Theme 20Part C · The Gandhian era
Quit India and the INA
1935 to 1946 · ministries, war, Quit India, Netaji and the last mutinies
This theme covers the decade in which British rule lost its foundations. It maps Quit India and its parallel governments, follows Bose by land, submarine and air to Singapore, and ends with the INA trials and the naval mutiny.
Event 11935 to 1942
From provincial ministries to the Cripps Mission
The Government of India Act 1935 gave the provinces responsible government. The Congress fought the elections, ruled most provinces for two years, and then resigned when Britain took India into the Second World War without asking.
The 1935 Act
- Provincial autonomy: dyarchy ended in the provinces; ministers responsible to elected legislatures.
- Dyarchy at the centre and an all India federation of provinces and princely states, which never came into being.
- Separate electorates continued; about 14 per cent of the population of British India could vote.
- Sindh and Orissa made new provinces (1936); Burma separated from India (1937).
- A Federal Court and the Reserve Bank of India (1935).
Elections and ministries
- Feb 1937 Congress wins a majority in five provinces and is the largest party in four more.
- July 1937 Congress ministries in six provinces, soon seven with the NWFP; an eighth through a coalition in Assam (1938).
- Sept 1939 Viceroy Linlithgow declares India at war with Germany.
- Oct to Nov 1939 Congress ministries resign; the League celebrates Deliverance Day (22 December).
- Aug 1940 August Offer: dominion status at some future date; rejected.
- Oct 1940 Individual Satyagraha: Vinoba Bhave first, Nehru second; about 25,000 jailed.
- Mar to Apr 1942 Cripps Mission: dominion status after the war, with a right for provinces to stay out. Gandhi called it a post dated cheque.
Event 2August 1942 to 1944
Quit India
On 8 August 1942 the All India Congress Committee, meeting at Gowalia Tank in Bombay, passed the Quit India resolution. Gandhi told the country: Do or Die. Before dawn the next day every leader was in jail.
Swipe the map sideways to see all of it.
In "Operation Zero Hour", Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Azad and the Working Committee are arrested. Aruna Asaf Ali hoists the flag at Gowalia Tank. Gandhi is held at the Aga Khan Palace, Poona, where Kasturba and Mahadev Desai die.
Leaderless, the movement takes its own forms: attacks on railways, police stations, post offices and telegraph lines, strongest in Bihar, eastern UP, Midnapore, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Odisha. Students and workers strike; in Tamluk, 73 year old Matangini Hazra is shot leading a march (29 September).
In Ballia (August 1942, Chittu Pandey), in Tamluk (the Tamralipta Jatiya Sarkar, December 1942 to September 1944) and in Satara (the Prati Sarkar of Nana Patil, 1943 to 1945, the longest lasting), people set up governments of their own. Talcher in Odisha too.
Jayaprakash Narayan escapes from Hazaribagh jail (November 1942) and, with Ram Manohar Lohia, Aruna Asaf Ali and Sucheta Kripalani, leads the underground. Usha Mehta runs the secret Congress Radio from Bombay. Gandhi's 21 day fast (February 1943) shakes the government; he is released in May 1944.
- Crushed within months by the army, with aerial machine gunning in places.
- The CPI opposed it; the League and the Hindu Mahasabha stayed away; the princes backed the war.
- It showed that the British could no longer rule India against its will.
Event 31941 to 1945
Subhas Chandra Bose and the INA
Bose escaped from house arrest in Calcutta in January 1941, went to Germany, then to Japan's side of the war, and led an Indian army into India.
Swipe the map sideways to see all of it.
Disguised as a Pathan insurance agent, Bose slips out of his Calcutta house (17 January 1941), crosses to Peshawar and Kabul, and reaches Berlin via Moscow.
In Berlin he sets up the Free India Centre and Azad Hind Radio, and raises the Indian Legion from Indian prisoners of war. He is first called Netaji there.
