Ultimately, at the request of president Azad, a fresh resolution drafted by Nehru was adopted. The resolution deplored the introduction of foreign troops into India and resented the prospect of India turning into a field of battle between foreign armies. But it refrained from demanding the withdrawal of allied troops from India. In the event of fresh aggression taking place, it advised the Indian people "to offer complete non-violent non-co-operation to the invading forces" and claimed that the success of the "policy of non-co-operation and non-violent resistance to the invader" "would largely depend on the working of the constructive programme".(74)
Besides the above resolution, the AICC adopted another resolution opposing the partition of India and rejected Rajagopalachari's resolution. Speaking on Rajagopalachari's resolution, Nehru declared that he could "have no compromise" with the League and wanted "the British Government to assist me in opposing the idea of Pakistan".(75)
Replying to his critics in Harijan of 17 May, Gandhi wrote: "Why do you say that the Japanese have no right to invade your country although it is in foreigners' hands?.... Second, if the Japanese have enmity against your master, they have every right to attack what your master possesses.... The proper course for you is to ask the wrongful possessor to vacate your country."(76) He addressed an open letter "To Every Briton" asking him to join him in his "appeal to the British at this very hour to retire from every Asiatic and African possession and at least from India".(77)
Gandhi's demand for the immediate withdrawal of the Allied forces from India and immediate transfer of power to Indian hands (or to "God or, in modern parlance, anarchy") grew more and more insistent. He declared that though such anarchy might "lead to internecine warfare for a time or to unrestricted dacoities", yet it was preferable to the "ordered anarchy" then prevailing.(78)
At the same time Gandhi developed another theme linked to the above. He went on declaring that "until British power is withdrawn from India can there be any real unity [between the two major communities]", that "real heart-unity, genuine unity, is almost an impossibility unless and until British power is withdrawn".(79) In the twenties, he professed that the achievement of Hindu-Muslim unity was a condition precedent to attainment of `independence' and was one of the three major planks of his `constructive programme'. But in the thirties this plank fell off and gradually `independence' became a condition precedent to Hindu-Muslim unity.
The Secretary of State's memorandum, dated 28 January 1942, noted the Congress Party's "ingrained conviction that it is the natural heir to the British Government in India, and entitled to take over control both of legislative and executive power..."(80)
Gandhi now considered "the vivisection of India to be a sin" and held that only "when the British power is entirely withdrawn and the Japanese menace has abated", then "it will be time to talk of Pakistan and other `stan's and to come to an amicable settlement or fight". He ruled out negotiations with the League before those conditions were fulfilled.(81)
On 15 May Gandhi had a meeting with prominent Congressmen of Bombay, including Patel, Bhulabhai Desai, B.G. Kher and Morarji Desai. The points he made at the meeting were:
First, if the British would not heed his advice to leave India, he would force them to leave -- by non-co-operation or civil disobedience or by both. This time not individual satyagraha but all-out mass satyagraha would be started to force them to withdraw.
Second, he did not think Japan would invade India and it would be possible "to come to terms with Japan" after the British withdrawal. The British were no better than the Japanese: the British would not willingly part with power. If the Japanese did invade India Congressmen would resist them non-violently. He expected the Japanese to sign a neutrality pact with them. The Congress would "launch our movement only against the British".
Third, Rajagopalachari conceded Pakistan but Gandhi could hardly swallow the splitting of India. Jinnah had not explained what was Pakistan. Hindu-Muslim unity was impossible of achievement because of the British. He insisted that the British should "leave India to anarchy". If they refused to withdraw leaving India to anarchy, the Congressmen would have to create anarchy by launching satyagraha, "take charge of the anarchy and fashion it into Hindustan".
Fourth, it seemed Gandhi, Azad, Nehru and Rajagopalachari spoke in four different voices. But Gandhi was sure that Nehru and Azad would follow him so far as action was concerned. There would actually be two voices -- his and Rajagopalachari's and Congressmen would have to choose between them.
Fifth, Gandhi would take two months more to launch the fight against the British. Though he himself would not indulge in violence, his advice to all those "to whom non-violence is not a belief but a weapon" was: "you needn't desist from helping Japan. Nay, to be true to yourselves, you should help it by every means, by even violent means, if possible".
