India's War

by Srinath Raghavan

  At the outbreak of war, Ambedkar issued a statement condemning the German attack on Poland, but also criticizing the latter for its treatment of Jews. He disagreed, however, that Britain’s danger was India’s opportunity: India needed no new masters. He maintained that it was unfair that India should have no say in the declaration of war, nonetheless, India should remain within the British Commonwealth and aim for equal partnership. Ambedkar asked the government to prepare the Indians for the defence of their country and urged it to raise a regiment of soldiers from the depressed classes. He also asked Britain to assure India of its status within the Empire at the end of the war.18

  The viceroy regarded Ambedkar as an ‘impressive figure’ and over the course of a long meeting sought his views on the political situation. Ambedkar said that the depressed classes were suffering grievously at the hands of the Congress. There was a concerted attempt to drive his community into the Congress camp. He also assured the viceroy that he was ‘100 per cent opposed to self-government at the Centre and would resist it in any possible way’.19 Linlithgow was even more impressed when Ambedkar signed a joint statement with seven other leaders, including prominent liberals such as Sir Chimanlal Setalvad, declaring that the Congress’s claim to represent all Indians was fascist and that it would spell the end of Indian democracy.

  Among the signatories was a man of vastly different ideological and political persuasion from Ambedkar: Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. Savarkar’s political career had begun almost three decades previously, when as a student in London he was involved with anti-colonial revolutionary groups. Arrested and sentenced to two life-terms in 1910, Savarkar spent eleven years in the infamous cellular jail of the Andaman Islands, designed on the same lines as Bentham’s ‘Panopticon’. During these years, he came into his own as an ideologue of Hindu nationalism and superiority. Released on the promise of renouncing revolutionary activity, Savarkar soon emerged as a prominent leader of a Hindu nationalist and chauvinist outfit, the Hindu Mahasabha, and an outspoken critic of the avowedly secular Congress.

  Savarkar saw the war in Europe through the lens of realpolitik. None of the belligerent powers, he held, were driven by ‘any moral or human principle’ such as freedom, democracy or justice. Yet he was clear that the Mahasabha must continue with its policy of ‘responsive co-operation’. They should reiterate this stance and demand more recruitment of Hindus in the army. Savarkar preferred to watch the Congress’s moves before issuing any statement on the war. Senior colleagues such as M. R. Jayakar, however, felt that time was of the essence and that Savarkar must register his presence with the viceroy.20

  A few weeks on, Savarkar received an invitation for a meeting from Linlithgow. The tall, stooping marquess found his guest ‘a not very attractive type of little man’, but interesting all the same. The former revolutionary observed that the interests of the Hindus and the British were now closely bound together: ‘the old antagonism was no longer necessary’. He urged the importance of military training for the Hindus and increased recruitment in the army, adding that the Hindu Mahasabha wanted an ‘unambiguous undertaking of Dominion Status at the end of the War’. As an immediate step, he sought the introduction of responsible and popular government at the centre. Savarkar also challenged the Congress’s claim ‘to represent anything but themselves’ and requested the viceroy ‘not to inflate Congress too much’.21

  Interestingly, the Hindu nationalist’s stance was mirrored by that of the Muslim League led by Mohammed Ali Jinnah. A successful lawyer and a shrewd politician, Jinnah had been prominent in the Congress even before Gandhi came on the stage – not least owing to his efforts to forge a political compromise between the Hindus and the Muslims during the First World War. Following the advent of Gandhian mass nationalism, however, Jinnah found his brand of elite politics increasingly marginal to the programme and direction of the Congress. In consequence, he became more active in leading the Muslim League.

  The elections of 1936–37 had come as a rude shock to Jinnah and the League. While the Congress failed to win in the Punjab, Bengal and Sindh – all provinces where Muslims were a majority – the League too fared poorly in them. All three provinces came under the control of strong regional players, who at best paid token obeisance to the League and Jinnah. Further, despite having an electoral system where seats were reserved for Muslim candidates, to be elected by Muslim voters alone, the League’s performance in the provinces where Muslims were a minority was lacklustre. By contrast, the Congress swept the Hindu electorate and made some dents in the Muslim seats as well. In short, the outcome of the elections threatened to consign the Muslim League to political oblivion.

