The Quit India Movement (Spectrum Digest, Ch 12)

The war and the lead-up

• On the outbreak of the Second World War (1939), the Viceroy Lord Linlithgow declared India a belligerent without consulting Indian leaders. In protest, the Congress ministries resigned (1939), and the Muslim League observed a "Day of Deliverance".
• The Lahore Resolution (March 1940) of the Muslim League formally demanded separate states for Muslims (the "Pakistan Resolution").
• The August Offer (1940, Linlithgow) promised dominion status after the war and an expanded council, but it was rejected as inadequate; Gandhi launched a limited Individual Satyagraha (1940 to 1941), beginning with Vinoba Bhave and then Jawaharlal Nehru.
• The Cripps Mission (1942), sent by Churchill's war cabinet, offered dominion status with the right of provinces to secede after the war in return for cooperation in the war effort. The Congress rejected it (Gandhi called it "a post-dated cheque on a crashing bank"), partly because it conceded the principle of partition and offered nothing immediate. Its failure precipitated Quit India.

The movement: "Do or Die"

• The Congress passed the Quit India Resolution at Bombay on 1942-08-08 (the Gowalia Tank session). Gandhi gave the mantra "Do or Die" (we shall either free India or die in the attempt).
• The government struck pre-emptively: almost the entire leadership (Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, and others) was arrested on 1942-08-09, before the movement could be organised.
• The result was a spontaneous, leaderless and partly violent mass upsurge: attacks on symbols of government authority (railway stations, telegraph lines, police stations, post offices), the establishment of parallel governments at places such as Ballia (UP), Tamluk (Midnapore, Bengal) and Satara (Maharashtra), and underground activity led by Jayaprakash Narayan, Ram Manohar Lohia, Aruna Asaf Ali (who hoisted the flag at Gowalia Tank) and Usha Mehta (the underground Congress Radio).
• The state response was extremely severe: mass arrests, firing, collective fines and the suppression of the movement by 1943. It was the most intense and widespread mass upsurge of the freedom struggle, even if quickly crushed.

The Indian National Army (INA / Azad Hind Fauj)

• The INA was first organised by Captain Mohan Singh (1942) from Indian prisoners of war in South-East Asia.
• Subhas Chandra Bose ("Netaji") escaped India, reached South-East Asia, and revived and led the INA from 1943, proclaiming the Provisional Government of Free India (Azad Hind, Singapore, 1943). His slogans were "Give me blood and I will give you freedom" and "Dilli Chalo"; the greeting was "Jai Hind". The Rani of Jhansi Regiment was an all-women unit.
• The INA fought alongside the Japanese on the Burma front (Imphal, Kohima, 1944) but was forced back. Bose is believed to have died in a plane crash in 1945 (the subject of lasting controversy).
• The INA trials (1945, Red Fort) of officers (Shah Nawaz Khan, Prem Sahgal, Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon) provoked huge public sympathy and protest across communal lines, and shook the loyalty of the Indian armed forces, a major factor in Britain's decision to leave.

The security and human-rights angle

Quit India shows a colonial state responding to mass political demand with mass preventive detention and lethal force (firings, collective punishment), the very practices the Constitution later sought to limit. The INA episode raises the still-debated questions of military oath, allegiance and the legitimacy of armed struggle against colonial rule, and the RIN Mutiny of 1946 that followed signalled that the loyalty of the security forces, the ultimate basis of colonial control, had begun to crack.

Common traps

• The Quit India Resolution was passed on 1942-08-08 at Bombay (Gowalia Tank); the leaders were arrested on 1942-08-09.
• Cripps's offer was famously called a "post-dated cheque"; "on a crashing bank" is the fuller version attributed to Gandhi.
• The INA was founded by Mohan Singh (1942) and revived and led by Subhas Chandra Bose (1943).
• "Do or Die" is the Quit India slogan; "Give me blood and I will give you freedom" and "Dilli Chalo" are Bose's (INA).

Authored practice

1. The Quit India Movement was launched in which year and city? (Answer: 1942, Bombay / Gowalia Tank.) Authored practice, not a verbatim PYQ.
2. Who described the Cripps offer as a "post-dated cheque"? (a) Nehru (b) Patel (c) Gandhi (d) Bose. Answer: (c) Gandhi. Authored practice, not a verbatim PYQ.