Quit India Movement | ICSE Class 10 History & Civics Notes

This note covers the Quit India Movement: the background of the Second World War and the earlier national movement that led up to it, the causes (the failure of the Cripps Mission and the Japanese threat), the Quit India Resolution and the "Do or Die" call, the course of the movement, the part played by different social groups, how the British government responded, the movement's significance and how it differed from the Civil Disobedience Movement. It also covers the earlier Non-Cooperation and Civil Disobedience Movements, their causes, programmes and impact, the reason for the renewal of Civil Disobedience in 1932, the Forward Bloc and its objectives, the Indian National Army with the objectives and contribution of Subhas Chandra Bose, and the steps to independence and partition: the Cabinet Mission Plan, the Mountbatten Plan and the Indian Independence Act of 1947.

Background: how India reached the crisis of 1942

By the time the Quit India Movement began, India had already lived through more than two decades of mass nationalist agitation. The earlier movement itself had roots that stretched back further still.

Mahatma Gandhi returned to India from South Africa in January 1915, bringing with him the method of satyagraha, a form of struggle based on truth and non-violence rather than physical force. Discontent sharpened after the Rowlatt Act of 1919, which allowed detention without trial, and the Jallianwala Bagh firing of April 1919 in Amritsar, both of which deepened anger against British rule well before the events of 1942.

Gandhiji then sought to widen the movement beyond the cities by taking up the Khilafat issue, which concerned the status of the Ottoman Khalifa after the First World War, so as to bring Hindus and Muslims together in a single campaign. This gave rise to the Non-Cooperation Movement, launched in January 1921 after being adopted at the Nagpur Congress session of December 1920. Its programme unfolded in stages, beginning with the surrender of government titles and the boycott of government schools, courts, councils and foreign cloth. The boycott had a visible economic effect, as the import of foreign cloth is said to have fallen sharply between 1921 and 1922.

The movement was withdrawn in February 1922 after violence broke out at Chauri Chaura in Gorakhpur district, where a peaceful demonstration turned into a clash with the police.

The Civil Disobedience Movement began with the Dandi salt march in March 1930, following the Lahore Congress of December 1929 at which the demand for Poorna Swaraj, or full independence, was formally adopted. Gandhiji walked from his ashram at Sabarmati to the coastal town of Dandi, a distance of about 240 miles covered over 24 days, accompanied at the start by 78 volunteers, before breaking the salt law by making salt from sea water on 6 April 1930.

The movement was suspended by the Gandhi-Irwin Pact of March 1931, under which Gandhiji agreed to attend the Second Round Table Conference in London in December 1931. After this conference broke down without resolving the political demands, Civil Disobedience was relaunched in 1932, but it had lost momentum by 1934 in the face of continued government repression.

Through the 1930s the British tried constitutional concessions, including the Government of India Act, 1935, which gave provinces a measure of self-government but kept real power with the British-appointed governors.

Then, in September 1939, the Second World War broke out in Europe. Congress provincial ministries resigned in protest at India being drawn into the war without being consulted.

In August 1940 the British government made the August Offer, promising an expansion of the Viceroy's Council and consultation on a future constitution after the war, but this fell far short of the nationalist demand for full independence and was rejected.

By 1941-42 the war had turned sharply against the Allies in Asia. Japanese forces had overrun Malaya, Singapore and Burma and were advancing towards India's eastern frontier.

It was in this atmosphere of military crisis that the British government sent a new mission to India, whose failure directly produced the Quit India Movement.

Why was the Quit India Movement launched? Its causes

The movement's immediate causes were the failure of the Cripps Mission and the effects of World War II, which together created widespread discontentment in India. This discontent led Gandhiji to launch a movement calling for the complete withdrawal of the British from India.

The failure of the Cripps Mission

Fearing that India would not support the war effort, the British sent Sir Stafford Cripps to India in March 1942 with proposals for the future, offering dominion status to India after the war ended, with the right for provinces to opt out.

The Congress rejected the offer because it did not promise immediate self-government or full independence, and Gandhiji is said to have described it as a "post-dated cheque".

With the mission's failure, nationalist leaders felt that constitutional negotiation with the British government had reached a dead end.

The Japanese threat

At the same time, Japan's rapid advance through South-East Asia brought the war to India's doorstep. Burma had fallen to Japan, and there was a real fear that Japan might invade India itself.

Many Indians felt that if the British could not even defend India, they had no further claim to rule it, and that the British presence might actually invite a Japanese attack.

These two pressures together, a failed political offer and a wartime military threat, convinced Gandhiji and the Congress that the time had come to demand an unconditional and immediate end to British rule.