Sixth, when India was free, she would remain neutral.
Before concluding, he decried the communists and ridiculed their theory of `People's War'. He said that Congress could hardly depend upon Britain and America, "whose hands are stained with blood".(82)
For the first time Gandhi expressed his determination to launch an all-out struggle against the British that would lead to anarchy, out of which he hoped to fashion a Hindustan.
Early in June Gandhi had long talks with Nehru and Azad. Nehru was "full of China and America. He has made to them all kinds of promises", as Mahadev Desai informed Birla.(83) After talks with Nehru, Gandhi changed his earlier stand: he protested no more against the introduction of Allied troops nor did he demand their withdrawal from India. Gandhi no doubt realized the importance of the concession to Nehru as a bid for the support of the USA, China and Russia, chiefly the USA. But he wanted "independence now" and a treaty between the fully independent government and the Allies, which would prescribe conditions under which the Allies were to conduct their military operations in India. "The terms on which the Allied Powers may operate will be purely for the Government of the free State to determine."(84) He wrote to Chiang Kai-shek and Roosevelt and conveyed his views to them.(85)
Nehru too altered his previous stand. He talked no more of co-operation with the British in the war efforts or of guerrilla struggle against the Japanese; instead, he directed his attacks against the British and criticized their denial of freedom to India.(86)
While at Wardha, Nehru wrote a confidential note on his talks with Gandhi. It appears that what impressed Nehru was Gandhi's contention that "the total withdrawal of the British power from India has become essential from every point of view and there is no solution of any of India's major problems (such as the communal problem) till such withdrawal". Even if there was no agreement between the major political parties after India's independence was accepted, the British must "announce their intention to hand over political power" despite "risks of chaos and anarchy". In the likely event of the British not agreeing to Indian independence "some kind of direct action movement" should be launched until independence was achieved and "there should be as few restrictions as possible on the people who wish to join it".(87)
What, according to Gandhi, would replace the retiring British raj, in case the raj agreed to retire? He preached that with the political withdrawal of the British, the contending Indian leaders would reach an agreement and form a national government. If they did not, they would fight and there would be chaos and anarchy for some time, after which peace would prevail. When Louis Fischer suggested to him that Pakistan might be only a bargaining counter with Jinnah, Gandhi replied:
"As I have told you before, he will only give it up when the British are gone and when there is nobody with whom to bargain."(88)
Both Gandhi and Nehru expected that with the withdrawal of British power -- "the third party" -- from India, the communal problem would be neatly buried. One of the major aims of the "direct action movement" seems to have been to lay the spectre of Pakistan and realize the Congress leaders' cherished aspiration to become the sole controlling authority in India after the British raj. Whether their brave declarations about the widest possible anti-British struggle to be launched were intended to be really acted upon or were mostly threats to frighten the British raj to concede what they wanted is a question which will be discussed later.
While Gandhi conceded that, after concluding a treaty with free India, which "instead of being sullen becomes an ally",(89) the Allied forces might remain in India to resist Japan, he also said that it would be his aim to convert India to non-violence and negotiate with Japan.(90) As Edgar Snow wrote, "Gandhi had all along fought behind the scenes against any commitment to wage war on Japan."(91)
On 24 June Gandhi informed Birla that he had "almost finalized the strategy for the struggle" and was "waiting for the Working Committee meeting". Next day Mahadev wrote to Birla that the Viceroy had told Louis Fischer that "Gandhi has been very good to me all these years" and that he regretted he would "have to put him under control", if his activities affected the war effort. Mahadev also informed Birla that Patel had a meeting with Nalini Sarkar, a member of the Viceroy's Council, who told Patel that, at a meeting of the Council, the Commander-in-Chief had said, "Gandhi should be given as long a rope as possible" and that the rest had agreed.(92)
The Working Committee met at Wardha from 6 to 14 July "in a tense atmosphere in which conflict prevailed in an unusual measure", to quote Sitaramayya.(93) Gandhi asked Nehru to resign from the Committee and Azad from the presidentship of the Congress. Gandhi said to Nehru: "If you won't join, I'll do it without you."(94) Ultimately, Gandhi withdrew the demand for resignation; and, afraid of being dubbed as ones who were selling their country to the imperialists, Nehru and Azad thought it prudent to climb onto Gandhi's bandwagon. But, according to Gary R. Hess, who has based his observation on many documents, "While not openly disagreeing with Gandhi, Nehru worked behind the scenes during June and July in an attempt to forestall Gandhi's campaign".(95) At Gandhi's promptings, Rajagopalachari resigned from the Congress on 15 July. The Committee adopted a `Quit India' resolution and referred it to the AICC, which would meet on 7 August in Bombay for final decision. The Committee's resolution demanded immediate transfer of political power to a "provisional government representative of all important sections of the people of India", while it agreed to "the stationing of the armed forces of the Allies in India should they so desire". The resolution stated that if the demand was not met the Congress would "be reluctantly compelled" to launch a widespread non-violent struggle under Gandhi's leadership.
