Quit India Research Articles

The climax of popular protest: The Quit India Movement in Orissa

The climax of popular protest: The Quit India Movement in Orissa

Bhore Committee (1946) and its relevance today

The Health Survey and Development Com- mittee, popularly known as the Bhore Com- mittee, is now 45 years old. Its relevance is not lost even today. This paper briefly re- views the entire three volume report to highlight its wide scope and its comprehen- sive and progressive nature. It was in the midst of the Second World War and in suc- cession to the Quit-India movement that the Government of India on 18th October 1943 announced the appointment of the Health Survey and Development Commit- tee under the Chairmanship of Sir Joseph Bhore. The terms of referr were simple: (a) a broad survey of the present position in regard to health conditions and health or- ganization in British India, and (b) recom- mendation for future development. To lend support to the Committee, five Advisory Committees were formed : (i) Public Health (//) Medical Relief

Political Mobilization and the Underground Literature of the Quit India Movement, 1942–44

For nearly 100 years the Indian Congress organization has flourished in and through the press. Of the 72 representatives who gathered in Bombay at the first Congress meeting in 1885, more than a dozen were professional journalists. Not only did the early and subsequent nationalist leaders collect news for, editorialize in, or own outright, important vernacular and English-language newspapers—one thinks of, among others, Tilak's Kesari, Surendranath Banerjea's Bengalee, Motilal Nehru's Leader and Mahatma Gandhi's Young India and Harijan—but they readily submitted themselves to the curious, often naive probings of foreign correspondents from Europe and America. It was Gandhi who taught the Congress both how to spin its cotton and how, when it served a purpose, to wash its linen in public. Jawaharlal Nehru, when prime minister, brought to a high art the interview granted to the favored Indian or foreign correspondent.

Political Mobilization and the Underground Literature of the Quit India Movement, 1942–44

For nearly 100 years the Indian Congress organization has flourished in and through the press. Of the 72 representatives who gathered in Bombay at the first Congress meeting in 1885, more than a dozen were professional journalists. Not only did the early and subsequent nationalist leaders collect news for, editorialize in, or own outright, important vernacular and English-language newspapers—one thinks of, among others, Tilak's Kesari, Surendranath Banerjea's Bengalee, Motilal Nehru's Leader and Mahatma Gandhi's Young India and Harijan—but they readily submitted themselves to the curious, often naive probings of foreign correspondents from Europe and America. It was Gandhi who taught the Congress both how to spin its cotton and how, when it served a purpose, to wash its linen in public. Jawaharlal Nehru, when prime minister, brought to a high art the interview granted to the favored Indian or foreign correspondent.

Before and after the transfer of power: Two review articles

Nicholas Mansergh, Editor‐in‐chief; E.W.R. Lumby, Assistant Editor (for Volumes I ‐IV); and Penderel Moon, Assistant Editor (Volumes V and VI), Constitutional Relations Between Britain and India: The Transfer of Power, 1942‐7. Volume I: The Cripps Mission, January ‐April 1942 (London, HMSO, 1970), lxiii, 928 pp. £7.00, $US25.20; Volume II: “Quit India”, 30 April ‐ 21 September 1942 (1971) lxxxx, 1044 pp. £9.00; Volume III: “Gandhi's Fast and the Succession to the Viceroyalty, 21 September 1942 ‐ 12 June 1943 (1971), lxxxv, 1095 pp. £10.00; Volume IV: The Bengal Famine and the New Viceroyalty, 15 June 1943 ‐ 31 August 1944 (1973), xcix, 1295 pp. £13.00; Volume V: The Simla Conference, Background and Proceedings, 1 September 1944 ‐ 28 July 1945 (1974), xcii, 1346 pp. £17.50, $US54; Volume VI: The Post‐War Phase; New Moves by the Labour Government, 1 August 1945 ‐ 22 March 1946 (1976).

India's Revolution: Gandhi and the Quit India Movement

Gandhi's Quit India Movement of 1942 was the climax of a nationalist revolutionary movement which sought independence on India's own terms. Indian independence was attained through revolution, not through a benevolent grant from the British imperial regime. British left India because Indians had made it impossible for them to stay. The bases for Francis Hutchins' thesis are new facts from hitherto unused sources: interviews with surviving participants in the movement, private papers from the Gandhi Memorial Museum and the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, documents in the National Archives of India. In particular, he has studied the secret records of the British government, recently made available, which reveal for the first time the extent of the revolutionary movement and Britain's plans for dealing with it. Of the British records Hutchins says, No other regime has left such careful documentation of its strategies or compiled such extensive records revealing the way in which it was overthrown. Even though England had always proclaimed its hope that India would one day become independent, the tacit assumption was that this was a remote eventuality. Only after Gandhi's Quit India Movement did Britain's political parties resign themselves to the necessity to leave quickly, whether or not they believed India was ready. Obscured by censorship in India and by preoccupation with World War II, the significance of Gandhi's revolutionary technique was not appreciated at the time. Hutchins' impressive analysis uses the Indian case to develop a general theory of the revolutionary nature of colonial nationalism.

India's Revolution: Gandhi and the Quit India Movement

India's Revolution: Gandhi and the Quit India Movement

India's Revolution: Gandhi and the Quit India Movement

(1974). India's Revolution: Gandhi and the Quit India Movement. History: Reviews of New Books: Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 77-78.