  After the elections, Jinnah had turned decisively against the federation plan, although the League’s poor showing had left him with a feeble hand. By April 1939, Zetland was ‘almost certain’ that the Muslims would refuse to work the federal scheme. The viceroy had a more realistic appreciation of the Muslim League’s predicament. He was confident that Jinnah and his associates would accept the federation if it was ‘imposed on them’ and did ‘not expect any serious trouble’ from the League.22 As the war approached, though, Linlithgow executed a swift volte-face. Given his desire either to secure the Congress’s unconditional co-operation or to cut it down to size, the viceroy turned to Jinnah and the Muslim League.

  On 4 September Linlithgow met Jinnah and informed him that the federal provision of the 1935 Act stood suspended until the end of hostilities. Jinnah was doubly delighted. For starters, the viceroy had openly invited him on a par with Gandhi. Indeed, Jinnah was ‘wonderstruck why all of a sudden I was promoted and given a place side by side with Mr. Gandhi’.23 What was more, the government had thrown the Muslim League a vital political lifeline. For the suspension of the federation gave Jinnah another opportunity to return to the high table of politics.

  The Congress resolution of 14 September allowed Jinnah to make his first moves. Four days later, the Muslim League adopted its own resolution asking the British government to abandon the federation and ‘to review and revise the entire problem of India’s future constitution de novo’. It also sought a guarantee that no plan of constitutional reform would be decided without the League’s approval. Condemning Nazi aggression, the resolution stated that to secure the co-operation of Muslims the government must ensure justice was done to them.

  This slotted in smoothly with the viceroy’s desire to undercut the Congress’s claims to speak for all of India.24 Meeting Jinnah, Linlithgow generously acknowledged his ‘very valuable help by standing firm against Congress claims’. Had Jinnah ‘supported the Congress in their demand for a declaration and confronted me with a joint demand, the strain upon me and upon His Majesty’s Government would have been very great indeed.’25 Jinnah, in turn, thanked the viceroy ‘with much graciousness for what I [Linlithgow] had done to assist him keep his party together and expressed gratitude for this’.26

  Meanwhile, the viceroy had also managed to secure the co-operation of the key Muslim-majority provinces: Punjab, which was the principal reservoir for recruitment to the Indian army; and Bengal, which housed a significant chunk of Indian industry. Neither of these provinces was under Jinnah’s thumb. In fact, the League’s resolution had been carefully worded to avoid a breach with those who wanted to support the war effort. Fazlul Haq, the premier of Bengal, wrote to Linlithgow that the Congress’s stance was ‘absolutely unjustified and baseless’.27 The premier of Punjab, Sikandar Hayat Khan, assured the viceroy of his total support. He called for a ‘Defence Liaison Group’ composed of Indians, whether or not the Congress was prepared to co-operate.28 His colleague in the Punjab Unionist Party, Chhotu Ram, insisted that the declaration of British war aims ought not to be ‘a prerequisite of our cooperation and support’.29 Subsequently, the Punjab Legislative Assembly adopted a resolution tabled by the Unionist Party offering unconditional support to Britain.

  The viceroy’s confabulations with this diverse array of Indian leaders not only bo
lstered his position against the Congress but also shaped the decision-making in London. In his exchanges with Whitehall, Linlithgow firmly argued against caving in to any demand from the Congress. ‘Nothing could be more foolish’, he insisted, than ‘to commit ourselves to a series of objectives which may at the moment appear reasonable, but which might as the war goes on call for very substantial revision.’30 The furthest he was willing to go was to involve ‘non-official’ Indian leaders in a defence liaison committee with consultative functions.

