The unfavorable War situation and international pressures had compelled the British to seek an amicable settlement with India and obtain her active support in the War. Sir Stafford Cripps landed in India with a set of proposals and negotiated with leaders of various political parties.

This Declaration was rejected by almost all the Indian parties. The Congress did not want to rely on future promises. It wanted a responsible Government with full powers and also a control over the country’s defence. Gandhi termed the proposal “as a post-dated cheque on a crashing bank.”Nehru said the proposals were meant to make a few Indians the Viceroy’s ‘liveried camp-followers’ to ‘look after canteens and the like’.  The Muslim League demanded a definite declaration by the British in favour of the creation of a separate state for the Muslims, and also seats for the Muslim League on 50:50 bases with the Congress in the Interim Government. The Depressed Classes, the Sikhs, the Indian Christians and the Anglo-Indians demanded more safeguards for their communities.

Thus, the Cripps Mission failed to pacify the Indians. The British had merely taken up this exercise to demonstrate to the world that they cared about Indian sentiments, rather than to actually do something concrete.

Background to the Quit India movement

The Congress had to decide its course of action in wake of:

*     the failure of the Cripps Mission;

*     the arrival of Japanese armies on Indian borders;

*     the rising prices and shortages in food supplies, and

*     the different opinions within the Congress.

The Congress Working Committee adopted a resolution calling for complete non-violent non-cooperation with any foreign forces invading India (in May 1942). Rajagopalachari and a few other Congressmen from Madras attempted to get a resolution passed which proposed that in case the Madras Government invited them the Congress should form a ministry there. The resolution was rejected, but the very proposal demonstrated that there were certain Congressmen who wanted to cooperate with the government. Rajagoplachari was following an independent path. He had favoured the Pakistan demand, and was urging the Congress to support the War effort.

In May 1942 Gandhi told a gathering of Congressmen at Bombay that he had made up his mind to ask the British to quit India in an orderly fashion. If they did not agree, he would launch a Civil Disobedience Movement.

Many of the Congress leaders had reservations about the launching of a movement. Nehru was particularly concerned about the choice between fighting imperialist Britain and letting USSR and China down in their struggle against fascist powers. Eventually, he decided in favour of launching the movement. The Congress made it clear that the quit India demand did not mean that the British and the allied armies had to withdraw from India immediately. However, it meant an immediate acknowledgement of India’s Independence by the British. On July 14 the Congress Working Committee adopted the Quit India Resolution which was to be ratified at the Bombay AICC meeting in August.

On 8 August 1942 the AICC passed the Quit India Resolution. After deliberating at great length on the international and national situation the Congress appealed to the people of India:

They must remember that non-violence is the basis of this movement. A time may come when it may not be possible to issue instructions or for instructions to reach our people, and when no Congress Committee can function. When this happens every man and woman who is participating in this movement must function for himself or herself with in the four corners of the general instructions issued.

Gandhi told the British to quit and “leave India in God’s hand”. He exhorted all sections to participate in the Movement and stressed “every India who desires freedom and strives for it must be his own guide”. His message was ‘do or die”. Thus started the Quit India Movement (QIM).

The movement

The Congress gave the call for ousting British but it did not give any concrete line of action to be adopted by the people. The Government had been making preparations to rust the Movement. On the morning of 9 August all prominent Congress leaders including Gandhi were arrested. The new leaders’ arrest shook the people and they came to streets protesting against it.

Spread of the movement

Before his arrest on 9 August 1942 Gandhi had given the following message to the country:

“Every one is free to go the fullest length under Ahimisa to complete deadlock by strikes and other non-violent means. Satyagrahis must go out to die not to live. They must seek and face death. It is only when individuals go out to die that the nation will survive, do or die.”

But while giving this call Gandhi had once again stressed on non-violence:

“Let every non-violent soldier of freedom write out the slogan ‘do or die’ on a piece of paper or cloth and stick it on his clothes, so that in case he died in the course of offering Satyagraha, he might be distinguished by that sign from other elements who do not subscribe to non-violence.”

The news of his arrest alongwith other Congress leaders led to unprecedented popular outbursts in different parts of the country. There were hartals, demonstrations and processions in cities and towns. The Congress leadership gave the call, but it was the people who launched the Movement. Since all the recognised leaders-central, provincial or local-had been arrested, the young and more militant cadres-particularly students-with socialist leanings took over as leaders at local levels in their areas.

