Quit India Movement
The Quit India movement was the most militant of the mass movements led by the Indian National Congress (INC) against British rule, 1942–1943. The defeat of the European powers in Southeast Asia during World War II destroyed British prestige and revealed the hollowness of British military superiority. The pressure placed on the Indian economy by the war created great hardships for the population, leading to food shortages and directly to the terrible Bengal famine (1943). Repeated British attempts at formulating a constitutional settlement between the Congress and the Muslim League had been unsuccessful, most recently with the failure of the Cripps Mission (1942). In the summer of 1942, Mohandas K. Gandhi had urged the British to leave India to God or anarchy, and the Quit India resolution was passed by the Congress in Mumbai (Bombay) on 8 August 1942, with the leaders calling upon all Indians to protest against British rule on nonviolent lines.
The British, faced with the strains of the war and the prospect of a Japanese invasion through Myanmar (Burma), responded with immediate and sustained suppression, including mass arrests, brutal punishments, machine gun fire from the air, and preemptive attacks against suspected rebels. The INC leaders were arrested almost immediately in the early morning of 9 August. However, this was followed by a largely spontaneous popular outbreak that far exceeded the expectations of even the Congress.
Three broad phases can be distinguished. The first was predominantly urban and violent, consisting of strikes and clashes with police, and was quickly suppressed. From mid-August the center of protest moved to the rural areas with peasant rebellions being fanned by militant student leadership. From the end of September 1942 there was an outbreak of terrorism led by educated youths against imperial signs of oppression, such as police stations and communications. This was the longest phase, which continued into 1943.
There was considerable regional variation. Punjab, North West Frontier Province, Madras, and Kerala remained relatively quiet, whereas Bihar, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Eastern United Provinces, Manipur, and Orissa witnessed "really formidable mass rebellion" (Sarkar 1983: 399). Among the princely states only Mysore was affected to any significant extent. Muslims as a whole remained indifferent, and there were no major communal incidents. There was also relatively little social and class conflict. The main social groups involved included labor in the early phase. Middle-class student protest played a prominent role, and in particular mass rebellion among the peasantry was important.
Further Reading
Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand. (1942) Quit India. Mumbai, India: Padma Publications.
Hutchins, L. (1971) Spontaneous Revolution. Delhi: Manohar Book Service.
Low, D. A., ed. (1977) Congress and the Raj. London: Heine-mann.
Moon, Penderel, ed. (1973) The Viceroy's Journal. London: Oxford University Press.
Moore, R. J. (1979) Churchill, Cripps and India. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Panigrahi, D. N. (1984) Quit India and the Struggle for Freedom. New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House.
Sarkar, Sumit. (1983) Modern India 1885–1947 New Delhi: Macmillan.
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