Mahadev Desai informed Birla:
"The W.C. was this time our eye-opener. With the exception of the Khan Sahib [Abdul Ghaffar Khan] the Muslims have no heart in the Congress programme -- or rather Bapu's programme. Jawaharlal is too deeply committed to China and America to take up anything energetic immediately. My fear is that the real situation is even worse.... The fact is that he [Gandhi] is determined to throw his last throw this time."(96)
In a letter of 18 July, Rajagopalachari and some of his Madras colleagues criticized the Working Committee's resolution on several grounds, chiefly that it would only "facilitate Japanese invasion and occupation".(97)
Now there was an added fire in the statements and speeches of Gandhi, Patel and Prasad. In an interview to the press on 14 July, Gandhi declared that "This is open rebellion of a non-violent character" and stressed "that there is no room left for negotiations in the proposal for withdrawal". He told the press that he would not court imprisonment. "The struggle does not involve courting imprisonment. It is too soft a thing." If "dragged into jail", he could fast. It was his intention "to make the thing as short and swift as possible". He said that "free India will make common cause with the Allies". But he was not sure whether free India would "take part in militarism or choose to go the non-violent way". But "if I can turn India to non-violence", he added, "I will certainly do so". He told foreign correspondents that he would "take every precaution" and "handle the movement gently", but he "would not hesitate to go the extremest limit" if he found that "no impression is produced on the British Government or the Allied Powers". He declared that it would be his "biggest movement". Asked whether there was any more room for negotiation, he said: "So far as we are concerned, we have closed our hearts." But he added that it was "open to America, to Britain, to China and even to Russia to plead for India which is pining for freedom".(98)
Patel's speeches, too, were breathing fire. At different public meetings in Gujarat and Bombay, he declaimed that it was Gandhi's last struggle and it would be "short and swift".(99)
Now they were not squeamish about violence. Gandhi came to regard the cutting of telegraph and telephone wires and removing rails or fish-plates as non-violent if the motives were not to injure innocent people.(100) Congress president Azad impressed on prominent Congressmen from different parts of the country that, if the Government put behind bars the Congress leaders, "the people would be free to adopt any method, violent or non-violent, to oppose the violence of the Government in every possible way".(101) At a press conference at Ahmedabad on 28 July, Patel said:
"All the struggles launched by the Congress so far, were of a restricted character. This time the movement would be unrestricted.... Civil war and anarchy may occur during the struggle but the movement will not be stopped for it."
This became the refrain of the speeches and statements of the Congress leaders.(102) Formally wedded to non-violence, the leaders did not rule out violence.
The AICC met in Bombay on 7 and 8 August and adopted a resolution demanding that Britain should immediately quit India. Like the Working Committee's resolution of July, this resolution also appealed to Britain and the USA to respond sympathetically. Gandhi was invested with the responsibility of leading the struggle.