In the initial stages, the Movement was based on non-violent lines. It was the repressive policy of the government which provoked the people to violence. The Gandhian message of non-violent struggle was pushed into the background and people devised their own methods of struggle. These included:

1.    attacks on governments buildings, police stations and post offices,

2.    attacks on police stations and sabotaging rail lines,

3.    cutting off the telegraph wires, telephones and electric power lines.

4.    disrupting road traffic by destroying bridges, and

5.    workers going on strike, etc.

Most of these attacks were to check the movement of the military and the police, which were being used by the government to crush the Movement. In many areas, the government lost all control and the people established Swaraj. We cite a few such cases:

In Maharashtra, a parallel government was established in Satara which continued to function for a long time.

In Bengal, Tamluk Jatiya Sarkar functioned for a long time in Midnapore district. This national government had various departments like Law and Order, Health, Education, Agriculture, etc., along with a postal system of its own and arbitration courts.

People established Swaraj in Talcher in Orissa.

In many parts of eastern U.P. and Bihar (Azamgarh, Ballia, Ghazipur, Monghyr, Muzaffarpur, etc.) police stations were over run by the people and government authority uprooted.

The Movement had initially been strong in the urban areas but soon it was the populace of rural areas which kept the banner of revolt aloft for a longer time. The Movement got a massive response from the people of Bombay, Andhra, U.P. Bihar, Gujarat, Orissa, Assam, Bengal, Karnataka, etc. But the responses in Punjab, Sindh, NWFP, etc. were weak.

Responses and trends

“Quit India” and “Do or Die” were the slogans of the day, and yet there were varied responses to the Movement. The Working Class in many industrial centres went on strike. Some of these centres were Bombay, Cawnpore, Ahmedabad, Jamshedpur and Poona. In Delhi the strike on 9 August was a result of the workers coming to the streets. But in most of these centres the strikes did not last long, except in Ahmedabad where it continued till about 3 months.

In Bihar, Patna was cut off from the rest of the areas as a result of mass actions by the people of rural areas surrounding Patna.

This reflects the level of participation by the rural people and the constraints of Gandhian leaders in directing the Movement. A similar situation existed in eastern U.P. The account kept by R.H. Nibblet of what happened at Madhuban Police Station in Azamgarh district shows the fury of the revolt in that area. Nibblet has mentioned how the police station was attacked in an organized manner from three sides. The people from one side reaching earlier, waited at a distance for the people to reach from the other sides. The police fired 119 rounds to check the attack which lasted about two hours.

In Orrissa the government used airplanes to check the advance of peasant guerrillas towards Talcher town. In Maharashtra the battles were long drawn in the Satara region.

Besides mass action there emerged another trend in the movement. This was the trend of underground revolutionary activity. On 9 November 1942, Jaiprakash Narayan and Ramnandan Misra escaped from Hazaribagh Jail. They organized an underground movement and operated from the regions bordering Nepal.

Similarly, in Bombay, the Socialist leaders continued their underground activities under leaders like Aruna Asaf Ali. The most daring act of the underground movement was the establishment of Congress Radio with Usha Mehta as its announcer. This radio carried broadcasts for a long time. Subhash Bose, speaking over Berlin radio (31 August 1942) described this movement as “Non-violent guerilla warfare”. He suggested that:

The object of this non-violent guerilla campaign should be a two-fold one. Firstly, to destroy war production in India, and secondly, to paralyze the British administration in the country. Keeping these objectives in view, every section of the community should participate in the struggle.

There was massive participation by the students who spread to the countryside and played a role in guiding the people there. The Movement did not evoke much response from the merchant community. In fact most of the Capitalists and merchants had profited heavily during the War. In certain cases, the Capitalists did appeal to the government (through FICCI) to release Gandhi and other leaders. But their argument was that Gandhi alone could check attacks on government property. They were worried that if such attacks continued they may get converted into attacks on private property. The Muslim League kept aloof from the Movement and no communal riots were reported. The Hindu Mahasabha condemned the Movement. The Communist Party of India due to its “people’s war” line did not support the movement. The princes and the landlords were supporting the War effort and did not sympathies with the movement. There were also Congress leaders like Rajagoplachari who did not participate in the movement and supported the War effort.

However, the intensity of the Movement can be gauged from the following figures:

In U.P. 104 railway stations were attacked and damaged according to a government report. About 100 railway tracks were ‘sabotaged’ and the number in case of telephone and telegraph wires was 425. The number of post offices damaged was 119.

