous Truce
The civil disobedience movement that began with Gandhi's Salt March in 1930 ended with his pact with Viceroy Lord Irwin on March 5, 1931.
It was followed by the Karachi Congress where a resolution was passed outlining the party's vision for an independent India.
The same year, Gandhi was called to London for the Second Round Table Conference, which failed to settle the question of establishing a responsible government in India. Gandhi was also opposed to the suggestion of treating the depressed classes as separate from the rest of the Hindu community.
Irwin was replaced as Viceroy by Lord Willingdon and the new viceroy thought that it was a mistake to sign the pact with the Congress. The government also refused to honour specific conditions of the pact like the return of land seized during the no-tax campaign.
The Congress resumed the no-rent campaign in the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh), which prompted the government to arrest Jawaharlal Nehru on December 26.
The truce crumbled and the Congress decided to resume civil disobedience two days later.
Gandhi was arrested in January 1932, followed by all leading Congress leaders along with 80,000 satyagrahis.
The government responded with utmost repression. Gandhi withdrew the movement in 1934 and resigned from the Congress. He devoted the next few years to working for the abolition of untouchability.
Congress Divided
This lull in the national movement divided Congress opinion. While the right wing in the party wanted to undertake parliamentary work and participate in council elections, the left wing, led by Jawaharlal Nehru, wanted the anti-imperialist struggle to continue.
The party was heading for a split.
Gandhi defused the situation by setting up an AICC parliamentary board, thus placating the right wing. The left wing was assuaged by the election of Nehru as president in 1936 and 1937, followed by Subhas Chandra Bose in 1938 and 1939.
The government, meanwhile, was working on a plan to pre-empt another movement by the Congress. With the aim of 'weaning away' Congress leaders from 'mass struggle to constitutionalism', the Government of India Act was introduced in the British parliament in 1935.
The Act allowed for provincial governments with substantial autonomy, although the final power rested with viceroy-appointed governors. But the government thought that once Congress leaders tasted power, they would be 'reluctant to part ways with it' in favour of a mass movement.
While the Congress resolved to 'totally reject' the 1935 Act, it decided to contest the provincial elections in 1937, in which it registered a massive victory. Despite a limited franchise, the party won 716 of the 1,161 seats it contested, securing a majority in most of the provinces except Bengal, Assam and the North-West Frontier Province.
Push Comes to Shove
The Congress formed ministries in the provinces where it secured a majority.
But the arrangement was critical. While the party was ruling in provinces, it was also an adversary of the viceroy and the governors appointed by him.
Nonetheless, they managed to win a great deal of public confidence and made crucial decisions, including repealing emergency powers, returning seized land, releasing political prisoners and providing economic relief to peasants.
However, as war clouds were gathering over Europe at the beginning of 1939, Bose was re-elected as Congress president. He advocated for an immediate resumption of the anti-imperialist struggle and for giving the Empire a six-month ultimatum to withdraw.
However, he failed to get support within the party and stepped down as a result.
On September 1, 1939, Britain and France declared war on Germany when the Third Reich invaded Poland. India was also dragged into the war.
The Congress was taken aback. They demanded that the government declare in clear terms that the British would leave India after the war in return for the Congress' support. But the new viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, was least interested.
Consequently, in October 1939, all provincial ministries of the Congress resigned.
The stage was set for another mass struggle.
Offering Conditional Support
The Congress session at Ramgarh in March 1940 resolved that 'nothing short of complete independence' would be accepted by the people in exchange for support in the war. It also resolved that civil disobedience would be resumed as soon as the organisation was 'ready for it'.
The situation was once again peculiar.
Prominent leaders like Nehru and C Rajagopalachari wanted the British to leave, but were also wary of fascism and Japanese imperialism. And opposing the government in the war meant siding with Hitler and an expansionist Japan that was already inflicting horrendous atrocities in China. Chinese nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek had already requested Gandhi not to sabotage the war effort.
