The Home Department of Linlithgow’s Government forwarded the entire CWC proceedings (in the form of a report) to the secretary of state in London, cautioning that Gandhiji ‘was in a desperate mood’. The report also warned: ‘We hear a good deal of fifth column activities in Burma…and it looks as if we must be prepared for similar behaviour by the Hindu population in this country.’ Nehru’s statement that Gandhiji believed that Japan and Germany would win came in particularly handy for British propaganda in the USA. The following points were then suggested for widespread dissemination, with the claim that each of them could be proved on the basis of the evidence available:
(1) The long-term object of the Congress is to establish a permanent Congress–Hindu bourgeois domination in India.
(2) The cause of the Congress hostility to us [British] is because of our effort to ensure fair play for all.
(3) The Congress Party’s hostility to the Allied cause is to obtain their long-term objective through Japan’s victory, if it cannot be obtained from Britain.
(4) The Cripps proposals were rejected because they did not give control [to the Congress Party] over defence or power to make independent terms with Japan.
The report also advises: ‘Attack Gandhi’s policy, but not Gandhi himself; emphasize prejudice to American war effort and American troops that would result from Gandhi’s plan and dispel suggestions in American quarters that the agitation would compel HMG to make political concessions.’7
The British Intelligence Department did not accord much credibility to Nehru’s pro-Allied efforts in the committee: ‘The final draft as published may fairly be regarded as [Nehru] merely disguising what Gandhi wishes to proclaim openly.’ Pilditch put forth another explanation for Nehru’s pro-Allied stance: ‘Nehru suffered from a confusion of impulses in which now the anti-British, now the anti-Japanese prevailed; he was at that time presumably under the influence of the anti-Japanese impulse.’8
At the beginning of the war in 1939, Nehru had opposed joining Britain (in the war) for reasons explained in an earlier chapter. By 1942, however, his views had stabilized on the premise that opposition to British rule in India did not mean opposition to the Allies’ struggle against the Axis’ aggressors. The German attack on the Soviet Union had helped. Even more did China’s plight after the Japanese assault. In 1939 he had visited China and there met the generalissimo, Chiang Kai-shek, and the beautiful and articulate Madame Chiang, with whom he began a correspondence. In February 1942, Madame Chiang visited India with her husband and pleaded her country’s cause with Nehru, pronouncing him as ‘a man of world vision’. And, after the failure of the Cripps Mission, she took up India’s cause with President Roosevelt wiring him directly, on 23 April 1942, that ‘British newspapers conveying that Cripps did not fail but prepared ground for better Indo–British relations in the future, according to Nehru, was untrue’.9 In 1940, Nehru had spoken in favour of a confederation made up of China, Iran, Afghanistan and India. He never lost faith in Asian solidarity, based on a Sino–Indian rapport, till China attacked India in October 1962.
Nehru’s pro-Allied attitude at that point of time was also influenced by Colonel Louis Johnson, who became a conduit between him and the American administration. For example, on Johnson’s advice, Nehru, on 13 April 1942, wired the US president to explain the reasons for the Congress’s rejection of the Cripps offer:
We desired an opportunity to be given to us to organize a real national and popular resistance to the aggressor and invader…the least we considered essential was the formation of a truly national government.… Still we shall do our utmost not to submit to Japanese or any other aggressor’s invasion.10
He received a prompt reply that expressed the president’s ‘deep gratification at the message and confidence that all of the people of India will make every possible effective effort to resist Japanese aggression’. It should be remembered that Roosevelt had burnt his fingers in attempting to persuade Churchill to grant self-government to India, and, consequently, on the substance of the message, he kept silent.11
London did not totally accept Linlithgow’s view that there was absolutely nothing to be done with Nehru. On his return to London after his failed mission, Cripps told Churchill that before his departure from Delhi, Nehru had assured him that: ‘We are not going to surrender to the invader. In spite of what has happened we are not going to embarrass the British war effort in India. The problem for us is how to organize our own.’12 Mid-1942 was the worst time for the British in the war. Could they hope for Nehru’s support and, in any case, by contacting him, find out how far Gandhiji intended to go with his ‘rebellion’?