Claiming that the Congress represented "the whole of India" including the Indian states and that he was "a greater friend of the British now than I ever was", Gandhi declared at the AICC meeting on 7 August that he was "about to launch the biggest fight of my life". On 8 August, he claimed to be a true friend of the Muslims, described the Pakistan idea as "a call to war" and asked the Muslims to shake off distrust of the Congress, as such distrust would lead to "a perpetual war between the Hindus and the Mussalmans". While giving the audience the mantra `Do or Die', he asked them to keep jails out of their consideration and at the same time not to do anything secretly. He did not explain how they could avoid jails while abjuring secrecy. Regretting that he was misunderstood and maligned in the foreign press, he conveyed his appeal through the foreign pressmen assembled there to the United Nations to act justly towards India and win India "as a free ally". While asserting that "freedom has to come not tomorrow but today", he warned the people that he would first write to the Viceroy and give the signal for the fight at the right moment.(103)
In his usual style Nehru declared:
"The movement contemplated is not merely for achieving national ends but for achieving world freedom."(104)
The question is: Did Gandhi and his associates really seek a confrontation with the British imperialists to achieve independence? Or, was Gandhi's `Quit India' a threat which, the Gandhis hoped, would suffice to frighten the British imperialists and the United Nations on the eve of the anticipated Japanese invasion to come to a settlement with them? Did they expect that, if the mere threat of an "open rebellion" -- "the biggest fight" -- did not work, the threat plus "a short and swift struggle" of a week or less, as Patel promised,(105) synchronized with a Japanese attack, would accomplish the purpose?(106)
If the Congress leaders were really serious about a struggle, it is difficult to explain why no concrete programme of action was placed before the people who were asked to `do or die'. As Nehru wrote, "There was no direction, no programme." "So neither he [Gandhi] nor the Congress Working Committee", to quote Nehru again, "issued any kind of directions, public or private, except that people should be prepared for all developments, and should in any event adhere to the policy of peaceful and non-violent action."(107) They also made "no arrangements for the functioning of the Congress after they had been removed from the scene". S. Gopal adds: "It was almost as if the Working Committee wished to escape to prison and to avoid decision at what Jawaharlal described as the `zero hour of the world'."(108)
Did Gandhi and his associates expect that the unorganized, disunited and unarmed masses without any concrete programme of action and without any central leadership to guide them would be able to win in a struggle with the armed forces of the Allied powers and liberate themselves? The Muslims were mostly hostile. Jinnah issued a statement that the Congress Working Committee's resolution of 14 July was intended to blackmail the British and coerce them to fulfil the Congress objective of establishing a "Hindu raj", "thereby throwing the Muslims and other minorities and interests at the mercy of the Congress raj".(109) The CPI, which had some hold on the working class in Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Kanpur, etc., had declared that the imperialist war had changed into a world-wide anti-fascist war and that it was the task of the Indian people to support the Allies and not to countenance any struggle that would weaken the defence against Japan. Even the Congress leadership itself was disunited. Rajagopalachari had resigned from the Congress on this issue and he and his Madras colleagues opposed the struggle; Nehru, Azad, Asaf Ali, etc., had reluctantly joined Gandhi's bandwagon; and there were others like Bhulabhai Desai and K.M. Munshi of Bombay and Bidhan Roy and Kiran Shankar Roy of Bengal (who had been put at the helm of the provincial Congress by Gandhi and Patel), who found discretion to be the better part of valour, preferred to keep themselves aloof from the struggle and waited for better days to return to the Congress with the blessings of Gandhi, Patel, etc., to enjoy the plums of office.
