The Defeat of a Nationalist, 1942–7

Abstract

Nehru began his sentence of 1041 days with a sense of frustration and uncertainty: frustration because he had been denied the opportunity to play an active role in a world war from which, he believed, a new world was bound to emerge; uncertainty about the results the ‘quit India’ movement might achieve. Several leading Congressmen then believed, though they did not say to Gandhi, that the ‘quit India’ resolution was a greater blunder even than the resignation of the Congress ministries in 1939.1. Nehru had revolted at a time when he knew it would most assuredly be misconstrued by the British as a stab in the back. Much of his conduct seemed to him to be determined ‘by the past complex of events which bear down and often overwhelm the individual’.2 Likewise, the Congress revolt seemed to him inevitable; no matter how futile in terms of major results, it was, he believed, a manly, courageous and noble course for Congress to follow. The ‘quit India’ movement might not compel the British to withdraw from India but he hoped that at least it would succeed in arousing among the Muslim masses sympathy and admiration for Congress and would win them away from Jinnah’s Pakistan movement.