In Midnapore 43 government buildings were burnt.

In Bihar 72 police stations were attacked. 332 railway stations and 945 post offices damaged.

Throughout the country there had been 664 bomb explosions.

Repression

The Government had geared all its forces to suppress the popular upsurge. Arrests, detentions, police firings, burning of Congress offices, etc., were the methods adopted by the Government.

By the end of 1942 in U.P. alone 16,089 persons were arrested. Throughout India the official figures for arrests stood at 91,836 by end of 1943.

The number of people killed in police firings was 658 till September 1942, and by 1943 it was 1060. But these were official figures. Many more had died and innumerable wounded.

In Midnapore alone, the Government forces had burnt 31 Congress camps and 164 private houses. There were 74 cases of rape; out of which 46 were committed by the police in a single day in one village on 9 January, 1943.

The Government accepted having used aeroplanes to gun people at 5 places. These were: Giriak near Patna; Bhagalpur district; near Ranaghat in Nadia district; Monghyr district and near Talcher city.

There were countless lathicharges, floggings and imprisonments.

Collective punitive fines were extorted from the residents in the areas affected by the upsurge. For example in U.P. the total amount involved in such fines was Rs. 28,32,000. Similarly in North Bihar fines were imposed to the amount of Rs. 34,15,529 by the end of February 1943.

It was through such repressive actions that the British were able to re-establish themselves. The War situation helped them in two ways:

i)     They had at their disposal a massive military force which was stationed here to face the Japanese, but was promptly used to crush the Movement.

ii)    Due to War time censorship they repressed the upsurge in a ruthless manner. They did not have to bother themselves about any internal criticism of their methods, or international opinion. The Allied countries were busy fighting the Axis powers, and had no time to concern themselves with what the British were doing in India.

The Quit India Movement collapsed, but not without demonstrating the determination of the masses to do away with British rule. The Congress leadership did not condemn the deviation by the people from the principle of non-violence, but at the same time disowned any responsibility for the violent acts of the people.

Gandhi - subhash controversy

It was a conflict between Gandhian and Socialist ideology. In other words, it was difference between, how Gandhi wanted to establish a just society, and how socialist programmes would achieve socio economic justice. In the beginning of World War-II, this issue became cause of conflict between Gandhi and S.C. Bose. At the outbreak of the Second World War S.C. Bose argued.

(a)        It was right time for mass struggle.

(b)        He had belief that people were ready for mass struggle.

(c)        The crisis situation of British should be exploited.

(d)        He was of the view that British should be given six months ultimatum to grant freedom or to face nation wide civil disobedience movement.

Gandhi did not subscribe to S.C. Bose ideas and opposed him. He argued.

(a)        This is not the right time to wage mass struggle

(b)        We should not exploit crisis situation of British

(c)        The general people in the country were not ready for any mars movement

(d)        We should not frustrate British War efforts against the Fascist forceswhich were regarded as bigger enemy.

The result of the conflict between Gandhi and Subhash came on surface in 1939. It became an issue of Presidential election for congress party. S.C. Bose tendered resignation in favour of Gandhi candidate Pattabhi Sitaramaiyya. He formed his own party called “Forward Block”.

Indian National Army (INA)

The QIM was a struggle fought against the British in India. But equally important is the role of the Indian National Army which waged battles against the British from foreign soil.

There were many Indian revolutionaries working abroad for the country’s cause. Among these was Rasbehari Bose, living as a fugitive from the British since 1915 in Japan. He organized the revolutionary force named Indian National Army.

Bose had escaped from India in 1941 to Berlin. In June, 1943 he came to Tokyo and then joined the INA at Singapore in July. Rasbehari Bose handed over the leadership to Subhash Bose, and an Azad Hind Sarkar was formed. In November, 1943 the Japanese announced their decision to hand over the administration of Andamans and Nicobar islands to the INA. Thus started the heroic struggle of the INA for India’s independence.

Actions of INA

The INA in a few months time had three fighting brigades named after Gandhi, Azad and Nehru. Soon other brigades were raised, namely the Subhash brigade and the Rani Jhansi brigade. The overseas Indians contributed heavily in terms of money and material for the army. The slogans of the INA were ‘Jai Hind’ and ‘Delhi Chalo’. The most famous was Subhash’s declaration that “Tum Mujhe Khoon Do Mein Tumhe Azadi Dunga” (you give me blood I will give you freedom).