Sir Edward Villiers had been a member of the Bengal Legislative Council, president of the European Association of India and vice-chairman of the British Union of India in the 1920s and 1930s and had spent twenty-four years in India. In 1942 he was working for the Ministry of Information in London. He travelled to Wardha (now in Maharashtra), where Gandhiji’s ashram was situated and where Jawaharlal Nehru was then staying. On 5 July he held a fairly long discussion with Nehru, broken by a gap, during which the latter went to meet Gandhiji. In a detailed report on his talk with Nehru, Villiers began as follows: ‘The interview took five hours owing to Nehru’s habit of taking half an hour to answer every point made or question asked.… His [Nehru’s] political attitude, where it is not merely a reflex of Gandhi’s, is very largely conditioned by his vision of the Great Imperial India of the past. He told me that he thought there were only four countries which held any great future: America, Russia, China and India. He was certain that England at all events was finished.’13
When Villiers raised the Cripps Mission proposals, Nehru replied that, under the suggested formula, there was no certainty that Britain would withdraw from India after the war in view of their ‘repeated broken promises as regards to India’s future self-government’ and accused England ‘of deliberately driving a wedge between Hindus and the Muslims’. This statement gave Villiers the opportunity to drive home his central point:
If the Congress [Party] was prepared without reservations or conditions so far as India and her problems were concerned, to enter the war whole-heartedly on the side of the Allies…she should so place herself in the eyes of the British and American people that even if our [British] Government wanted to go back on its expressed intentions [to grant self-government to India at the end of the war] it would be absolutely impossible for it to do so. Moreover, he [Nehru] himself would be proclaimed and in fact would be a great leader.14
Villiers records that Nehru appeared to waver: ‘He is not altogether happy about the effect which the Congress Party attitude was having on the American and Russian opinion, but eventually his intervening visit to Gandhi had knocked off the wavering out of him.’15
When Villiers finally asked whether he could see Gandhiji, Nehru replied that the old man was feeling too tired. Nevertheless, Villiers reported on the possibility of the Congressmen revolting as follows: ‘They were unlikely to start an agitation because they were hoping for some further move to be made by England which will enable them to encroach a little further.’ He recommended ‘a stony silence’ as the best policy in the circumstances. Villiers concluded his memorandum as follows: ‘I got the feeling more and more as the conversation proceeded that he [Nehru] was thinking resentfully of India’s great past and dreaming more and more of a future India which should take her place in the world as one of the four great coming powers. He referred to this four or five times. If this supposition is correct I imagine he is likely to become more and more intransigent.’16
Villiers’ memorandum is filed along with Sir Stafford Cripps’ private papers. Whether it was sent to him by his Tory cabinet colleagues to stop his own wavering, or whether he was part of the exercise, one cannot say. However, Villiers’ assessment provided yet another piece of evidence to the supporters of the Muslim League in England, for instance, Churchill, that the hope that a united self-governing India led
by the Congress Party would cooperate with Britain on foreign policy and defence policy was nothing but a mirage. Indeed, an independent India under Nehru and company might turn out to be a hostile force.
Gandhiji’s views, as we have already seen, had become strident after the failure of the Cripps Mission. From 10 May 1942 onwards, writing in his newspaper, Harijan, he started to sound the alarm against the partition of India (‘I consider the vivisection of India to be a sin’)17 and to propound the view that ‘the British presence in India was an invitation to Japan and their withdrawal will remove the bait’. On 26 May he exclaimed: ‘Hitherto [the British] rulers have said we would gladly retire after we know to whom we should hand over; my answer is leave India to God. If that is too much then leave her to anarchy.’18 The upshot of his writings and speeches and the fact that he had complete control over the Congress Party apparatus led to a rapid drift towards a confrontation with Britain. The party’s dependence on Gandhiji rested on the masses’ blind faith in him that had nothing to do with their understanding of, or support for, his day-to-day strategies.19
On 14 July 1942, the Congress Party Working Committee passed a resolution, the pith of which was that the British should withdraw and a provisional government formed, consisting of representatives of all sections of the people of India who would then discuss future relations between Britain and India ‘as allies in a common task of meeting aggression’. But in the event of the British rejecting this resolution, ‘the Congress would be reluctantly compelled to utilize all its accumulated non-violent strength in [a] widespread struggle under the leadership of Gandhiji.’20 The resolution gave Britain time till 7 August to take a decision on this matter, when the All-India Congress Committee would meet to discuss the CWC resolution.