He sails from Kiel in a German submarine, U 180, transfers at sea off Madagascar to the Japanese I 29, and reaches Sumatra, then Tokyo and Singapore.
At Singapore he takes command of the Indian National Army (raised in 1942 by Mohan Singh from Indian prisoners, with Rash Behari Bose's Indian Independence League) and proclaims the Provisional Government of Free India (21 October 1943). He visits Port Blair in December 1943. He is reported to have died after a plane crash at Taipei on 18 August 1945, as two official inquiries concluded; the Mukherjee Commission (2005) disputed it.
Swipe the map sideways to see all of it.
The Japanese 15th Army, with INA units including the Subhas Brigade, crosses the Chindwin to take Imphal and Kohima. The INA raises the tricolour at Moirang on 14 April 1944, on Indian soil.
The British and Indian army holds Kohima and Imphal. With the monsoon, disease and no supplies, the Japanese and the INA retreat with terrible losses. Rangoon falls in May 1945.
Event 41945 to 1946
The INA trials and the RIN mutiny
When the war ended, the British decided to try INA officers for treason. It was the worst decision of the end of the Raj.
- June 1945 Wavell Plan and the Simla Conference: fail when Jinnah insists the League alone can nominate Muslims.
- Nov 1945 At the Red Fort, Shah Nawaz Khan, P. K. Sahgal and G. S. Dhillon, a Muslim, a Hindu and a Sikh, are tried. Defended by Bhulabhai Desai, Tej Bahadur Sapru, K. N. Katju, Asaf Ali and Nehru in barrister's robes after 25 years.
- Nov 1945 to Feb 1946 Protests across India; riots in Calcutta (November 1945, February 1946). Sentences of transportation are remitted.
- 18 Feb 1946 Ratings of HMIS Talwar in Bombay strike against bad food and racial insults; the strike spreads to 78 ships and 20 shore establishments, with about 20,000 ratings, from Karachi to Calcutta. Bombay workers strike in support. It ends on 23 February on the advice of Patel and Jinnah.
- Feb to Mar 1946 Strikes in the Royal Indian Air Force and at the Signal Corps in Jabalpur. Attlee announces the Cabinet Mission.
Who's who16 people
People
Lord Linlithgow
Viceroy 1936 to 1943
Declared war for India; crushed Quit India.
Vinoba Bhave
individual satyagraha
The first satyagrahi (1940).
Stafford Cripps
Cripps Mission
1942.
Aruna Asaf Ali
Quit India
Hoisted the flag at Gowalia Tank.
Usha Mehta
Congress Radio
Ran the secret radio.
Matangini Hazra
Tamluk
Shot aged 73.
Jayaprakash Narayan
underground
Escaped from Hazaribagh jail.
Chittu Pandey
Ballia
Headed the parallel government.
Nana Patil
Satara
Prati Sarkar.
Subhas Chandra Bose
Netaji
Azad Hind government; INA.
Mohan Singh
first INA
Raised the INA in 1942.
Rash Behari Bose
Indian Independence League
Handed the INA to Netaji.
Lakshmi Swaminathan (Sahgal)
Rani of Jhansi Regiment
Its commander.
Shah Nawaz Khan, P. K. Sahgal, G. S. Dhillon
INA officers
Red Fort trial.
Bhulabhai Desai
lawyer
Led the INA defence.
Lord Wavell
Viceroy 1943 to 1947
Simla Conference.
Key terms8
Terms
- August Offer
- 1940 British offer of dominion status at an undefined time.
- Individual Satyagraha
- Symbolic protest by chosen individuals against the war, 1940 to 1941.
- Cripps Mission
- 1942 offer of dominion status after the war.
- Do or Die
- Gandhi's call of 8 August 1942.
- Prati Sarkar
- The parallel government of Satara.
- INA
- Azad Hind Fauj, the Indian National Army.
- Dilli Chalo
- On to Delhi: the INA's slogan.
- RIN mutiny
- The Royal Indian Navy revolt of February 1946.