Commenting on the Congress leaders' refusal to place any programme of action before the Congress and the people, D.D. Kosambi has said that though they knew that arrest was imminent and though most of them "had prepared for the event by setting their family affairs and personal finances in excellent order", not one of them "ever thought of a plan of action for the Congress as a whole". Kosambi has observed that on a class basis this refusal to draw up a plan of action "was quite brilliant, no matter how futile it may have seemed on a national revolutionary scale.... If the British won the war it was quite clear that the Congress had not favoured Japan: if on the other hand the Japanese succeeded in conquering India (and they had only to attack immediately in force for the whole of the so-called defence system to crumble) they could certainly not accuse the Congress of having helped the British."(110)
No doubt, Gandhi himself knew, as Edgar Snow has said, that it was "the biggest gamble of his life".(111) The calculations might go awry if the British remained obdurate, if the United Nations, chiefly the USA, did not force the British to see reason and if the Japanese were not obliging enough to strike at the right moment. The Congress banked on several factors favourable to them, chief of which was Britain's vulnerable position. Second, as S. Gopal writes, "in contrast to the public postures, in private the Congress leaders still hoped for intervention by Roosevelt". According to Snow, Col. Johnson had given Nehru and Azad "strong reason to suppose Roosevelt might put pressure on Churchill to re-open negotiations. They believed that the threat of rebellion might even yet bring that result."(112) At a press conference in New Delhi on 27 July, Azad stated:
"I regard the Working Committee's resolution as an appeal to the United Nations to intervene on behalf of India.... The matter is no longer one between India and England but between India and the United Nations, as the latter want to make India their operational base."
Referring to Azad's statement Linlithgow wrote to Amery that his suspicion that "what the Mahatma was after was to work on the nerves of people at home and in the U.S. in the hope that he might get pressure brought to bear by the United Nations or the like" appeared to have been correct.(113) Not only the Working Committee's resolution of July but the AICC resolution of August and various press statements and speeches of the leaders expressed the hope that the USA would ultimately intervene in their favour.(114)
Third, at that time it was not too much to expect the Japanese to force open the eastern gate of India after the monsoon, which the British themselves anticipated. According to an official report, Gandhi was convinced that the Japanese would attack India when the monsoon would be over.(115) And Gandhi, Patel, Nehru and others believed that Japanese advance into Indian territory would spell the swift collapse of British administration in India.(116) On 16 July Nehru gave J.L. Berry, the head of the U.S. Mission in New Delhi, his impression that though there was very little chance of the British accepting their demand at that moment, they were likely to agree to it after Japanese infiltration into India.(117)
If the threat failed, the Congress leaders hoped that "a short and swift struggle"(118) -- sporadic struggles of the restive people, fuelled by the arrests of the leaders and Gandhi's threat of self-immolation(119) -- would succeed. Though it was essentially a gamble and involved risks, yet if the gamble paid off, the gains would be enormous. No doubt they were playing for high stakes. But the stakes were the lives of the common people while the gains would be their own.
What were the gains that the leaders hoped to achieve?
First, if the British agreed to a compromise with them at this hour of grave peril, the Congress leaders would have a substantial control over defence -- their minimum demand during the negotiations with Cripps. This would enable them to negotiate and "come to terms with Japan" -- a longing Gandhi expressed almost till his arrest in the early hours of 9 August.(120) They would then become the sole controllers of India's destiny -- under the aegis of Japanese imperialism.
Second, Gandhi and Nehru stressed this point times without number: "Truth to tell there will be neither majority nor minority in the absence of the paralysing British arms." Even the demand of the Muslim leaders for the autonomy of the provinces within a weak all-India federation (let alone the democratic demand of the different nationalities inhabiting the sub-continent for the right of self-determination) would be swept under the carpet. As noted before, Gandhi ruled out any negotiations with the League prior to the achievement of `freedom'. So did Nehru.(121) Both Gandhi and Nehru looked upon the demand for `Quit India' and Britain's compliance with it as an indirect or flank attack on the communal problem and hoped it would succeed. In dealing with matters like Hindu-Muslim understanding, Nehru wrote to R.M. Chetsingh, "as often in war itself, an indirect or flank attack is more successful than a direct or frontal attack."(122) It was then their tactic that they must first capture power taking advantage of the favourable situation and then deal with the Muslims. Third, the transition of India from a British colony to a neo-colony of Japan, which had already brought under its heel Korea, large parts of China, and the whole of South-East Asia, would be smooth. India would not turn into a theatre of war; there would be no occasion for adopting any `scorched earth' policy which would cause the factories of the big bourgeois to go up in flames. In one of his `Most Secret and Personal' letters, dated 2 November 1942, to provincial Governors, Linlithgow suspected that this might have been one of the main objects of the Congress leaders for raising the `Quit India' slogan.(123)