While all these momentous and historic events were taking place, Mohammad Ali Jinnah sat peacefully in his Bombay home, content to issue a statement on the Congress resolution of 14 July: ‘It was the culminating point in the policy and programme of Mr Gandhi and his Hindu Congress of blackmailing the British.’ Jinnah then demanded ‘an immediate declaration from the British Government guaranteeing to the Muslims the right of self-determination and a pledge that they will abide by the verdict of a plebiscite of Muslims and give effect to the Pakistan scheme’.21 He was preparing the ground to coordinate his policies with Britain on the probable launching of mass agitation by the Congress soon.
George R. Merrell, in charge of the American Mission in Delhi, in his report to Washington on 14 July, analysed the Congress resolution as follows: ‘While it asks for complete transfer of power, it is replete with conciliatory passages and gestures [and proposes the convening of] a Constituent Assembly acceptable to all sections of the people [including the Muslim League].’ However, he added: ‘The Congress demand [for the immediate transfer of power] as contained in the resolution is unrealistic in the middle of the war.’ The American diplomat’s report continued: ‘In a statement to the press Gandhi said “there is no room left for negotiations”. I interpret this as pure bombast and I am convinced Congress would accept compromise.… Nehru is passing through Delhi Thursday and the first secretary in the American Mission is dining with him that evening after which a further report will be submitted.’22 On Jinnah’s statement, Merrell, in his report of 17 July, stated: ‘Gandhi is correct that Jinnah has not disclosed the implications of Pakistan nor made attempt to negotiate with Congress’ and ‘Jinnah knows that many of his followers are uncertain about Pakistan’.23
HMG’s assessment was, however, somewhat different. Its reaction to the above resolution was rigid and uncompromising. Leopold Amery, in the House of Commons, and Sir Stafford Cripps, in a broadcast to the American people, made it clear that the government would not flinch from taking every possible step to meet the Congress Party’s challenge, which decision was also officially conveyed by Clement Attlee to President Roosevelt, as stated in an earlier chapter.
It was on 8 August 1942, in Bombay, that the Congress Party in a full meeting of its Working Committee passed the famous Quit India resolution calling for a mass non-violent agitation and also for mass non-cooperation on the widest possible scale to force Britain to quit India immediately. Mahatma Gandhi’s address was impassioned and uncharacteristically bellicose. He declared:
Freedom immediately, this very night, before dawn if it can be had.… Congress must win freedom or be wiped out in the attempt. Here is a mantra, a short one that I give you – “Do or Die”. We shall not live to see the perpetuation of our slavery.24
The British were fully prepared to meet the situation on the two fronts that they had to cover: the internal – Indian – and the external – American. On the Indian front, the British were so very ready and confident that Amery pushed the green light button by telegraphing Linlithgow the following ditty:
Twice armed is he that has his quarrel just.
But thrice armed is he who gets his blow in first.25
With the prompt arrest of the Mahatma and the other members of the Working Committee (except Rajagopalachari), the plans of Gandhiji’s non-violent struggle against the government were never carried out. Instead, the movement fell into the hands of the revolutionaries, the opponents of Gandhiji’s non-violent methods. The outburst of violence and sabotage, which took the revolutionaries a few weeks to organize, was directed principally against communications and transport. This outburst resulted in the destruction of 250 railway stations and almost an equal number of post offices and police stations. Also, large sections of railway lines and telephone and telegraph wires were ripped away. The railway tracks and the telegraph and telephone systems through Bihar were damaged to such an extent that the communications and war supplies to the eastern front were totally cut off for a little while. It took fifty-seven battalions and severe repressive measures, such as the machine-gunning of mobs from aircraft to restore order. Some 60,000 persons were held and about a thousand killed. Even though the uprising was mostly confined to the Gangetic valley, with its epicentre in Bihar, Linlithgow judged it to be the most serious revolt against British rule since the Great Mutiny of 1857. The British moved fast and managed to break the backbone of the revolt by November 1942.