Definition: Quit India Movement. The mass movement launched by the Indian National Congress in August 1942, under Mahatma Gandhi's leadership, demanding the immediate and complete withdrawal of British rule from India, and calling for a non-violent mass struggle on the widest possible scale throughout the country.

The Quit India Resolution and the "Do or Die" call

The movement was set in motion through two linked meetings a few weeks apart. The Congress Working Committee, meeting at Wardha on 14 July 1942, passed the historic "Quit India" resolution demanding the immediate transfer of power to Indians and the withdrawal of the British from India.

The resolution was then placed before the wider Congress organisation for endorsement.

On 8 August 1942, at a session in Bombay, the All India Congress Committee endorsed the resolution, which called for a non-violent mass struggle on the widest possible scale throughout the country.

It was on this occasion that Gandhiji delivered his famous "Do or Die" speech, urging every Indian to either win freedom or die in the attempt.

Within hours of the AICC's endorsement, the British government moved to crush the leadership before the movement could even properly begin: Gandhiji and virtually the entire Congress Working Committee were arrested on 9 August 1942, and Gandhiji himself was detained at the Aga Khan Palace in Pune until 1944.

With its recognised leaders removed from the scene almost at once, the movement that followed had to be carried on largely by ordinary people and by younger, often underground, leaders.

Note: a common confusion. Students often run together the passing of the Quit India Resolution and its public announcement.

The Congress Working Committee passed the resolution at Wardha on 14 July 1942; it was only endorsed by the larger All India Congress Committee at Bombay on 8 August 1942, the occasion of the "Do or Die" speech. These are two separate events, nearly a month apart.

How did the Quit India Movement unfold?

The call for "Quit India" almost brought the state machinery to a standstill in large parts of the country, as people voluntarily threw themselves into the thick of the movement.

People observed hartals, and demonstrations and processions were accompanied by national songs and slogans. With most senior leaders in prison, the movement took on a largely spontaneous and locally organised character.

In several districts, nationalists set up short-lived parallel governments, such as those associated with Ballia in the United Provinces and Tamluk in Bengal, which functioned for a time while regular British administration broke down locally.

Underground leaders, among them Jayaprakash Narayan, kept the movement alive through secret networks, and an underground radio transmitter run by a small group of activists broadcast Congress messages to the public.

Railway lines, telegraph wires and other symbols of British communication and authority were disrupted or attacked in many places, even though Gandhiji's own call had been for non-violence.

This marked a clear contrast with the earlier Civil Disobedience Movement of 1930, where Gandhiji and the Congress leadership had remained free to direct the struggle for most of its course. In 1942, by comparison, there was no such direction once the Working Committee had been arrested, so the pace and shape of events in each district depended heavily on local leaders and on how quickly the British administration there could reassert itself.

The process by which such a leaderless mass movement sustained itself can be summarised in stages:

1. The arrest of the Congress Working Committee and Gandhiji on 9 August 1942 removed the movement's official leadership almost before it started.
2. Spontaneous hartals, strikes and processions broke out in cities and towns in response to the arrests.
3. Local and underground leaders organised continued resistance, including short-lived parallel governments in some districts.
4. The British used police, military force and, in some places, air action to suppress disturbances and restore control.
5. Open resistance gradually died down, though scattered underground activity continued for over a year.

Who took part? Participation of different groups

The Quit India Movement was truly a mass movement, which brought into its ambit thousands of ordinary people.

Students

Students were among the first and most visible participants, leaving colleges and schools to join hartals, demonstrations and processions in towns across the country, often facing police action for doing so.

Workers and peasants

Workers and peasants formed a large part of the movement's mass base. In many rural areas, peasants took part in actions that disrupted British administration locally, while industrial workers joined strikes and hartals in sympathy with the movement.

Leaders and women participants

The movement also saw the active participation of leaders such as Jayaprakash Narayan, Aruna Asaf Ali and Ram Manohar Lohia, who worked largely underground once the senior Congress leadership had been imprisoned.

Women played a prominent and sometimes heroic part: Matangini Hazra in Bengal, Kanaklata Barua in Assam and Rama Devi in Odisha are named among the women who took part in the movement, some of them losing their lives in confrontations with the police. A surviving photograph of a women's procession in Bombay during the movement shows women marching openly in a public demonstration, a role that had been far less common in street politics before 1942.

Taken together, these different groups show that the demand to end British rule by 1942 had spread well beyond the ranks of the organised Congress leadership and into schools, farms, factories and the homes of ordinary families across the country.

How did the British respond, and what was the significance of the movement?

