QUIT INDIA MOVEMENT

Why was the Quit India Movement started? In what way did it further the cause of Indian independence?

Access the importance of the Quit India Movement as the penultimate struggle for India’s independence.

Short note on Quit India Movement

 

The Quit India Movement that swept across the length and breadth of the country as a mighty tidal wave in 1942 was a landmark in the history of India’s freedom struggle. It also became famous by the name of the ‘August Revolution’. It was a powerful, multi-dimensional and all-embracing movement. The dominant urge behind the movement was the determination of the people in general to be free from the domination of the British. In this struggle, the common people of the country demonstrated an unparalleled heroism and militancy. Moreover, the repression that they faced was the most brutal that had ever been used against the national movement. The Quit India call given on 8^th August 1942 by the Indian National Congress under the leadership of Gandhi produced a mass upheaval of unprecedented dimensions. It produced a real threat to the British rule.

Genesis of Quit India: It is clear that what led Gandhiji to advice Britain to Quit India and leave her to her fate was not the desire to harass the government and strike a blow at it at the hour of its greatest peril, but an honest and earnest wish to see India get out of a very difficult position in which the unnatural domination of Great Britain had placed her.

Gandhi suspended the noncooperation movement in 1922 because of the eruption of violence, but in 1942 he decided to take the risk of violence breaking out in reply to the question put to him about the anarchy which was sure to result if the British withdrew from the country which would not be worth the anarchy prevalent under British rule which Gandhi described as ordered anarchy.

It may be added that in 1942, Gandhiji was prepared to launch the Quit India Movement even without Hindu Muslim Unity. He had realized that communal unity was impossible of achievement so long as the third party was there. With Britain’s policy of ‘divide and rule’ he was confident that communal unity would be realized after independence had been won.

Circumstances that led to the Quit India Movement: The Quit India Movement was the last in the series of mass movements launched by the Congress under the leadership of Gandhi. During the early years of the 1920s the noncooperation movement had been launched against the British rule. A decade later, Gandhi undertook the historic Dandi March to break the salt laws and the civil disobedience movement and started involving the masses of India. During the course of these years, Gandhi and the Indian National Congress were able to forge a powerful united front of the Indian people against the British. During 1930-31, Gandhi had chosen salt as a symbol of war against the British. By doing this he exposed the exploitative nature of the British rule in India. After a pause of ten years, Gandhi gave a call for the British to ‘Quit India’.

When the Second World War broke out in September 1939 and England declared war against Germany, India was also dragged into the war. The Congress demanded a declaration of British was aims and sought for India the status of an independent nation but received no response from the British government. The British authorities were keen to secure the cooperation of the Indian leaders in their war efforts by tempting them with the ‘August Declaration’. The rejection of the August Declaration widened the gulf between England and nationalist India.

Working committee of Congress met at Warda on 6^th July 1942 and adopted a lengthy resolution embodying the ideas of Gandhiji. Gandhiji believed that because of the war on the Indian border, the British would come to terms with the Congress as soon as the movement was started. Even if this did not happen, he hoped that the government would not take any drastic action and he would get time and opportunity to organize the movement as he thought proper.

Resuming the narrative, we may say that the working committee passed a long resolution on July 14, 1942 which is known as the Quit India Resolution. It renewed demand that the British rule in India must end immediately and that the freedom of India was necessary not only in the interest of India but also for the safety of the world and for the ending of Nazism, Fascism and militarism and other forms of imperialism and the aggression of one nation over another. The resolution also made it clear that the Congress proposals for the withdrawal of British rule from India was not motivated by the desire for embarrassing Great Britain or the allied powers in their prosecution of the war or encouraging Japan. It had only one purpose in view and that was the interest of India and the cause of freedom.

The All India Congress committee met on 8^th August at Gowalia Tank in Bombay to put its seal of approval to the Quit India Resolution. Some important points were:

-       ‘The ending of British rule in this country is just a vital and immediate issue on which depends the future of the war and success of freedom and democracy.

-       On the declaration of India’s independence provisional government will be formed to free India’.

The resolution was moved by Jawaharlal Nehru and seconded by Vallabhai Patel.

Huge crowds waited outside and a feeling of anticipation and expectation ran so high, that in the open session, when the leaders made their speeches before the many thousands who had collected to hear them, there was pin-drop silence.

