The Second World War broke out on September 3, 1939 between\nBritain and Germany. The Viceroy\nsimultaneously proclaimed that India was also at war without bothering to\nconsult the Indians\u2014the Central Legislature or Provincial Assemblies\u2014the Indian\nmembers of the Viceroy\u2019s Executive Council or Provincial Ministers, leaders of\nthe Indian National Congress or the Muslim League. The Viceroy attempted to\nmake amends by inviting Gandhiji for a meeting. They met on September 5, 1939.\nGandhiji admitted that his personal sympathies were with England and France and\nactually wept at the very idea of destruction of the British democracy. Three\ndays later, Jawaharlal Nehru also declared clearly that India\u2019s sympathies were\non the side of democracy and freedom against fascism and aggression. He desired\nIndia to fully participate in the struggle for establishing a new order. It was\nonly Subhas Chandra Bose who toed a different line and did not want to support\nEngland in the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Congress Working Committee met on September 14, 1939 and passed a\nlengthy resolution drafted by Jawaharlal Nehru. The resolution condemned the\nGerman agg\u00adression on Poland. It asserted that a free, democratic India would\ngladly associate herself with other free nations for mutual defence against\naggression, but asked the British Government to declare in unequivocal terms\nwhat were their war aims and how these aims were to be applied to India. The\nAICC endorsed the resolution of the Working Committee on October 10, 1939 and\ndemanded that India must be declared an independent nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Government gave no immediate response to the resolution of the\nCongress. The Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, interviewed about fifty political\nleaders of various parties, including Gandhiji, Jawaharlal Nehru and Mohammad\nAli Jinnah and issued a statement on October 17, 1939. He stated that the\ndominion status was the goal of British policy in India. He elaborated that the\nGovernment of India Act, 1935 would be open to modification at the end of the\nwar in the light of Indian views. He also assured the minorities that full\nweight would be given to their views and interests. For the present, the\nViceroy was prepared only to constitute a \u201cconsultative group\u201d repre\u00adsenting\nmajor political parties and Indian princes over which he himself would preside.\nGandhiji declared the Viceregal declaration as \u201cprofoundly disappointing\u201d. The\nCongress thought that it was \u201cvery unfortunate\u201d, especially for its\nencouragement to the Mu\u00ads\u00adlim communalism. It asked its provincial ministries\nto tender their resignations between October 27 and November 15, 1939, which they\ngladly complied with. The Secretary of State attempted to pacify India by\noffering more berths to the Indians in the Viceroy\u2019s Executive Council, but the\nCongress rejected it. The Government of India thought differently and was happy\nthat, with the exit of the Congress Ministers, it could now obtain full support\nfrom the Provincial Governors without any obstruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Congress met again at Ramgarh on March\n19-20, 1940, under the Presidentship of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. It reiterated\nits demand that nothing short of complete independence could be accepted by the\npeople of India, but the authorities were in no mood to consider the same. The\nwar was taking an alarming turn every day for England. The situation worsened\nutmost when France surrendered to Germany in June 1940. This made the\nEnglish Channel and the Mediterranean\nSea open to Hitler\u2019s army. The position of Britain was not at all secure. She\nmight have soon faced the fate of France. The English Parliament passed the\nIndia and Burma Act, 1940, transferring in panic the powers of the Secretary of\nState to the Gov\u00ader\u00adnor-General in the event of a breakdown of the contacts\nbetween Great Britain and India. The Congress did not try to take advantage of\nthe precarious condition of England. At its session held in July 1940, it\nexpressed its readiness to throw its full weight in the organisation of defence\nefforts if its demand for an immediate and unequivocal declaration of the full\nindependence of India was granted and a provincial national Government was set\nup at the Centre. The Government responded to it by what is known as the\n\u201cAugust Offer\u201d, made by the Viceroy in a statement on August 8, 1940. It agreed\nto set up at the end of the war a \nConstituent Assembly, representative of the Indian people, to frame\ntheir constitution. It offered to set up an advisory War Council and to expand\nthe Viceroy\u2019s Executive Council by inclusion of more Indian members. It assured\nthe minorities that the authorities would not accept any new system of\ngovernment which coerces them into submission and whose authority is denied by\nthem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was thus manifest that the August Offer was more pro-Muslim League\nthan anything else as it virtually accepted its Lahore resolution of March 1940\nfor the creation of Pakistan. For the Congress leaders, the offer was utterly\ndisappointing. It was clear that the British Government was not ready to part\nwith their power and was making the problem of minorities an insurmountable\nbarrier on the path of India\u2019s march to freedom. The Congress President,\nMaulana Abul Kalam Azad, declined the Viceroy\u2019s invitation to discuss the\nmatter with him. Gandhiji castigated that the August Offer widened the gulf\nbetween India, as represented by the Congress, and England. \u201cThe whole\nconception of Dominion Status for India,\u201d declared Jawaharlal Nehru, \u201cwas as\ndead as a door nail.\u201d He warned that the self-imposed restraint of the Congress\nmust not be taken to the limit of self-extinction. The Congress, thus, decided\nto reject the August Offer and start the civil disobedience movement under the\nleadership of Gandhiji.