The British responded with much force, yet it took more than a year to suppress the movement fully. Thousands were arrested, and in many districts police and military action was used to put down demonstrations and disrupt underground networks.

Despite this repression, the scale and intensity of popular participation showed the British government how deeply the demand for independence had spread among ordinary Indians, not merely among the organised Congress leadership.

The movement's significance lies less in any immediate transfer of power, which did not follow at once, and more in what it revealed and set in motion.

It demonstrated that Indians were prepared to defy British authority on a mass scale even without their usual leadership, and it hardened the conviction among British policymakers that colonial rule in India could not continue indefinitely once the war ended.

After the Second World War ended in 1945, a new Labour government in Britain, facing a changed international and domestic situation, moved towards negotiating India's independence, a process that led in time to the Cabinet Mission of 1946 and to independence and partition in 1947.

How does the Quit India Movement differ from the Civil Disobedience Movement?

Timeline

Why was the Non-Cooperation Movement launched, and what did it achieve?

The Non-Cooperation Movement grew out of three causes: the Khilafat Movement, the Rowlatt Act and the Jallianwala Bagh Tragedy.

The Khilafat Movement

The First World War had ended with the defeat of Ottoman Turkey, and there were rumours that a harsh peace treaty was going to be imposed on the Ottoman emperor, the Khalifa, who was regarded as the spiritual head of the Islamic world. To defend the Khalifa's temporal powers, a Khilafat Committee was formed in Bombay in March 1919.

A young generation of Muslim leaders, such as the brothers Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali, began discussing with Mahatma Gandhi the possibility of a united mass action on the issue. Gandhiji saw this as an opportunity to bring Muslims under the umbrella of a unified national movement, and at the Calcutta session of the Congress in September 1920 he convinced other leaders of the need to start a non-cooperation movement in support of Khilafat as well as for swaraj.

The Rowlatt Act

In 1919 Gandhiji decided to launch a nationwide satyagraha against the proposed Rowlatt Act. The Act had been hurriedly passed through the Imperial Legislative Council despite the united opposition of the Indian members. It gave the government enormous powers to repress political activities, and allowed detention of political prisoners without trial for two years.

Mahatma Gandhi wanted non-violent civil disobedience against such unjust laws, which would start with a hartal on 6 April. Rallies were organised in various cities, workers went on strike in railway workshops, and shops closed down.

The Jallianwala Bagh Tragedy

On 13 April 1919 a large crowd gathered in the enclosed ground of Jallianwala Bagh at Amritsar. Some came to protest against the government's new repressive measures, and others had come to attend the annual Baisakhi fair. General Dyer entered the area, blocked the exit points, and opened fire on the crowd, killing hundreds.

As the news spread, crowds took to the streets in many north Indian towns. There were strikes, clashes with the police and attacks on government buildings, and the government responded with brutal repression. Seeing violence spread, Mahatma Gandhi called off the movement.

Programme and suspension

Gandhiji proposed that the movement should unfold in stages. It should begin with the surrender of titles that the government awarded, and a boycott of civil services, army, police, courts and legislative councils, schools, and foreign goods. Then, in case the government used repression, a full civil disobedience campaign would be launched.

At the Congress session at Nagpur in December 1920, a compromise was worked out and the Non-Cooperation programme was adopted. The movement began in January 1921.

In February 1922, Mahatma Gandhi decided to withdraw the movement. He felt it was turning violent in many places and that satyagrahis needed to be properly trained before they would be ready for mass struggles. The immediate occasion was the Chauri Chaura incident at Gorakhpur, where a peaceful demonstration in a bazaar turned into a violent clash with the police.

Impact of the Non-Cooperation Movement

• It spread nationalist feeling far beyond the cities, drawing students, lawyers, merchants, peasants, tribal people and plantation workers into a common struggle.
• It brought Hindus and Muslims closer together, since the Khilafat issue was taken up alongside the demand for swaraj.
• On the economic front the effects were dramatic: foreign goods were boycotted, liquor shops picketed, and foreign cloth burnt in huge bonfires, so that the import of foreign cloth halved between 1921 and 1922, its value dropping from Rs 102 crore to Rs 57 crore.
• As people discarded imported clothes and wore Indian ones, production of Indian textile mills and handlooms went up.
• The movement also showed the limits of mass agitation, for khadi was often more expensive than mill cloth and alternative Indian institutions were slow to come up, so students and lawyers drifted back to government schools and courts.

Why was the Civil Disobedience Movement launched, and what was its impact?

Two factors shaped Indian politics towards the late 1920s. The first was the effect of the worldwide economic depression: agricultural prices began to fall from 1926 and collapsed after 1930, and by 1930 the countryside was in turmoil. The second was the Simon Commission.