Constitutional relations between Britain and India. The transfer of power, 1942–7. Vol. ii, ‘Quit India’, 30 April-21 September 1942. Edited by Nicholas Malisergh. and E.W.R. Luniby pp lxxx, 1044. London: Stationery Office. 1971. £9.

Constitutional relations between Britain and India. The transfer of power, 1942–7. Vol. ii, ‘Quit India’, 30 April-21 September 1942. Edited by Nicholas Malisergh. and E.W.R. Luniby pp lxxx, 1044. London: Stationery Office. 1971. £9.

Transferring power

Constitutional Relations between Britain and India. The Transfer of Power 1942–7. Vol. I, The Cripps Mission, January‐April 1942. HMSO 1970, 928+lxiii pp. £7. Vol. II, ‘Quit India’, 30 April‐21 September 1942. HMSO 1971, 1044+lxxx pp. £9. Editor in Chief, Nicholas Mansergh; Assistant Editor, E. W. R. Lumby.

India: The Transfer of Power 1942–7. Vol. II. ‘Quit India’ 30 April–21 September 1942

India: The Transfer of Power 1942–7. Vol. II. ‘Quit India’ 30 April–21 September 1942

The Transfer of Power, 1942-7. (Voulume II "Quit India," 30 April-21 September 1942).

The Transfer of Power, 1942-7. (Voulume II "Quit India," 30 April-21 September 1942).

Electoral Politics in West Bengal: The Growth of the United Front

IT TEST BENGAL is one of two states in the Indian Union where India's Communist parties have gained a predominant share of the decisionmaking power of the ministries. From March 2, i967, when the Congress party of West Bengal failed for the first time since Independence to gain a majority in the state Legislative Assembly, until November 2i, i967, when the Governor of the state appointed a successor ministry, West Bengal was governed by a coalition of fourteen parties, including both the Communist party of India (CPI) and the Communist party of India-Marxist (CPM). Again, after a period of President's Rule in i968, the same coalition of parties was returned in the elections of February i969, this time with a much larger number of seats in the Legislative Assembly and a much larger role for the two Communist parties. The growth of communism in West Bengal is only one aspect of the complicated political situation obtaining in this small, truncated state. Politicization of Bengalis into modern forms of organization began almost from the inception of British rule in India, and was quickly accentuated in this century by the first partition of the Province of Bengal in I905 and the shifting of the capital of British India from the Bengali-speaking city of Calcutta to the traditional center of imperial power in New Delhi in i9i2. In response to these two events Bengal's political leadership launched a number of political movements, some directed against the British, some directed against the Gandhians in the Indian National Congress, almost all seeking to reclaim the dominant position in India's political life that Bengal had attained in the late nineteenth century. Political activity reached a peak of intensity in the early i94os, when Calcutta and its surrounding areas were being occupied by more than 200,000 Allied troops, the Muslim League was agitating for partition, and the Congress and Marxist-left parties were engaged in a Quit India movement that drew heavily on the terrorist tradition of Bengali political life. No sooner had this peak of political activity been reached than Bengal witnessed in rapid succession a major famine in I943, the second partition of the province in I947, and large-scale communal riots that began in August i946 and culminated in the influx of more than five million refugees during the following twenty years. In the midst of the great economic hardship that resulted

Asian Nationalism—The Second Stage

IMPRESSIONS gained on a rapid tour of Asia are inevitably superficial; but it is a way of obtaining a conspectus, of seeing the region in breadth if not in depth. Ten years had elapsed since my last tour-which is an additional handicap. But the gap between visits has perhaps one advantage: by highlighting the changes that have taken place in the interval it may illumine the trend of developments. One of the most striking features of contemporary Asia, to my mind, is the transition that has occurred, in the past decade, from the first to the second stageof nationalism. It is a commonplace that, since the Second World War, the main driving force acting upon the countries of Southern Asia has been the explosive power of nationalism. Under its impact the Western empires have crumbled, and a whole batch of new states has arisen. These newcomers not only owe their creation to the nationalist movement, but also have received from it their initial impetus and direction. This is not to minimise the contribution of Communism. Obviously it has made its mark; but it has not been the main motive force, only an auxiliary motor. It has been successful only in alliance with nationalism, not in opposition to it. Even in the case of China, as the Russians would be the first to recognise, the triumph of Mao was a nationalist rather than a Communist victory. In the first stage, nationalism was simple and straightforward. There was one overriding aim-independence-to which everybody could subscribe. The enemy, too, was obvious and alien. Consequently, everybody knew what they were for and whom they were against. Slogans were easy to coin, and could serve instead of a policy because they did in fact express the essence of such common policy as there was. The rallying cry of Merdeka found a response in all the islands of Indonesia. On my first arrival in Asia I recall being confronted with the exhortation painted in large letters on the quayside: 'Quit India'-not a very cordial wel come, but it was short and to the point, and something on which nationalists of every hue (and eventually the British) could agree. Political activity is no less habit-forming than any other, and political attitudes held over any considerable length of time tend to produce a certain rigidity of posture. In the British dependencies, political agitation had a style all of its own. So successful was the propagation of the sporting instinct and notions of fair play that the contest between the