To sum up: After losing Singapore to Japan, Churchill came under pressure from Roosevelt to seek Gandhiji’s and Nehru’s help to defend India. Churchill deflected this pressure by making an offer that appeared to concede self-government to the Indians, but, by insisting on the ‘provincial option’, turned the course in Pakistan’s direction. If the forging of the Linlithgow–Jinnah alliance in 1940 was the first step that opened the way for the creation of Pakistan, Churchill’s putting forward the idea of the ‘provincial option’ in 1942, was the second step towards this goal.
On the other hand, if the Congress Party leaders had used the Cripps proposal to get into the seats of power in the provinces and the Centre, there was a reasonable chance that they could have turned the tables on Churchill. If the first grave error the Congress Party committed at the end game of Empire was to resign from provincial ministries in 1939, which left the field open for Jinnah, its second was to spurn the Cripps offer.
Notes and References
1. Winston Churchill, Memories of the Second World War, Vol. 6, War Comes to America (Cassel & Co., London, 1950, pp. 209–10).
2. Ibid., p. 188.
3. Ibid., pp. 286–87.
4. Ibid., p. 188.
5. Transfer of power (TOP), Vol. I, S. No. 43, p. 82.
6. War Cabinet Paper, 42/43, pp. 104–05, viceroy to secretary of state, quoted in TOP, Vol. I, S. No. 60, Para 10.
7. TOP, Vol. I, S. No. 60.
8. Churchill on Cripps, cited in Charles McMoran Wilson (aka Lord Moran), Winston Churchill – The Struggle for Survival (Constable, London, 1966, p. 74).
9. For text of Cripps’ offer, see V.P. Menon, Transfer of Power in India (Longman Green, London, 1957, p. 124).
10. TOP, Vol. I, S. No. 163, 21 February 1942.
11. Ibid., S. No. 185.
12. Ibid., S. No. 191.
13. V.P. Menon, op. cit., pp. 437–38.
14. TOP, Vol. I, S. No. 296.
15. War Cabinet Papers, WP (42) 283, L/P&J/8/510, 6 July 1942. Memorandum by Cripps, para on negotiation with Muslim League, pp. 407–16.
16. V.P. Menon, op. cit., p. 138.
17. US FR 1942, Vol. 1, pp. 604–05.
18. Ibid., p. 604.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid., pp. 602–04. Memorandum by the assistant secretary of state (Adolf A. Berle), dated 17 February 1942.
21. Ibid., p. 607, assistant secretary of state, Breckinridge Long’s note.
22. TOP, Vol. I, S. No. 318.
23. Christopher Ogden, Life of the Party: The Biography of Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman (Little Brown and Co., London, 1994, pp. 122–23).
24. US FR, 1942, Vol. 1, Harriman to Roosevelt, p. 608.
25. Winston Churchill, Memories of the Second World War, Vol. 10, Assault from the Air (Cassel & Co., London, 1950, p. 54).
26. TOP, Vol. I, S. No. 207, Churchill to Roosevelt, telegram dated 4 March 1942.
27. Ibid., enclosure to above.
28. Ibid., S. No. 271, Churchill to Roosevelt, telegram dated 7 March 1942.
29. Ibid., enclosure to above.
30. US FR, 1942, Vol. 1, pp. 615–16, Roosevelt to Churchill, telegram dated 10 March 1942.
31. Ibid., pp. 601–02, US State Department memo, dated 5 February 1942.
32. Ibid., p. 624. Merrell’s telegram to secretary of state, dated 2 April 1942.
33. TOP, Vol. I, S. No. 508, Bajpai’s telegram to viceroy, dated 2 April 1942.
34. H. V. Hodson, The Great Divide: Britain-India-Pakistan (Oxford University Press edition, Delhi, 2000, p. 94).
35. TOP, Vol. I, S. No. 582, Churchill to Cripps, telegram dated 10 April 1942.
36. Ibid., S. No. 605, Resolution of Congress Working Committee issued 11 April 1942.
37. Ibid., S. No. 673 and MSS/EUR/F 125/77, governor of NWFP’s letter to viceroy, dated 23 April 1942.
38. Hodson, op. cit., p. 103.
39. TOP, Vol. I, S. No. 610, MSS EUR 125–11, 11 April 1942.
40. Patrick French, Liberty or Death: India’s Journey to Independence and Division (HarperCollins, London, 1995, p. 148).