  The viceroy’s views were considered by the war cabinet in London over three sittings. The first meeting, on 27 September, set the tone for all that followed. The cabinet stoutly opposed the viceroy’s modest proposal. Providing war-related information to Indians and securing advice from them ‘opened up dangerous possibilities’. In particular, ‘it would be fatal to allow the Congress Party … to have a majority on the new body’. Instead of bringing in politicians, it may be more useful to have several advisory panels comprising industrialists and provincial notables. Such an arrangement would have the ‘advantage of preventing too much attention from being directed to questions of Defence’ – an area of policy that was and should remain exclusively under British control. As far as constitutional changes were concerned, the cabinet agreed that it was ‘undesirable’ to make any commitment. It was pointed out that ‘it seemed unlikely that for many years there would be any diminution of the feud between Hindus and Moslems’. This, of itself, would be enough to prevent ‘a sufficient basis of agreement’.31

  This last observation was evidently made by the first lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill. Churchill’s views on India and the beneficence of British rule were formed during his ten-month stint in the country as a subaltern in 1896, and they remained unchanged for the rest of his life. So strong were his feelings about India that, for much the 1930s, Churchill chained himself to the Conservative backbenches owing to his opposition to any political reform in India. An after-dinner joke of his was that Gandhi should be bound hand and foot at the gates of Delhi and trampled on by a huge elephant ridden by the viceroy.32 In the war cabinet, though, Churchill was not wholly inflexible. It was at his suggestion that the idea of an advisory committee was conceded to India. Yet on matters of constitutional and political import, he would give no ground.

  Churchill’s advocacy in the cabinet at once drew support from and strengthened Linlithgow’s stance. Zetland was anxious not to adopt so rigid a stance as to result in a complete break with the Congress. This, he told the cabinet, would lead to a ‘difficult situation’. If the Congress ministries resigned, the provincial governors would ‘face grave problems’ in maintaining order. Churchill and Linlithgow demurred. The viceroy agreed with governors such as Erskine of Madras, who held that ‘we should not enter into any bargain, for if Congress do go out it will be their funeral not ours’.33

  The officials’ intransigence towards the Congress was reinforced by a resolution of the All-India Congress Committee, adopted on 10 October. This resolution incorporated the previous one of 14 September and added that ‘India must be declared an independent nation and present application must be given to their status to the largest extent possible.’34 The qualifier at the end underlined the Congress’s desire to leave ajar the door to co-operation. But New Delhi and London used the main demand to shut it in the party’s face.

  On 17 October 1939, the viceroy issued his long-awaited statement. Stressing differences among the Indian political parties, Linlithgow claimed that no precise definition of war aims – apart from resisting aggression – was possible. On India’s future, he merely recited a litany of old promises. Significantly, he stressed that the terms of future constitutional advance would take into account the minorities’ views and interests. It was ‘unthinkable’ to proceed without taking counsel of ‘representatives of all parties and all interests’. The only concession held out by the viceroy was the establishment of a ‘consultative group’ for ‘association of public opinion in India with the conduct of the war and with questions relating to war activities’.35

  The Congress’s response was predictably harsh. ‘The Congress asked for bread’, said Gandhi, ‘and it has got a stone.’ Nehru scathingly called the viceroy’s statement ‘a complete repudiation of all that India stands for nationally and internationally … it has absolutely no relation to reality’.36 Rajagopalachari, the champion of full co-operation, felt that an excellent opportunity had been simply thrown away. Bose, on the other hand, claimed that it was the strongest vindication of his stance of opposition to the war effort.37 On 22 October, the Congress Working Committee adopted a resolution condemning the viceregal statement as ‘an unequivocal reiteration of the old imperialistic policy’. In these circumstances, the Congress could not possibly give any support to Britain. The resolution called on all Congress ministries to tender their resignations. At the same time, it cautioned Congressmen against taking ‘any hasty action in the shape of civil disobedience, political strikes and the like’.38

  The warning against precipitate popular action stemmed from the Working Committee’s concerns about radicals in their own camp. Gandhi insisted that there was ‘no question of civil disobedience for there is no atmosphere for it’.39 But this claim was contested from several quarters within the baggy organization of the Congress.

