Quit India Movement – 1942
Written by Administrator
Wednesday, 02 November 2011 01:56
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The Quit India Movement was the next major milestone after the Salt Satyagraha in the history
of Indian independence struggle. It was a civil disobedience movement launched in August
1942 with Gandhiji’s call for immediate independence. It is also known as the Bharat Chodo
Andolan or the August Kranti.
This historical movement played out in the backdrop of World War II. The British government
entered India in the war unilaterally and without consultation with the Indian people. This
angered Indians terribly. In March 1942, faced with an increasingly dissatisfied sub-continent,
only reluctantly participating in the war, the British government sent a delegation to India under
Stafford Cripps, in what came to be known as the Cripps' Mission. The purpose of the mission
was to negotiate with the Indian National Congress a deal to obtain total co-operation during the
war, in return of progressive devolution and distribution of power from the crown and the
Viceroy to elected Indian legislature. The talks failed because they did not address the key
demand of a timetable of self-government and of definition of the powers to be relinquished. It
offered only limited dominion-status that was wholly unacceptable to the Indian movement.
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Quit India Movement – 1942
Written by Administrator
Wednesday, 02 November 2011 01:56
On July 14, 1942, the Indian National Congress passed a resolution demanding complete
independence from Britain and massive civil disobedience. On August 8, 1942, the Quit India
Resolution was passed at the Bombay session of the All India Congress Committee. The
British, already alarmed by the advance of the Japanese army to the India/Burma border,
responded the next day by imprisoning Gandhi at the Aga Khan Palace in Pune. All the
members of the Congress Party's National Leadership were arrested and imprisoned at the
Ahmednagar Fort. Due to the arrest of major leaders, a young and till then relatively unknown
Aruna Asaf Ali presided over the AICC session on August 9, and hoisted the flag. Later, the
Congress party was banned. These actions only created sympathy for the cause among the
population.
Inspired by Gandhiji’s "Do or Die" speech, the common masses eagerly jumped into the
movement, despite lack of direct leadership. Large-scale protests and demonstrations were
held all over the country. Workers remained absent and strikes were called. Not all the
demonstrations were peaceful. At some places bombs exploded, government buildings were set
on fire, electricity was cut, and transport and communication lines were severed.
The British swiftly responded with mass detentions. A total of over 100,000 arrests were made
nationwide, mass fines were levied, and demonstrators were subjected to public flogging.
Hundreds of resisters and innocent people were killed by police and army fire. Many national
leaders went underground and continued their struggle by broadcasting messages over
clandestine radio stations, distributing pamphlets, and establishing parallel governments. The
British sense of crisis was strong enough that a battleship was specifically set aside to take
Gandhi and the Congress leaders out of India, possibly to South Africa or Yemen, but such a
step was ultimately not taken, out of fear of intensifying the revolt.
The entire Congress leadership was cut off from the rest of the world for over three years.
Gandhiji's wife, Kasturba Gandhi, and his personal secretary, Mahadev Desai, died in a short
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Quit India Movement – 1942
Written by Administrator
Wednesday, 02 November 2011 01:56
space of months, and Gandhi's own health was failing. Despite this, Gandhi went on a 21-day
fast and maintained a superhuman resolve to continue his resistance. Although the British
released Gandhiji on account of his failing health in 1944, he kept up the resistance, demanding
the complete release of the Congress leadership.
By early 1944, India was mostly peaceful again, while the entire Congress leadership was
incarcerated. The movement died down, and when the British granted independence on August
15, 1947, they cited revolts and growing dissatisfaction among Royal Indian Armed Forces
during and after the war as the driving force behind Britain's decision to leave India. However,
the political experience gained by the Indian people through activities such as the Quit India
movement laid the foundation for the strongest enduring tradition of democracy and freedom in
post-colonial Africa and Asia.
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