41. US FR 1942, Vol. I, p. 632, Churchill to Roosevelt, telegram dated 11 April 1942.
42. Ibid., p. 633, Roosevelt to Churchill, telegram via Harry Hopkins (personal aide to Roosevelt), dated 11 April 1942.
43. Ibid., p. 634, Churchill to Roosevelt, telegram dated 12 April 1942.
44. Ibid., p. 629, Johnson’s telegram to secretary of state, dated 4 April 1942.
45. Ibid., p. 631, Johnson’s telegram, dated 11 April 1942.
46. Ibid., pp. 630–32, Johnson’s telegrams to secretary of state from 13 April to 4 May 1942.
47. Edgar Snow, Journey to the Beginning (Random House, New York, 1958, p. 54).
48. TOP, Vol. II, S. No. 61, notes by Spry on interview with Roosevelt, 15 May 1942.
49. US FR 1942, Vol. I, memo of conversation of adviser on political relations in the US State Department (Wallace Murray) with Bajpai, 24 April 1942.
50. British Embassy in Washington, ‘Appreciation on US Attitude towards India’, Paras 33–41 [Oriental and Indian Collection (OIC), British Library, London].
5
The Mahatma’s Fury
BY INTRODUCING THE IDEA OF THE ‘PROVINCIAL OPTION’, CHURCHILL had marked out the constitutional path by which the Muslims and the princely states could achieve self-determination and separation from an Indian Union, if and when Britain withdrew from the subcontinent. As he himself put it, this path ‘laid the foundation for the future progress of the peoples of India’.
After failing to persuade the Congress Party leaders to unconditionally support Britain in the war, Gandhiji had given his word to the viceroy on 5 October 1939 that he would try to ensure that they did not obstruct the British war effort in India in any tangible way. And he believed that by persuading the party to adopt a generally passive role, even at the risk of weakening it, he had lived up to his promise all through 1940 and 1941. Admittedly, the Congress Party Governments had resigned from the provincial ministries in British provinces and the party had continued to pass resolutions demanding instant independence and to raise slogans against violence and war, which had landed quite a few of the leaders in prison. However, India, by and large, had remained calm during this period, while Britain built up its war strength in the country.* On the other hand, Gandhiji had now begun to feel that his supposed partner, the British viceroy, had betrayed him and used this period of relative peace to build up the separatist Jinnah against other Muslim leaders who favoured a united India and had indeed forged an alliance with the Muslim League Party. If the British declaration of 8 August 1940, giving veto powers to the minorities on future constitutional developments, had dealt a heavy blow, the Cripps proposal, by sowing the seeds of partition, was the proverbial last straw. Gandhiji, therefore, felt that he had to rethink his approach.
It was another matter that Linlithgow saw it all somewhat differently. The Congress Party’s resignations from provincial ministries seemed to him a definite instance of its non-cooperation with the war effort, even if its other provocations were to be ignored. And since he felt quite confident of smashing any agitation that the Congress Party might launch, its supposed restraint in the domain was nothing to be grateful for. Then, if Gandhiji had indeed been serious about unconditional support to Britain in the war, how could he, a few months later, oppose the same war on the ground that it violated his principle of non-violence? Furthermore, as he had reported to Lord Zetland, Jinnah was dependent on him, and therefore, anyway, a better bet.