After the passage of the resolution, Gandhi made an inspiring speech. He spoke for 140 minutes, first in Hindustani and then in English. He first made it clear that the actual struggle does not commence this moment. ‘You have only placed all your powers in my hands. I will now wait upon the Viceroy and plead with him for the acceptance of the Congress demand. The process in likely to take two or three weeks’. In the course of his speech Gandhi added, ‘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. Dismiss jails out of your consideration and take a pledge with God and your conscience as witness that you will no longer rest till freedom is achieved and will be prepared to lay down your life in the attempt to achieve it’.

The British government however was in no mood to either negotiate with the Congress or wait for the movement to be formally launched. In the early hours of 9 August, in a single sweep, all top leaders of the Congress were arrested and taken to unknown destinations and all Congress organizations were declared illegal.

The sudden attack by the government produced an instant reaction among the people. As soon as the news of arrests spread, lakhs of people in Bombay flocked to Gowalia Tank where a mass meeting had been scheduled and there were clashes with the authorities. There were similar disturbances in Ahmedabad and Poona. Gradually, the movement spread to other parts of India. Thousands of people from rural areas came out and attacked any visible symbol of British authority. In the villages, the symbol was the railway track which was used to carry troops. Hundreds of miles of the track were uprooted in one night.

Many provincial and local level leaders who had evaded arrest returned to their homes through devious routes and began organizing resistance. As the news spread further in the rural areas, the villagers joined the townsmen in their protest. For the first 6 or 7 weeks after 9 August, there was a tremendous mass upheaval all over the country. Disturbances took many forms. Communications were disrupted, electric and telephone wires were cut; police stations, post offices, courts, railway stations were attacked; even military vehicles were destroyed. Students left colleges and universities and took to rebellious activities. Workers also struck work. In Ahmedabad, the mills were closed for 3 ½ months, workers in Bombay stayed away from work for over a week. In Ballia District of UP, mobs succeeded in capturing the entire district administration and establishing their ‘Swaraj government’ although it lasted only for few days. In Bihar, one feature of the open rebellion was attack on the jails. Jails were taken possession of by mobs and prisoners were set free. National flags were forcibly hoisted on public buildings in defiance of the police. Thus, there was mob violence, lawlessness, riots and disorder in different parts of the country.

The British government pressed into service its entire machinery to suppress the Quit India Movement. Brutal force was employed to deal with the agitators. Village after village were burnt down under British supervision. Heavy fines were imposed and collected with ruthless severity. The houses of congressmen and suspected ‘rebels’ were singled out and set on fire. Several heard of cattle belonging to the agitators were rounded and auctioned. Soldiers raided the houses and looted cash, jewellery, ornaments, etc. Innumerable workers and peasants were tortured. In Patna 11 students were shot while attempting to hoist the national flag on the Government Secretariat building. Six died on the spot and one in hospital. In several parts of the country, particularly in some districts of Bengal and Central Provinces, women were raped by soldiers.

In an article in the ‘Samaj’, Baljit Singh gives a graphic picture of police atrocities on people. According to him, people were fired in scorching heat, stripped naked, hung upside down and whipped, put in smoky rooms were red chilies were burning, making the naked people crawl on their stomach and similar in human methods were employed by the police to terrorize people. According to a Congress estimate, not less than 15,000 were killed in police firings, bombings, and other atrocities.

The brutal and all-out repression by the government succeeded in bringing under control the mass phase of the struggle within 6 or 7 weeks. But the underground movement was organized by dedicated revolutionaries in different parts of the country. An all-India underground leadership with prominent members such as Achyut Patwardhan, Aruna Asaf Ali, Ram Manohar Lohia, Sucheta Kripalani, Chotubhai Puranik, Jayaprakash Narayan had also begun to emerge. The underground activities were carried on in Bombay, Poona, Satara, Baroda and other parts of Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra, UP, Bihar and Delhi. In this movement, Congress socialists were generally in the lead.

Though the number of activists involved in the underground activities was small, they received all kinds of support from a large variety of people. Even businessmen donated generously. Others provided hideouts for the underground leaders and activists. Students acted as couriers. Pilots and train drivers delivered bombs and other material across the country. Government officials including those in police, passed on crucial information about impending arrests.