Reaction to the Simon Commission

The new Tory government in Britain constituted a Statutory Commission under Sir John Simon to look into the functioning of the constitutional system in India and suggest changes. The problem was that the commission did not have a single Indian member; they were all British.

When the Simon Commission arrived in India in 1928, it was greeted with the slogan "Go back Simon". All parties, including the Congress and the Muslim League, participated in the demonstrations. Lala Lajpat Rai was assaulted by the British police during a peaceful demonstration against the Commission and succumbed to the injuries inflicted on him.

In an effort to win the nationalists over, the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, announced in October 1929 a vague offer of dominion status for India in an unspecified future, and a Round Table Conference to discuss a future constitution. This did not satisfy the Congress leaders, and the radicals within the Congress, led by Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose, became more assertive.

Poorna Swaraj at the Lahore Session

In December 1929, under the presidency of Jawaharlal Nehru, the Lahore Congress formalised the demand of Poorna Swaraj, or full independence for India. It was declared that 26 January 1930 would be celebrated as Independence Day, when people were to take a pledge to struggle for complete independence.

The Dandi March

Mahatma Gandhi found in salt a powerful symbol that could unite the nation. On 31 January 1930 he sent a letter to Viceroy Irwin stating eleven demands, the most stirring of which was the demand to abolish the salt tax. If the demands were not fulfilled by 11 March, the letter stated, the Congress would launch a civil disobedience campaign.

Irwin was unwilling to negotiate, so Mahatma Gandhi started his famous salt march accompanied by 78 of his trusted volunteers. The march was over 240 miles, from Sabarmati to the Gujarati coastal town of Dandi, and the volunteers walked for 24 days, about 10 miles a day. On 6 April he reached Dandi and ceremonially violated the law, manufacturing salt by boiling sea water.

Programme of the movement

This marked the beginning of the Civil Disobedience Movement. People were now asked not only to refuse cooperation with the British, as they had done in 1921-22, but also to break colonial laws.

• Thousands in different parts of the country broke the salt law, manufactured salt and demonstrated in front of government salt factories.
• As the movement spread, foreign cloth was boycotted and liquor shops were picketed.
• Peasants refused to pay revenue and chaukidari taxes, and village officials resigned.
• In many places forest people violated forest laws, going into Reserved Forests to collect wood and graze cattle.

Impact of the movement

Worried by the developments, the colonial government began arresting the Congress leaders one by one, which led to violent clashes in many places. When Abdul Ghaffar Khan was arrested in April 1930, angry crowds demonstrated in the streets of Peshawar, facing armoured cars and police firing, and many were killed. A month later, when Mahatma Gandhi himself was arrested, industrial workers in Sholapur attacked police posts, municipal buildings, lawcourts and railway stations.

A frightened government responded with a policy of brutal repression: peaceful satyagrahis were attacked, women and children were beaten, and about 100,000 people were arrested. The movement made a considerable impact on the social and political surroundings of the country, drawing in rich peasants, poor peasants, business classes, industrial workers, women and dalits, each with its own understanding of swaraj.

In such a situation, Mahatma Gandhi once again decided to call off the movement and entered into a pact with Irwin on 5 March 1931. By this Gandhi-Irwin Pact, Gandhiji consented to participate in a Round Table Conference in London and the government agreed to release the political prisoners. The Congress also suspended the Civil Disobedience Movement, while the government agreed to withdraw its emergency ordinances and to allow people in coastal villages to make salt for their own use.

Why was the Civil Disobedience Movement renewed in 1932?

The first phase of the Civil Disobedience Movement was called off by Gandhiji in March 1931, when he entered into the Gandhi-Irwin Pact with the Viceroy. Under the pact, Gandhiji consented to attend a Round Table Conference in London, and the government agreed to release the political prisoners.

In December 1931 Gandhiji went to London for the Second Round Table Conference, but the negotiations broke down and he returned disappointed.

Back in India, he discovered that the government had begun a new cycle of repression. Ghaffar Khan and Jawaharlal Nehru were both in jail, the Congress had been declared illegal, and a series of measures had been imposed to prevent meetings, demonstrations and boycotts.

It was this failure of the Second Round Table Conference and the fresh repression that followed it which led Gandhiji, with great apprehension, to relaunch the Civil Disobedience Movement in 1932.

The renewal did not restore the movement's earlier strength. For over a year it continued, but by 1934 it had lost its momentum. Many rich peasants, who had been its enthusiastic supporters in 1930 and 1931, refused to participate when it was restarted, because the revenue rates had not been revised when the movement was first called off.

