Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Movement (1919–1947) — Part 6: 6. The Quit India Movement (1942)

6. The Quit India Movement (1942)

6.1 Context: Second World War

The fall of Singapore to Japan in February 1942 and Japan's rapid advance through Southeast Asia created alarm about the possibility of an invasion of India. Britain needed Indian cooperation but was unwilling to offer immediate independence. In March 1942, Sir Stafford Cripps was sent to India with constitutional proposals. The Cripps proposals offered: Dominion Status immediately after the war, with the right to secede from the Commonwealth; a constitution-making body to be set up immediately after the war; and the right of any province to remain outside the Indian Union and negotiate a separate status with Britain. The actual control of defence and military operations would, however, remain with the British for the duration of the war.

The Congress rejected the proposals. Gandhi famously called them "a post-dated cheque on a crashing bank." The specific sticking point was the Congress's demand that an Indian be appointed as the Defence Member of the Viceroy's Executive Council — a demand the British refused. The Cripps Mission failed.

Meanwhile, in March 1940, the Muslim League had passed the Lahore Resolution, demanding that the Muslim-majority areas of the north-west and north-east of the subcontinent should be constituted into independent states. Indian politics had become a three-cornered contest among the Congress, the League, and the British.

6.2 "Do or Die" — The Movement

On 8 August 1942, the All India Congress Committee (AICC), meeting at Gowalia Tank Maidan in Bombay, passed the Quit India Resolution demanding an immediate end to British rule. Gandhi gave his "Do or Die" call — "Karenge Ya Marenge" — telling every Indian to act as if he were personally responsible for winning freedom: "Every Indian who desires freedom and strives for it must be his own guide." He told the British: "Leave India in God's hand, in modern parlance, to anarchy."

The British government acted immediately. On the morning of 9 August 1942, before the movement could be organised, Gandhi and all prominent Congress leaders — Nehru, Patel, Azad, and many others — were arrested. The news of their arrest triggered an unprecedented popular outburst. Hartals, demonstrations, and processions erupted across the country. Since all recognised leaders had been arrested, younger and more militant cadres — particularly students with socialist leanings — took over local leadership.

6.3 Underground Resistance

With the mainstream leadership in jail, the Quit India Movement became a genuinely decentralised people's rebellion. Government buildings, police stations, post offices, and railway infrastructure were attacked. Telegraph wires, telephone lines, and electric power lines were cut. Roads and bridges were sabotaged to hamper the movement of military and police. Workers went on strike.

In several districts, the government lost control entirely:

• In Satara (Maharashtra), a parallel government — the Prati Sarkar — was established in 1943, with volunteer corps (Seba Dals and Tufan Dals), people's courts, and constructive work programmes. Dominated by Kunbi peasants and supported by Dalits, it functioned until the elections of 1946.
• In Midnapore (Bengal), the Tamluk Jatiya Sarkar governed for an extended period with departments covering law and order, health, education, and agriculture, along with its own postal system.
• In Bihar and eastern U.P. — Azamgarh, Ballia, Ghazipur, Monghyr — police stations were overrun by the people and government authority was temporarily uprooted.

Key figures in the underground included Jayaprakash Narayan, who organised resistance from hiding, and Aruna Asaf Ali, who hoisted the Congress flag at Gowalia Tank Maidan after the leaders' arrest and continued underground activities. In Bombay, Usha Mehta ran the secret Congress Radio, carrying broadcasts of the revolutionary message for months before being shut down by the government.

The government responded with massive repression. By the end of 1943, the official figure for arrests stood at 91,836. The number of people killed in police firings was 658 by September 1942 and 1,060 by 1943 — these were official figures; actual deaths were certainly higher. The government acknowledged using aeroplanes to gun down people at five locations. In Midnapore alone, 31 Congress camps and 164 private houses were burned. Collective punitive fines were imposed on villages.

The Quit India Movement was suppressed within about a year, but it demonstrated beyond doubt the depth and irreversibility of the popular will for independence. The British understood that India could not be governed indefinitely by force. While Congress leaders languished in jail, Jinnah and the Muslim League worked to expand their influence in Punjab and Sind — provinces where the League had previously had little presence — setting the stage for the eventual partition.

---