The underground movement was aimed at organizing the disruption of communications by blowing up bridges, cutting telegraph and telephone wires and derailing trains. There were also a few attacks on government and police officials and police informers.

A clandestine Congress Radio was operated from different locations in Bombay, whose broadcasts could be heard as far as Madras. The Radio continued till November 1942, when it was discovered and confiscated by the police.

Gandhi commenced a fast in jail on 10 Feb 1943 in protest against the government’s constant exhortion to him to condemn the violence of the people in the Quit India Movement. Gandhi not only refused to condemn the violence of the people but held the government responsible for it. Through his fast he wanted to register his protest against the government violence, which included the unwarranted detention of thousands of congressmen. Gandhi’s fast aroused popular response. All over the country there were hartals, demonstrations and strikes. Groups of people secretly reached Poona to offer Satyagraha outside the Aga Khan palace where Gandhi was being held in detention. Public meetings were held demanding his release. Even international pressure was building up for the release of Gandhi. But the viceroy and his officials remained unmoved. The British authorities refused to show any concern for Indian feeling. The fast had done exactly what it had been intended to do. It raised the public morale, the anti-British feeling heightened and an opportunity was provided for political activity.

The Muslim League kept aloof from the Quit India Movement. It adopted an attitude of complete neutrality, neither supporting nor opposing it. It is interesting to note that according to Mr. Jinnah, the Congress aimed at capturing power for itself and establishing Hindu Raj in the country. He deliberately distorted the Congress demand for the setting up of a national government during the war to meet the demand for a Congress government and identified Congress government with Hindu Raj. Surely no one is so blind as one who having eyes refuses to see. It may be added in passing that according to Chowdary Khauzzaman, the Quit India Movement of 1942 was a very poor show which filtered out in a very short time.

Nature and significance of the Quit India Movement: The Quit India Movement was truly a multidimensional, all embracing and broad-based struggle for the freedom of India. It cut across the barriers of caste, creed, community, religion, and sex. It produced a spontaneous mass upheaval engulfing the entire country. The elite, the intelligentsia, the middle, the lower middle classes, lawyers, students, workers, artisans, craftsmen, and peasants all participated in the movement. The people of India as a whole came closer to each other and overcame class barriers. The readiness to suffer and sacrifice everything for the freedom of the motherland was displayed by a very large number of people all over the country. A significant feature of the Quit India Movement was the emergence of parallel governments in parts of the country.

The Quit India Movement brought the youth of the country in the forefront of the struggle. Students from colleges and even schools participated in the struggle in various capacities. The participation of women int the movement was really praise-worthy. Aruna Asaf Ali and Sucheta Kriplani were two major women organizers of the underground activities. Usha Mehta was an important member of the small group that ran the Congress radio.

In rural areas, peasants of all strata participated in the Quit India Movemnt specially in East UP and Bihar, Midnapur in Bengal, Satara in Maharashtra and other parts including Andhra, Gujarat and Kerala. Many smaller zamindars also participated in the movement especially in UP and Bihar.

The spontaneous mass upheaval brought in its wake conflict, violence and destruction. It produced anarchy and chaos and the government responded to the mass struggle by unleashing a reign of terror to suppress the revolt, bringing untold miseries and sufferings to the people.

The Quit India Movement of 1942 is a memorable event in the History of India’s freedom struggle. The great significance of this historic movement was that it placed the demand for independence on the immediate agenda of the national movement. After the Quit India Movement, there was no retreat. The British authorities also took note of the determination of the Indian people to face any hardships, even bullets to achieve freedom. Independence was no longer a matter of bargain.

Evaluation of Quit India Movement: For a proper evaluation of the Quit India Movement, which has been described as an open rebellion against the British rule, it must be borne in mind that it was not an organized movement. The Quit India Resolution was not a plan of action but the expression of a vivid idea. The AICC did not start any movement, it merely gave its approval to the ideas of Gandhi and authorized him to launch the movement. Gandhi contemplated an interval of two or three weeks after the adoption of the Quit India Resolution by AICC before actually starting the movement, but all this was made impossible by the sudden and first government onslaught on the Congress. As such it was easily crushed by the far superior might of the British government. No one could ever expect an unorganized and leaderless mass of people to overthrow the British might.