What was the Forward Bloc and what were its objectives?

Subhas Chandra Bose had pressed, along with Jawaharlal Nehru, for more radical mass agitation and for full independence while the Congress was still debating council politics in the 1920s. He was elected Congress President in 1938 and again in 1939, but he differed sharply with Mahatma Gandhi and the Working Committee over the pace and method of the struggle.

After his differences with the Congress leadership, Bose formed the Forward Bloc in 1939, within the Congress, as a platform for the radical, left-wing section of the national movement.

The objectives of the Forward Bloc were:

• To work for the complete and immediate independence of India, without waiting for gradual constitutional concessions from the British.
• To unite the left-wing and radical groups within the Congress and the country behind a common programme of struggle.
• To establish a modern socialist state in free India, using scientific methods of large-scale production and bringing production and distribution under social ownership and control.
• To oppose compromise with the British government and to press for a more vigorous and militant programme of agitation.
• To ensure freedom of religious worship, equal rights for every individual, and linguistic and cultural autonomy for all sections of the Indian people.

The Forward Bloc thus stood for a more militant road to freedom than the one the Congress leadership was following at the time, and it kept the demand for complete independence at the centre of its programme.

What was the Indian National Army and what did Subhas Chandra Bose contribute?

The Indian National Army (INA), also called the Azad Hind Fauj, was a force of Indian soldiers raised outside India to fight the British and win India's freedom by arms. It was first formed in 1942 by Captain Mohan Singh, an officer of the British Indian Army, with the support of Rash Behari Bose, from Indian prisoners of war taken by the Japanese in Malaya and Singapore. Subhas Chandra Bose took over its command in 1943 and revived it, giving it new strength and a clear aim.

Objectives of the INA

• To free India from British rule by armed struggle, since constitutional methods had failed to bring independence.
• To organise Indians living abroad and Indian prisoners of war into a disciplined army that could march on India.
• To set up a provisional government of free India to lead the struggle and mobilise men, money and materials for it.
• To rouse the people of India to rise against British rule when the INA reached the country's borders.

Contribution of Subhas Chandra Bose

Bose left India during the Second World War and made his way to Germany and then to South-East Asia, where he took charge of the Indian independence effort abroad.

He reorganised the INA from Indian prisoners of war and Indian civilians settled in Malaya, Singapore and Burma, and gave it the slogan "Give me blood and I will give you freedom".

In 1943 he set up the Provisional Government of Azad Hind in Singapore, with its own cabinet, currency and declaration of war on Britain and the United States, and the INA fought alongside Japanese forces in the Burma campaign, reaching Indian soil during the Imphal and Kohima campaign of 1944.

Although the INA's military campaign failed, Bose's call and the INA's example stirred nationalist feeling in India. The trials of INA officers at the Red Fort in Delhi after the war aroused widespread public sympathy and added to the pressure on the British to leave India.

Independence and Partition of India

Three measures in 1946 and 1947 settled how power passed from British to Indian hands.

How did the Cabinet Mission Plan propose to transfer power?

After the Second World War ended in 1945, the British government sent a mission of three Cabinet ministers to India in March 1946 to settle the terms of the transfer of power. The mission was made up of Pethick-Lawrence, Sir Stafford Cripps and A. V. Alexander.

The main clauses of the Cabinet Mission Plan were:

• India was to remain united, and was to be given full independence after the British left.
• A Constituent Assembly was to be elected by the members of the provincial legislatures, to frame a constitution for free India.
• The provinces were to be grouped into three sections: Section A with the Hindu-majority provinces, Section B with the Muslim-majority provinces of the north-west, and Section C with Bengal and Assam.
• Each section could frame its own constitution for its provinces, and a province could later decide by vote whether to leave its group.
• The Union was to deal only with foreign affairs, defence and communications, and the provinces and princely states were to keep the remaining powers.
• An interim government of Indian leaders was to be formed at once, while the constitution was being framed.

The Congress accepted the plan with reservations, while the Muslim League first accepted it and then withdrew its acceptance, insisting on a separate state of Pakistan. The plan was not fully carried out, but the Constituent Assembly it provided for met in December 1946 and framed the Constitution of India.

What was the Mountbatten Plan?

By 1947 the British government had decided to leave India, and Lord Mountbatten, who came to India as Viceroy in March 1947, was given the task of arranging the transfer of power. His proposals, announced on 3 June 1947, are known as the Mountbatten Plan.