Fighting side by side with the Japanese armed forces the INA crossed the Indian frontier on 18th March 1944. The tricolour was hoisted on Indian soil. However the INA failed to capture Imphal due to two reasons.

i)      The Japanese failed to supply the necessary material and air cover to the INA.

ii)    The Monsoon prevented their advance.

In the meantime the British were able to regroup their forces and made counter attacks. The INA fought heroically with tremendous loss of manpower, but the course of war was changing. With the collapse of Germany and set backs to the Japanese armies, the INA too could not stand on its own. Subhash Bose disappeared. Some believed he died in an air crash, while others refused to believe this.

Impact

The INA had failed to achieve its goal but it made a significant impact on the freedom struggle:

i)      It became clear to the British that they could no longer depend on the loyalty of Indian soldiers and treat them as mercenaries.

ii)    The struggles of the INA demonstrated that those who waged an armed struggle against the British were not at all affected by communal division. There were Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs in the INA who had fought as Indians.

iii)   The actions of the Rani Jhansi Brigade - an exclusively women force - demonstrated the capabilities of Indian women waging armed struggle against the British.

iv)    The INA had also demonstrated the enthusiasm and concern of overseas Indians for the freedom of their motherland.

In dealing with the role of Subhash Bose during this period, we have to take note of the fact that what he did was not due to his support to Fascist Germany or expansionist Japan, but for India’s freedom. He was determined to maintain the independent existence of INA from the Japanese, and while in Berlin he had problems with the Germans regarding the use of India Legion against USSR. The British Government court martialled the INA officers and soldiers and put them on trial for conspiring against the crown.

PERIOD BETWEEN 1942 AND 1945

Between the years 1942 and 1945 there was hardly and political activity. Three developments of the period that stand out are: (a) the C.R. Plan, (b) the Desai-Liaqat plan and (c) the Wavell plan and Simla Conference.

C.R. plan

C. Rajagopalachari published the following formula on 10 July 1944 with the intent of coming to an amicable Congress-Muslim League understanding:

The Muslim League was to endorse the demand for independence for the transitional period.

At the end of the war, a commission would demarcate those contiguous areas in North and Northeast India where the Muslims were in an absolute majority. In those areas, a plebiscite of all inhabitants would decide whether or not they should be separated from Hindustan.

In the event of separation, agreements would be made for defence, commerce, communications and other essential purposes.

The terms would be binding only in case of transfer by Britain of full power and responsibility for the government of India.

The Muslim League rejected the plan. It demanded self-determination even in non-Muslim areas. The League was also opposed to a common centre.

Desai Liaqat plan

In 1945, Bhulabhai Desai and Liaqat Ali Khan arrived at an understanding for the formation of an Interim Government at the Centre. The points of agreement were:

Both the Congress and the Muslim League would nominate an equal number of persons to the Central Executive. The persons nominated did not have to be members of the Central Legislature.

There would have to be representatives of the minorities (particularly scheduled castes and Sikhs).

The Government would function under the existing Government of India Act.

Provincial Governments would be formed on the lines of a coalition.

Members of both the Congress and the Muslim League found the pact objectionable, so much so that Liaqat was forced to repudiate it.

Simla conference and elections

At the end of World War II, at the initiative of the Viceroy, Wavell, the Congress leaders were released from jail in mid June 1945 and invited to Simla to work out an interim political agreement under which Indians would be responsible for running the country. The Congress was willing to cooperate and gave in its list of nominees but Jinnah decided to test the power of veto given to him by the British. He insisted that the League alone had the right to nominate Muslims to the Executive Council. This was embarrassing for the government as this denied representation to the Muslims of the Unionist Party of Punjab, which had supported the British staunchly throughout the War. But the present and future interests were considered more important than past loyalty and Wavell preferred to announce the breakdown of the Conference rather than bypass the League. Jinnah’s power to veto the constitutional progress had been upheld.

Elections - the watershed

The elections held in the winter of 1945-46 to the Central and Provincial Legislative Assemblies were fought by the League with a straight forward communal slogan - “A vote for the League and Pakistan was a vote for Islam”. Mosques were used for election meetings and pirs (holy men) persuaded to issue fatwas (directives) that Muslims must vote for the League. The choice between Congress and the League was portrayed as a choice between the Gita and the Koran. It was small wonder then, that the League made a clean sweep of the Muslim seats.