  Furthest to the left were the members of the Communist Party of India (CPI). The CPI, noted the Intelligence Bureau in late 1939, ‘has no more than a few hundred members. But its influence is to be measured not so much by its size as by its ability to guide other groups and organizations.’40 This was certainly true of the party’s objectives over the previous four years. The Comintern’s decision in mid-1935 to form anti-fascist popular fronts had dramatically changed the context for communist parties all over the world. As usual, it was left to the Communist Party of Great Britain to explain the new ‘line’ to their Indian comrades. A note prepared by Ben Bradley and Rajni Palme Dutt of the mother party – and ferried to India by the young historian Victor Kiernan – advocated a united front in the struggle for national independence under the Congress’s umbrella.41

  Following Stalin’s pact with Hitler in August 1939, the CPI was ordered to re-calibrate its stance. The party’s initial statement urged the Congress to show the lead by resigning from the ministries and commencing mass action. ‘A mass struggle at such a time’, noted the party’s organ, ‘cannot but open up new possibilities for us to win the final battle for independence.’42 The CPI also circulated secret, ‘prolix instructions’, calling on its cells and front organizations to mix anti-war propaganda with demands for a 25 per cent increase in wages for labour and for remission of rent for the peasantry.43 In these circumstances, the Congress leadership was anxious not to allow the radicals to bring matters to the boil. They need not have worried much. The radicals’ inability to pull together considerably curbed their clout.

  Some of their differences were ideological – as for instance between the CPI and the League of Radical Congressmen led by the maverick Marxist, sometime international revolutionary and founder of the Mexican Communist Party, M. N. Roy.44 As opposed to the CPI’s new ‘imperialist war’ line, Roy persisted with an anti-fascist stance. ‘So long as the war is against Hitlerism’, he wrote, ‘no matter whatever may be the motive of British Imperialism, we cannot have any objection to India participating in it. Indeed, it is the duty of all socialists and communists to help such a war.’45 Naturally this did not go down well with the CPI.

  Ideological conflicts were overlaid with past political ones. Only a few months before, the CPI had attacked Roy’s call for alternative leadership in the Congress as ‘ultra-leftist antics’ and ‘Inverted Rightism’. Roy initially agreed to work with the Forward Bloc, but later criticized Bose for his ‘opportunism’. And the CPI condemned Bose for his ‘blind negative anti-Rightism’.46 Although the onset of war helped paper over some of these cracks, the splintered radical groups were unable to mount a se
rious challenge to the Congress’s policy. Worse, the changing course of the war would compel the radicals to make major departures from their original positions.

  As the Congress ministries prepared to step down, Lord Zetland drew the cabinet’s attention to the unfavourable impression this would cause in neutral countries, especially the United States, as well as the propaganda opportunity it would create for Britain’s enemies. To limit the damage, the cabinet clutched at a proposal floated by Sir Zafrullah Khan – law member of the viceroy’s Executive Council – suggesting an increase in Indian representation on the Council. Zafrullah had argued that the three key portfolios of finance, home affairs and defence should be held by Indians who had significant experience of government service.47

  The prime minister was sympathetic to the idea. Neville Chamberlain felt that it was quite natural for Indians to play a part in a war into which their country had been pulled without choice. A refusal to concede this desire might touch off a bitter conflict. He was clear, however, that the defence portfolio should remain with the commander-in-chief of India. While most cabinet members were open to this idea, Churchill was forceful in his opposition. He considered the proposal ‘dangerous’ because it might spur the Congress to demand more. Yet he was open to considering it – if the viceroy’s supremacy remained unimpaired, if there were no dilution of British control over military and strategic matters, and if the British Parliament refrained for the duration of the war from making any changes to the constitutional position of India. The cabinet felt that the prime minister’s suggestion met these criteria and decided to authorize the viceroy to commence negotiations. They soon realized, however, that neither the Congress nor the Muslim League was interested in such a proposal.48