Quit India movement

Also called: August Kranti · Topic: The National Movement: Gandhian Era · NCERT: Class 10, Ch 2 "Nationalism in India"; Class 12, Ch 3 "Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement"; Class 12, Ch 4 "Framing the Constitution"

Meaning

The Quit India movement (also called August Kranti, "the August Revolution") was the mass struggle that began when the All India Congress Committee (AICC) passed the Quit India resolution in Bombay on 8 August 1942, demanding an end to British rule, and Gandhi gave the call "Do or Die". [2][3]

It matters because the British jailed the top leaders the very next day, yet ordinary people kept the movement going for more than a year. It showed that nationalism had spread far beyond the leaders. It also had a cost: with Congress in jail, the Muslim League grew stronger, and this fed into Partition.

Explanation

Background and causes

• War without consent (September 1939): Britain declared that India was at war with Germany without asking any Indian leader.
• Congress offered to support the war if Britain promised independence after it.

• Britain refused, so the Congress ministries resigned in October 1939.

• Individual satyagrahas (1940–41): Chosen persons broke the ban one by one by speaking against the war, and courted arrest. This kept the protest alive, but it was not a mass movement.

• Three-way deadlock: After the Lahore Resolution (March 1940), any deal needed Congress, the League and the British to agree. That was almost impossible.
• Cripps Mission fails (1942): The Cripps Mission was in Delhi from 22 March to 12 April 1942. It offered dominion status after the war (self-rule inside the British Empire), not freedom now. [6]

• Talks broke down because Congress wanted an Indian Defence Member (an Indian in charge of defence) on the Viceroy's council, and Britain refused.

• The direct sparks: the failure of Cripps, Japanese victories in South-East Asia, and anger at British rule. [2]

Sequence of events, 1942

• 14 July 1942: The Congress Working Committee (CWC) at Wardha passed the Quit India resolution.
• 8 August 1942: The AICC in Bombay adopted it. [2][3]
• That day Gandhi spoke at Gowalia Tank Maidan (today August Kranti Maidan): "We shall either free India or die in the attempt; we shall not live to see the perpetuation of slavery." [2]
• 9 August 1942: Nearly all the top leaders, Gandhi included, were arrested at once. [2]

How it worked without its leaders

• Socialist underground: Leaders who stayed free ran a secret network.
• Jayaprakash Narayan
• Aruna Asaf Ali, who hoisted the flag at Gowalia Tank and then went underground

• Ram Manohar Lohia

• Women in the front line: Matangini Hazra (Bengal), Kanaklata Barua (Assam) and Rama Devi (Odisha). They show the movement was not for the elite only.

• Parallel governments: In some places people replaced British rule with their own rule. "Independent" governments came up at Satara (Maharashtra) and Medinipur (Bengal).
• Satara's prati sarkar (literally "counter-government"), started in 1943:
• seba dals: service squads that did relief and village work.
• tufan dals: "storm squads", the fighting arm.
• People's courts: villagers settled their own disputes instead of going to British courts.
• Its support came from kunbi peasants, with dalit support.
• It lasted right up to the 1946 elections.

Results

• A genuine mass movement: Peasants, students, workers and women acted on their own, with no leaders to guide them.
• Hard to crush: The British needed over a year to put it down. They used the army, mass firing and mass arrests.
• The political cost:
• Congress leaders were in jail from 1942 to 1945.
• In those years the League spread into Punjab and Sind, the two provinces it most needed for Pakistan.
• The early 1946 elections then showed the split clearly: Congress swept the General seats and the League swept the Muslim seats.

Time, place and evidence

• Period: August 1942 to about the end of 1943, during the Second World War. Satara's parallel government lasted until the 1946 elections.
• Key places:
• Wardha: the CWC resolution of 14 July 1942.
• Bombay: the AICC session at Gowalia Tank Maidan (now August Kranti Maidan).
• Satara (Maharashtra) and Medinipur (Bengal): the parallel governments.

• Assam and Odisha: where Kanaklata Barua and Rama Devi were active.

• Key people: Mahatma Gandhi, Jayaprakash Narayan, Aruna Asaf Ali, Ram Manohar Lohia, Matangini Hazra, Kanaklata Barua, Rama Devi. On the British side, Sir Stafford Cripps, whose mission failed just before the movement. [6]

• How we know:
• The Quit India Resolution as adopted by the AICC survives in the official record. [3]
• Accounts survive of the AICC session in Bombay where the clarion call was given. [4]
• We have the text of Gandhi's speech of 8 August 1942, which carries the "Do or Die" call. [5]
• Official Government of India releases describe the movement, its causes and the mass arrests. [2]
• NCERT Class 10, Ch 2 and Class 12, Ch 3 are the main textbook sources.

Don't confuse with

• Individual satyagraha (1940–41): Chosen persons protested one at a time against the war. Quit India (1942) was an open mass movement that demanded the British leave at once.
• Cripps Mission (March–April 1942) vs Cabinet Mission (1946): Cripps offered dominion status after the war and failed over the Defence Member. It was a cause of Quit India. The Cabinet Mission came after the war and proposed a three-tier federation. [6][7]
• Direct Action Day (16 August 1946): This was the Muslim League's call, and it led to the Calcutta riots. Both fall in August, but Quit India was a Congress call made on 8 August 1942.
• Gowalia Tank Maidan / August Kranti Maidan: These are two names for the same ground in Bombay. August Kranti is the movement's other name, and the ground was later renamed after it. [2]

Prelims Hooks

• Chronological order: CWC at Wardha (14 July 1942) → AICC at Bombay (8 August 1942) → mass arrests (9 August 1942). [2]
• "Do or Die" was given at Gowalia Tank Maidan, now August Kranti Maidan, in Mumbai. [2]
• Aruna Asaf Ali hoisted the flag at Gowalia Tank. Jayaprakash Narayan and Ram Manohar Lohia ran the socialist underground.
• Parallel governments were set up at Satara (Maharashtra) and Medinipur (Bengal). Satara's prati sarkar (1943) had seba dals, tufan dals and people's courts.
• Women and their regions: Matangini Hazra (Bengal), Kanaklata Barua (Assam), Rama Devi (Odisha).
• Trap: the movement was triggered by the failure of the Cripps Mission (1942), not the Cabinet Mission (1946). [6]

Mains Points

• Proof that nationalism had reached the masses: The leaders were jailed on day one, yet the movement ran for over a year.
• Satara's peasants and dalits ran their own courts and squads.
• Students, workers and women such as Matangini Hazra and Kanaklata Barua acted without orders from above.

• Use this against the view that the national movement was a leaders-only affair.

• A tactical gain with a political cost: Quit India showed that Britain could no longer rule India by consent. But:

• Congress was in jail from 1942 to 1945.
• The League spread into Punjab and Sind unchecked.
• The 1946 elections turned this into hard numbers: Congress won the General seats and the League won the Muslim seats.

• A good GS-I answer links 1942 to Partition in 1947 instead of treating them as separate stories.

• Part of the three-way struggle: Quit India came out of the failure of Cripps (1942) over the Defence Member. [6] It hardened Congress's stand against Britain while the League gained ground. This deadlock between Congress, the League and the British is why every later offer failed, and why Britain left India through Partition.

Related concepts

• Provincial elections of 1937
• Congress ministries 1937-39
• Wardha scheme of basic education
• Congress Socialist Party
• Haripura session 1938
• Tripuri crisis 1939
• Forward Bloc
• Second World War
• Lord Linlithgow
• Resignation of Congress ministries

Read more

• War, Quit India, Partition and the last heroic days, 1935–48