However, Gandhi and other Congress leaders did not recognise the Japanese as a threat in the way Nehru and Rajagopalachari did.
In December 1941, the Congress passed another resolution in Bardoli, which once again stated that it would support the war only when the government promises independence.
Once again it went unheeded. And the government secretly started preparing for punitive action against the Congress if it resumed civil disobedience on a mass scale.
However, when the Malaya, Singapore and Burma fell to the Japanese and they started closing in, the initially reluctant government felt the need for local support.
To bring the Congress on board, the government in Britain sent Sir Stafford Cripps, a Labour leader and an advocate for India's independence, to India in March 1942.
Cripps negotiated the terms for 'the earliest possible realisation of self-government in India' and the setting-up of a constitution-making body.
However, his offer contained a condition that individual provinces had the right to reject the constitution if they so desired. Nehru and other Congress leaders asserted that the provision would pave the way for the partition of India, as Muslim-majority provinces would certainly exercise this right.
Another point of contention was the demand for civilian control of the military. Congress wanted an Indian member of the Viceroy's Council to oversee the defence of India. It was unacceptable to the government.
Thus, the Cripps Mission failed in April 1942.
Gandhi, in turn, wrote to both Chiang Kai-shek and US President Franklin D Roosevelt, requesting them to exert pressure on the British government to grant independence to India and other colonies in Africa.
The Congress argued that Indians cannot be thrown into the war with 'their hands tied behind their backs.' Moreover, Britain cannot claim to fight for democracy and freedom in Europe while simultaneously denying it to India and other colonies.
To allay the apprehensions of the Axis Powers seizing India in the event of British withdrawal, Gandhi went so far as to suggest that the government of independent India would allow British and American soldiers to use its soil to resist the Japanese advance and help China.
The Final Showdown
While a reply from Roosevelt was still awaited and the British government under Winston Churchill showed no intentions of relenting, the Congress Working Committee passed a resolution on July 14, 1942, asking the British to quit India. If they failed to do so, the Congress would launch a mass movement on the 'widest possible scale'.
The nature of the movement was to be decided at the Bombay meeting of the AICC on August 7.
On August 8, Nehru moved the resolution and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel seconded it.
The resolution asking for 'an immediate end to British rule in India' was accepted. It also clarified that the end of the British rule would not mean support for the Japanese war effort.
In his address, Gandhi said he would wait for a few weeks before commencing the struggle to see if the viceroy was ready to accept the Congress's demands.
But the government was ready to strike a body blow against the movement.
In the morning of August 9, Gandhi was arrested along with Sarojini Naidu, his secretary Mahadev Desai and his associate Mirabehn. They were taken to the Aga Khan palace in Pune.
Later, all other Congress leaders, including Nehru, Patel and Maulana Azad, were arrested and jailed in the Ahmednagar Fort. They were to remain there for the next three years.
With all top leaders in jail, it fell to the local leadership to continue the movement.
For a couple of months, hartals and public demonstrations continued throughout the country.
Government buildings, including post offices and police stations, were attacked, railway tracks were removed, and bridges were blown up. Parallel governments were formed in some parts of the country, most notably in Ballia (UP), Tamluk (Bengal) and Satara (Maharashtra). These actions significantly impacted military preparations.
Apart from communal parties and the Communists (because the Soviet Union was an Allied Power), all others supported the movement.
Government repression knew no bounds, jails were brimming with satyagrahis, and within months, the open movement was crushed. However, underground movements continued in several provinces.
A Congress circular that asked protesters to 'be always non-violent', also listed instructions such as 'uproot railway lines, pull down large bridges, cut telegraph wires, and tear the roads asunder'. It also asked them to 'take away arms of the police and military and hoist the tricolour on courts, police stations and post-offices.'
Significantly, even Gandhi refused to condemn the violence during the movement and saw it as a reaction by the people.
In the words of historian Bipan Chandra, '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.'