Before considering Gandhiji’s new approach, let us cast a glance at the activities of the ex-president of the Congress Party, Subhash Chandra Bose. Bose today is seen as one leader of the Indian freedom movement who dared to fight the British with the sword and was not implicated in the creation of Pakistan. One fine January morning in 1941, Bose, who had been confined by the British authorities to his home in Calcutta, disappeared, to their
great consternation. After he broke with the Congress Party and raised the slogan ‘Britain’s difficulty is India’s opportunity’, and formed his own group, the Forward Bloc, disavowing Gandhian non-violence and pacifism, he had first been imprisoned and then kept under close police surveillance. While in prison, his popularity had steadily risen, especially amongst the urban youth of all communities. For example, the Muslim students of Calcutta University threatened to launch an agitation for his release. Linlithgow, while reporting this event to Amery on 20 July 1940, warned that both the chief minister of Bengal, Fazal-ul-Haq, and his opponent, Nazim-ud-din, the two top Muslim leaders of Bengal, were vying for Bose’s support, no doubt to Jinnah’s discomfiture and the viceroy’s own.1
After a while Bose surfaced in Berlin. This sent a thrill through the country, not because of any sympathy for Nazi Germany but because Bose was seen to have delivered a slap on the British face. By 1942, Bose’s flight had turned into the stuff of which legends are made, and the reasons were not far to seek. ‘Without actually being on the ground here it is difficult if not impossible to appreciate how distrust and hatred of the British have developed even during past three months’, wrote the chargé d’affaires of the American Mission in New Delhi to the secretary of state in Washington on 21 July 1942.2
Bose had escaped from Calcutta to Peshawar by train, disguised as a Muslim gentleman. And then he crossed into Afghanistan through unused mountain tracks. Once in Kabul, dressed like an Afghan, he headed for the Italian Embassy, likely to be less rigorously watched by British Intelligence than the German Embassy. The Italian ambassador, Alberto Quaroni (according to the account of the ambassador’s son) treated him somewhat like a hot potato and passed him on to his German counterpart, who then made all the arrangements for Bose’s onward journey. From Kabul he was sent to Berlin through the USSR, which was then still at peace with Germany, as Stalin waited for Hitler to pounce upon Britain, and Churchill marked time for Hitler to attack the Soviet Union.
Ambassador Quaroni had been wisely cautious, for when Bose, after reaching Europe, travelled to Rome to see Benito Mussolini, Count Galaezzo Ciano, the Italian foreign minister, noted in his diary: ‘The value of the upstart is not clear.’3 In Hitler’s race-conscious Germany, Bose was used, not honoured. His demand for a ‘free Indian government’ was rejected; instead, he was allowed to start a ‘Free India Centre’, from where he could beam anti-British propaganda to India over the German radio. The salutation ‘Jai Hind’ – victory to India – that he originated and broadcast from Berlin, and which remains a common greeting amongst Indians to this day, was perhaps his most tangible contribution to India’s cause from Germany. Even so, Gandhiji was worried about Bose’s activities.4 According to a British Intelligence report, Gandhiji told Congress workers at a private gathering in Bombay: ‘I have an idea that the Forward Bloc is a tremendous organization in India, Subhash has risked much for us but if he means to set up a government in India then he will have to be resisted.’5
Hitler had no faith in the Indians’ capacity to rule themselves. The Fuehrer evidently did not want Bose to stay on in Germany longer than necessary. In 1943 Bose was transported by submarine round the Cape of Good Hope and entrusted to the care of Germany’s new ally, Japan, for whatever use that country could make of him. In Southeast Asia, Bose blossomed, and, as we shall see in a later chapter, played an important role in demoralizing the British military establishment in India. Indeed, it is a toss-up whether Gandhiji’s or Bose’s influence during the period 1945–46 – even after Bose’s death – played a more important role in destabilizing British rule in India.
The fresh approach that Gandhiji was evolving and which ultimately crystallized into the Quit India resolution of 8 August 1942 can best be discerned from the draft for a resolution that he sent for adoption to the closed-door session of the Congress Working Committee meeting at Allahabad a fortnight after Sir Stafford Cripps had returned to England. He sent the draft through the secure hands of the faithful Mira-ben (whose original name was Madeleine Slade) but this document, as well as the minutes of the discussion that took place on its contents, fell into the hands of the British Intelligence, courtesy two communist members of the Congress Party. (They are available in the unsealed British archives.) The Indian Communist Party had switched its loyalty from the nationalists to the British after Hitler attacked the Soviet Union in August 1941.
Gandhiji’s points in the draft resolution may be summarized as follows:
(1) The British be asked to clear out forthwith;
(2) if the British could not be persuaded to go, they would have to be thrown out;
(3) once the British were removed India would avoid being invaded because Japan’s quarrel was with Britain and not with India;
(4) if Japan invaded India, it would meet with non-violent resistance; and
(5) the stationing of foreign soldiers, including American, on Indian soil was a grave menace to Indian freedom.
