‘The Quit India Movement of 1942 was a decisive phase in India’s struggle for independence, rooted in the circumstances of the second world war, colonial policies and the growing strength …

Background in the war. The fall of Singapore in February 1942 and the Japanese occupation of Burma brought the war to India's frontier. The British evacuation of Indian subjects from Burma, and the scorched-earth denial policy in Bengal, destroyed confidence that Britain could or would defend India.

Background in colonial policy. India had been declared a belligerent in 1939 without consulting a single Indian, prompting the resignation of Congress ministries. The Cripps Mission of March-April 1942 offered dominion status after the war with a right of provincial non-accession, which Gandhi called a post-dated cheque. Its failure removed the last constitutional route.

Background in nationalism. Two decades of mass mobilisation had built a movement no longer willing to bargain, and the Congress passed the Quit India resolution at Bombay on 8 August 1942, with Gandhi's instruction to Do or Die.

The phases. The government arrested the entire leadership before dawn on 9 August, which removed all restraint. The first phase was urban — strikes, hartals, student action. The second was violent and rural, concentrated in Bihar, eastern United Provinces, Bengal and Bombay, attacking railways, telegraphs and police stations. The third was underground and organised, led by Jayaprakash Narayan, Ram Manohar Lohia and Aruna Asaf Ali, with Usha Mehta running the Congress Radio. Parallel governments were established at Ballia under Chittu Pandey, at Tamluk as the Tamralipta Jatiya Sarkar, and at Satara as the Prati Sarkar under Nana Patil, the last surviving until 1945.

Repression and abstention. Around 90,000 arrests were made, aircraft were used against crowds, and official figures put the dead above a thousand. The Muslim League, the Communists on the People's War line, the Hindu Mahasabha and the princes stayed out, and the League gained ground in the Congress's absence.

Assessment. It was suppressed within months and won no immediate concession. It was nevertheless decisive: it proved the Raj could hold India only by force, it created the political generation that governed after 1947, and, taken with the INA trials and the naval mutiny of 1946, it convinced Britain that the administrative machine could no longer be relied upon.