The Quit India crisis unfolded at a critical moment for Britain in the war. Earlier in the year, they had been beaten in East Asia with nearly a hundred thousand of their troops captured by Japan, whose forces, having achieved total mastery over the Bay of Bengal, were now poised to attack India from Burma. Then in June, in North Africa, Tobruk fell and 33,000 British troops were captured, thereby exposing Egypt to General Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Corps. In Europe the German panzers were tearing deep into Soviet land, swiftly approaching the gates of the oilfields of the Caucasus. Would the Japanese, after crossing India, join up with the Germans somewhere in the Middle East? Churchill and the American generals were at loggerheads on whether to launch an offensive across the Channel into France in order to relieve the Soviet Union or to first land forces in North Africa to counter General Rommel, thereby providing relief to the British in the Middle East. ‘During this month of July (1942)’, wrote Churchill in his memoirs, ‘I was politically at my weakest and without a glean of military success.’ Indeed, on the day the Quit India movement was launched in India, the British prime minister was in Cairo, shuffling the commanders. He replaced General Claude Auchinleck with General Harold Alexander as commander-in-chief in the Middle East and Neil Ritchie with Bernard Montgomery as commander of the 8th Army then stationed in the African desert.
Consequently, it was not unnatural for the British Government and the British public to react to Gandhiji’s and the Indian Congress Party’s move with not only exasperation but also anger. They considered this move as a stab in the back at the moment of their direst peril. In fact, the British civil servants in India and Churchill’s friends in England attributed the worst possible motives to Gandhiji’s intentions. Even those individuals other than the India baiters in England were aghast at Gandhiji’s move.
The Daily Herald of London, the official mouthpiece of the British Labour Party, had come out with an editorial after the Congress had taken the decision to launch the movement that succinctly summarized the feelings of the anti-Tory lobby in England:
If you persist in demands which are at this moment impossible to grant, you will cripple your cause and humble the influence of us who are your proud and faithful advocates. You will do worse, you will convey to the world the impression that India’s leaders are incapable of distinguishing between the ideal of the United Nations and the petty standards of nationalism, that you rate political strategy higher than the prospect of liberty, equality and fraternity with the progressive peoples of the world.26
Admittedly, the slogan ‘Quit India’ was catchy and mobilized public opinion on a large scale against British rule. Even children in the streets yelled ‘Quit India’ at passing Englishmen. Such spontaneous reactions contributed to the general mood that freedom was round the corner. However, by and large, the movement proved counterproductive. The relative speed with which the Quit India movement was suppressed tilted world opinion towards the British view that the Congress Party’s hold on the Indian masses perhaps was not as formidable as had been believed. Such a development boosted British support for Jinnah and the Muslim League and enhanced faith in Linlithgow for having had the sagacity to forge the Anglo–Muslim League alliance in advance. And later, with the failure of Japan to invade India and close the supply channel to China, the prevailing situation made Roosevelt all the more disinclined to press Britain to grant independence to India at that point of time.
If the Quit India movement was not very effective, it did not remain non-violent for long, thus losing the Gandhian ‘high ground’; it contradicted the whole Gandhian approach since 1915, which had been to woo the British public to put the Raj authorities on the defensive. Indeed, with Japan knocking at India’s door, the War Cabinet in Britain and the viceroy in Delhi would face no opposition from public opinion in England and have no scruples in ruthlessly suppressing any agitation in India. It was a foolish and inopportune challenge to the British, for all the organized and armed forces were on the other side, as Nehru was to write later. But, at that time, he deferred to Gandhiji, against his better judgement, as he did on many other occasions.
The Shadow of the Great Game Page 14