The main clauses of the Mountbatten Plan were:

• India was to be partitioned into two independent dominions, India and Pakistan.
• The legislative assemblies of Punjab and Bengal were to meet in two parts, one for the Muslim-majority districts and one for the rest, and if either part voted for partition, the province was to be divided; a referendum was to be held in the North-West Frontier Province and in the Sylhet district of Assam.
• The princely states were to be free to join either dominion or to remain independent.
• A Boundary Commission was to be set up to draw the borders of the two new dominions.
• Power was to be handed over well before June 1948, the deadline the British government had announced in February 1947; the date was soon fixed as 15 August 1947, and the British Parliament was to pass the necessary law before then.

Why was the Mountbatten Plan accepted?

The Congress accepted the plan because it brought immediate independence, which the party had demanded for years, and because further delay would only have spread the communal violence that was already raging across the country. The Muslim League's non-cooperation in the interim government had also convinced Congress leaders that a united India could not work smoothly.

The Muslim League accepted it because it gave the League its long-standing demand of Pakistan, in the form of a separate dominion in the Muslim-majority areas.

The plan was also accepted because it was worked out in consultation with the leaders of both parties, and because it offered a peaceful and orderly transfer of power instead of a collapse of administration.

What did the Indian Independence Act of 1947 provide?

The Mountbatten Plan was given legal shape by the Indian Independence Act, passed by the British Parliament in July 1947. Its main clauses were:

• As from 15 August 1947, two independent dominions, India and Pakistan, were to be set up, each with its own legislature and free to leave the British Commonwealth if it wished.
• The office of the Secretary of State for India was to be abolished, and the British government was to have no further responsibility for the government of India.
• The princely states were released from their treaties with the British Crown and were free to join either dominion or to remain independent.
• The Constituent Assemblies of the two dominions were to have full power to frame constitutions for their countries.
• The Boundary Commission was to fix the borders between India and Pakistan, and the suzerainty of the British Crown over the Indian states was to lapse.

The Act thus ended nearly two centuries of British rule in India and gave legal form to the transfer of power that the Mountbatten Plan had proposed.

Going beyond the syllabus

These ideas extend the unit and are not needed for the questions on it.

What sources tell us about the Quit India Movement?

Historians piece together the story of the Quit India Movement from several different kinds of source, each of which brings out a different side of the event.

The Congress's own resolutions are a primary written source: the text passed by the Congress Working Committee at Wardha on 14 July 1942, and the resolution endorsed by the All India Congress Committee at Bombay on 8 August 1942, show exactly what the movement's leadership demanded in its own words before the arrests cut off official direction.

Photographs from the time are another valuable source. A photograph of a women's procession in Bombay during the Quit India Movement survives from this period and shows women publicly taking part in demonstrations, illustrating how the call drew in groups who had not always been visible in earlier protests.

Government records of arrests and repression, such as the record of Gandhiji's detention at the Aga Khan Palace in Pune from his arrest in 1942 until 1944, show how the British state responded, while official accounts of military and police action in districts such as Ballia and Tamluk reveal how long it took, more than a year, to restore control.

Later memoirs and recollections of underground leaders who worked in secret after the arrests, together with accounts of the underground radio broadcasts that carried Congress messages to the public, add a further layer, describing how the movement was sustained once its official leadership had been removed. Taken together, resolutions, photographs, administrative records and later recollections allow the movement to be reconstructed even though it was, for long stretches, a leaderless and underground struggle.

Glossary

• Quit India Resolution: the resolution passed by the Congress Working Committee at Wardha on 14 July 1942 demanding the immediate transfer of power and British withdrawal from India.
• "Do or Die": Gandhiji's call at the AICC session in Bombay on 8 August 1942, urging Indians to win freedom or die in the attempt.
• Cripps Mission: the mission sent by the British government to India in March 1942 offering dominion status after the war, which the Congress rejected.
• Congress Working Committee (CWC): the main executive body of the Indian National Congress.
• All India Congress Committee (AICC): the larger Congress body that endorsed the Quit India resolution in August 1942.
• Hartal: a general strike or closure of shops, schools and offices as a form of protest.
• Parallel government: a local administration set up by nationalists, as in Ballia and Tamluk, functioning in place of British authority for a period.
• Dominion status: self-government within the British Empire, short of full independence, as offered by the Cripps Mission.
• Forward Bloc: the radical platform formed by Subhas Chandra Bose in 1939 within the Congress, demanding immediate and complete independence.
• Indian National Army: the force of Indian soldiers raised outside India, first formed by Captain Mohan Singh in 1942 and led by Subhas Chandra Bose from 1943, to win freedom by armed struggle.
• Cabinet Mission Plan: the 1946 plan of three British Cabinet ministers for a united India, a Constituent Assembly and an interim government.
• Mountbatten Plan: the 3 June 1947 proposals for the partition of India into two independent dominions and an early transfer of power, which took place on 15 August 1947.
• Indian Independence Act, 1947: the British law of July 1947 that set up the two independent dominions of India and Pakistan from 15 August 1947.
• Poorna Swaraj: full independence, the demand formally adopted by the Lahore Congress in December 1929.