Nehru, according to the minutes of the meeting of the Congress Working Committee, opposed these views:
If we said to Japan that her fight was with British Imperialism and not us she would say: “We are glad the British Army is withdrawn; we recognize your independence, but we want certain facilities now, we shall defend you against aggression, we want aerodromes, freedom to pass our troops through your country, this is necessary in self-defence”…. If Bapu’s* [Gandhiji’s] approach is accepted we become passive partners of the Axis powers.
J.B. Kripalani, a senior Congress leader, objected: ‘Why should it mean passage of armies through India? Just as we call upon the British and the Americans to withdraw their armies so also we ask others to keep out of our frontiers.’ To this objection, Nehru retorted: ‘You can’t stop Japan by non-violent non-cooperation. The Japanese armies will make India a battleground and go to Iraq, Persia and throttle China and make the Russian situation more difficult…. The British will refuse our demand [to quit] for military reasons apart from others. They cannot allow India to be used by Japan against them.… They will treat India as an enemy country and reduce it to dust and ashes, they will do here what they did in Rangoon.’
Dr Rajendra Prasad (who later became the president of independent India) was adamant but ambiguous in his stand: ‘We cannot produce the proper atmosphere [in the country] unless we adopt Bapu’s draft.’ A report by Denys Pilditch, director of the British Intelligence Service, revealed Dr Rajendra Prasad’s real thoughts. In a smaller conclave he had expressed the following view: ‘It would be easier to oust the Japanese from India after ridding themselves of the British, whose imperialism was too deep-rooted.’ Another freedom fighter, Achyut Patwardhan, also supported Gandhiji but for reasons not entirely Gandhian: ‘I would reconsider the position if the Allies could defeat the Axis.’ Acharya Narendra Dera, a senior leader, then chipped in with bravado: ‘We have to make it clear that [the] Japanese threat has not unnerved us.… We can tell the British to go leaving us to our fate.’ Vishvanath Das declared: ‘The protest against the introduction of American soldiers in the country is also proper.’
C. Rajagopalachari opposed Gandhiji’s views: ‘Do not run into the arms of Japan, which is what the resolution comes to.’ Vallabhbhai Patel, who emerged as the most successful and practical statesman in the last two years before independence, was, in 1942, completely subservient to Gandhiji: ‘I place myself in the hands of Gandhiji. I feel he is instinctively right in the lead he gives in all critical situations.’ Others, including the president of the Congress Party, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, differed in varying degrees with Gandhiji’s view, but none had the guts to speak forcefully against it and, in their interventions, often slipped into irrelevancies or began contradicting themselves. For example, Azad said: ‘Gandhiji’s prescription is the only alternative, though I doubt its effectiveness.’ He suggested no alternative. It was at this meeting that Nehru stated: ‘It is Gandhiji’s feeling that Japan and Germany will win. This feeling unconsciously
governs his thinking.’ This statement was picked up by London from the British Intelligence report and quoted to Roosevelt to denounce Gandhiji as ‘a fifth columnist’ or a ‘quisling’.
The minutes of the meeting show that the hotly contested draft containing Gandhiji’s advice was adopted by a majority vote by the Congress Working Committee in the forenoon session. However, the same afternoon, the CWC was reconvened by the president, Maulana Azad, and the draft changed, with the same gentlemen abruptly reversing their stand without discussion. This reversal came about after Nehru threatened that as he was committed to oppose the Axis powers he would have to openly disassociate himself from the resolution if it was not amended. As a result, the following two sentences were expunged from this resolution: ‘Japan’s quarrel is not with India’ and ‘the Committee desires to assure the Japanese Government and people that India bears no enmity with [sic] Japan’. The following text was added in support of Britain’s effort to defend India against a Japanese invasion, but in a compromise formulation rather escapist and shifty:
In places wherein the British and the invading forces are fighting our non-cooperation will be fruitless and unnecessary. Not to put any obstacles in the way of the British forces will often be the only way to demonstrate our non-cooperation with the invader.6
The above record allows us a peep into how those leading the fight for India’s independence were going about their business.
The Shadow of the Great Game Page 13