Common errors and misconceptions

• Misconception: The Quit India resolution and its public announcement happened on the same day. Correct: The resolution was passed at Wardha on 14 July 1942, and only publicly endorsed with the "Do or Die" speech at Bombay on 8 August 1942.
• Misconception: Gandhiji personally led the Quit India Movement's day-to-day activities after August 1942. Correct: Gandhiji was arrested on 9 August 1942 and detained until 1944, so most of the movement was carried on without the senior Congress leadership.
• Misconception: The Quit India Movement remained strictly non-violent throughout. Correct: Gandhiji called for non-violence, but there were attacks on railways, telegraph lines and police stations in several places.
• Misconception: The failure of the Cripps Mission was the only cause of the movement. Correct: Both the failure of the Cripps Mission and the Japanese threat to India together created the discontent that led to Quit India.
• Misconception: The Quit India Movement immediately forced the British to grant independence. Correct: The movement was suppressed by force within a little over a year; independence followed only in 1947, after the war had ended.
• Misconception: The Simon Commission had Indian members and was welcomed by Indian parties. Correct: It had no Indian member at all, and when it arrived in 1928 all parties, including the Congress and the Muslim League, boycotted it with the slogan "Go back Simon".
• Misconception: The Civil Disobedience Movement began with the Lahore Congress itself. Correct: The Lahore Congress of December 1929 adopted Poorna Swaraj; the movement began later, when Gandhiji broke the salt law at Dandi on 6 April 1930.
• Misconception: The Mountbatten Plan was accepted by the Congress because it granted Pakistan. Correct: The Congress accepted it because it brought immediate independence and was seen as the way to end the spreading communal violence, while the Muslim League accepted it because it gave Pakistan.

Exam-style questions with model answers

Q1. Choose the correct option. The Quit India resolution was passed by the Congress Working Committee at: (a) Bombay (b) Wardha (c) Lahore (d) Calcutta [1 mark]

1. (b) Wardha.

Q2. Assertion (A): The Congress rejected the Cripps Mission. Reason (R): The Cripps Mission offered only dominion status after the war and not immediate independence. (a) (A) is true and (R) is false. (b) (A) is false and (R) is true. (c) Both (A) and (R) are true, and (R) is the correct explanation of (A). (d) Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A). [1 mark]

1. (c) Both (A) and (R) are true, and (R) is the correct explanation of (A).

Q3. Identify the correct chronology of the following events: 1. Passing of the Quit India resolution at Wardha 2. Cripps Mission 3. Mountbatten Plan [1 mark]

1. 2-1-3: the Cripps Mission came in March 1942, the Quit India resolution was passed at Wardha on 14 July 1942, and the Mountbatten Plan was announced on 3 June 1947.

Q4. Read the extract and answer the questions that follow. "The Congress Working Committee, in its meeting in Wardha on 14 July 1942, passed the historic 'Quit India' resolution demanding the immediate transfer of power to Indians and quit India." (i) Name the resolution being discussed. (ii) Who passed it and on which date? (iii) What did the resolution demand? [3 marks]

1. The resolution is the Quit India resolution.
2. It was passed by the Congress Working Committee at its meeting at Wardha on 14 July 1942.
3. It demanded the immediate transfer of power to Indians and the withdrawal of the British from India.

Q5. Give two reasons for the renewal of the Civil Disobedience Movement in 1932. [2 marks]

1. The Second Round Table Conference in London in December 1931 broke down, and Gandhiji returned disappointed.
2. Back in India, the government had begun a new cycle of repression: Ghaffar Khan and Jawaharlal Nehru were in jail, the Congress had been declared illegal, and measures had been imposed to prevent meetings, demonstrations and boycotts.

Q6. State any two objectives of the Forward Bloc. [2 marks]

1. To work for the complete and immediate independence of India, without waiting for gradual constitutional concessions.
2. To unite the left-wing and radical groups within the Congress and the country behind a common programme of struggle.

Q7. Explain the contribution of Subhas Chandra Bose to the national movement. [4 marks]

1. He pressed for more radical mass agitation and full independence, and formed the Forward Bloc in 1939 within the Congress as a platform for its radical section.
2. He took command of the Indian National Army in 1943 and reorganised it from Indian prisoners of war and Indians living abroad, giving it the slogan "Give me blood and I will give you freedom".
3. In 1943 he set up the Provisional Government of Azad Hind in Singapore, with its own cabinet, currency and declaration of war on Britain, and the INA fought in the Burma campaign, reaching Indian soil during the Imphal and Kohima campaign of 1944.
4. Though the military campaign failed, the INA's example and the trials of its officers after the war stirred nationalist feeling and added to the pressure on the British to leave India.

Q8. Mention any three clauses of the Cabinet Mission Plan. [3 marks]

1. India was to remain united and was to be given full independence after the British left.
2. A Constituent Assembly was to be elected by the members of the provincial legislatures to frame a constitution for free India.
3. The provinces were to be grouped into three sections, each of which could frame its own constitution, and a province could later decide by vote whether to leave its group.

Q9. Give two reasons why the Congress accepted the Mountbatten Plan of 3 June 1947. [2 marks]

1. The plan brought immediate independence, which the Congress had demanded for years.
2. Further delay would only have spread the communal violence across the country, so a peaceful and orderly transfer of power was preferable.

Q10. Explain the significance of the Quit India Movement. [5 marks]

1. The movement showed that the demand for complete independence had spread to ordinary people across the country, and not only to organised Congress leaders.
2. Its spontaneous and largely leaderless character, with students, workers, peasants and women all taking part, demonstrated the depth of popular support for ending British rule.
3. Although the British responded with much force and it took more than a year to suppress the movement, the scale of the uprising shook British confidence in the long-term stability of colonial rule.
4. The movement coincided with the pressures of the Second World War, and after the war ended in 1945, the British moved towards negotiating India's independence.
5. In this way, Quit India formed an important link in the chain of events that led to the Cabinet Mission of 1946 and to independence in 1947.

Key takeaways

• The Non-Cooperation Movement arose from the Khilafat issue, the Rowlatt Act and the Jallianwala Bagh Tragedy, and was launched in January 1921.
• The Civil Disobedience Movement was provoked by the all-party boycott of the Simon Commission in 1928 and the Poorna Swaraj demand of the Lahore Congress in 1929.
• The Quit India Movement was launched in August 1942, caused by the failure of the Cripps Mission and the threat of a Japanese invasion of India.
• The Quit India resolution was passed at Wardha on 14 July 1942 and endorsed by the AICC at Bombay on 8 August 1942.
• Gandhiji and the Congress Working Committee were arrested on 9 August 1942, leaving the movement largely leaderless.
• The movement drew in thousands of ordinary people, including students, workers and peasants, and several women leaders.
• The British suppressed the movement with much force, though it took more than a year to do so.
• Subhas Chandra Bose formed the Forward Bloc in 1939, and from 1943 he led the Indian National Army, first formed by Captain Mohan Singh in 1942, in an armed struggle for freedom.
• The Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946, the Mountbatten Plan of 3 June 1947 and the Indian Independence Act of July 1947 led to independence and partition on 15 August 1947.

Test yourself

What two factors led Gandhiji to launch the Quit India Movement?

The failure of the Cripps Mission and the effects of the Second World War, including the Japanese threat to India, created widespread discontentment that led to the movement.

Where and when was the Quit India resolution first passed?

It was passed by the Congress Working Committee at Wardha on 14 July 1942.

What happened at the Bombay AICC session on 8 August 1942?

The AICC endorsed the Quit India resolution, calling for a non-violent mass struggle, and Gandhiji delivered his famous "Do or Die" speech.

Name any three women who took part in the Quit India Movement.

Matangini Hazra in Bengal, Kanaklata Barua in Assam and Rama Devi in Odisha are named among the women participants.

Why was the Simon Commission boycotted by all Indian parties?

It had no Indian member at all, and when it arrived in 1928 it was greeted with the slogan "Go back Simon" by the Congress, the Muslim League and other parties.

Why was the Civil Disobedience Movement renewed in 1932?

The Second Round Table Conference broke down in December 1931, and back in India the government had begun a new cycle of repression, jailing leaders and declaring the Congress illegal.

Who founded the Forward Bloc and when?

Subhas Chandra Bose formed the Forward Bloc in 1939 within the Congress, as a platform for its radical section demanding immediate and complete independence.

Who founded the Indian National Army and what was its aim?

It was first formed in 1942 by Captain Mohan Singh, with the support of Rash Behari Bose, and was revived and led by Subhas Chandra Bose from 1943; its aim was to free India from British rule by armed struggle.

When was the Mountbatten Plan announced and what did it propose?

It was announced on 3 June 1947 and proposed the partition of India into two independent dominions, India and Pakistan, with an early transfer of power, which took place on 15 August 1947.