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The radicals and leftists, both inside and outside the Congress,\nwanted that the civil disobedience movement to be started, should be a mass\nmovement\u2014a national revolt against British imperialism. But Gandhiji felt\notherwise. He did not wish to lay the foundation of free India on the British\nruins. He emphasised that the spirit of satyagraha <\/em>forbade the Congress from doing anything\nwith a view to embar\u00adrassing the British Government. He advocated an individual\nsatyagraha <\/em>instead of a mass\nmovement. The objective of this individual satyagraha <\/em>was also not to\nseek freedom for the country, but to put forward one\u2019s right to freedom of\nspeech. Gandhiji explained,<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI claim the liberty of going\nthrough the streets of Bombay and saying that I shall have nothing to do with\nthis war because I do not believe in this war and in the fratricide that is\ngoing on in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gandhiji wanted it to be known that the British should not take India\nfor granted and the principles of freedom and basic rights, for which Britain\nwas fighting Nazi Germany and Fascism, should be equally applicable to the\nnatives in India. He wanted to counter the British propaganda that India was\nwholeheartedly supporting the war out of her own free will. He met Lord\nLinlithgow on September 27, 1940. He explained to the Viceroy that he wanted\nthe freedom to oppose the war. He also desired to ask his people to do so,\nbecause this war was not being fought for safeguarding the interests of India.\nThe Viceroy declined to accept his request, which compelled the latter to\nlaunch his campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first person selected to offer an individual\nsatyagraha <\/em>was Vinoba Bhave. He\nstarted his campaign at Paunar, only five miles from Wardha on October 17,\n1940. He asked the people, in a speech, to refrain from participating in the\nGovernment war effort for three reasons: (i) refusal by the Government to set\nup a Provisional National Government; (ii) for dragging India into the war\nwithout her consent or consultation; and (iii) denial of freedom to preach\nagainst the war. For three consecutive days, October 18 to 20, 1940, Vinobaji\nmade anti-War speeches at Surgaon, Saloo and Deoli. He was arrested on\nOctober 21, 1940 and sentenced to three months\u2019 imprisonment. He openly\ntold the court, \u201cI plead guilty to the charge. I have done it with full\nunderstanding and with a purpose.\u201d To combat Congress propaganda, the\nGovernment issued orders on October 25, 1940 prohibiting all anti-War\npropa\u00adganda. Gandhiji took this as a challenge and selected Jawaharlal Nehru to\nbe the second satyagrahi <\/em>after\nVinoba Bhave. Before Nehru could start his campaign, the Government arrested\nhim at the Cheoki railway station near Allahabad on October 31, 1940 for\nviolating the Defence of India Rules. He was sentenced to four-and-a-half\nyears\u2019 imprisonment for making seditious speeches earlier in the year. His\nspeech at his trial in Gorakhpur became famous. He said, \u201cI stand before you,\nSir, as an individual being tried for certain offences against the state. You\nare the symbol of the state….I am a symbol of Indian nationalism.\u201d Truly, he\nrepresented Indian nationalism. His arrest stunned the nation. There were\nprotest meetings all over the country. Even the British Government at home was\nalarmed and Churchill sent an urgent cable that Nehru should be treated with\nspecial consideration and care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The third person selected to offer an individual\nsatyagraha <\/em>was Brahma Dutt, an\ninmate of Gandhiji\u2019s ashram. A satyagrahi \n<\/em>was required to read or repeat only two sentences, \u201cIt is wrong to\nhelp the British war effort with men and money. The only worthy effort is to\nresist all wars with non-violent resistance.\u201d This came to be shortened later\nin a slogan, \u201cNot a pie, not a man for the war effort.\u201d By mid-November 1940,\nmembers of the Central and Provincial Assemblies, members of All-India Congress\nCommittee, Provincial Congress Committees and the Working Committees were\npermitted to court imprisonment by reciting the aforesaid brief declaration.\nBefore Gandhiji suspended the individual civil disobedience campaign for\nChristmas break, 29 ex-Ministers, 11 members of the Working Committee, 176\nmembers of All-India Congress Committee and 400 members of the Central and\nProvincial Assemblies had courted arrest. Prominent among them were Maulana\nAzad and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.\n\nThe campaign started again on January 5, 1941. It soon gained momentum\nand by the end of January, the number of voluntary arrests had crossed 2,250.\nThe enthusiasm of the volunteers offering themselves for arrest was beyond\nimagination. More than 20,000 persons had been convicted within few months. The\nsatyagrahis, <\/em>when released from jail, offered themselves for re-arrest.\nThousands were thus always in jail, sacrificing all their comforts. In early\nDecember 1941, the Government released all the satyagrahis. <\/em>Hardly had this been done than Japan\nattacked Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941. The Japanese forces made rapid\nstrides in Malaya and Burma. It looked as if the Japanese forces would soon\ncross the borders of India. The Congress, therefore, suspended the civil\ndisobedience movement and directed its workers to allay the fears of the people\nand render them every possible help.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Second World War broke out on September 3, 1939 between Britain and Germany. The Viceroy simultaneously proclaimed that India was also at war without bothering to consult the Indians\u2014the Central Legislature or Provincial Assemblies\u2014the Indian members of the Viceroy\u2019s Executive Council or Provincial Ministers, leaders of the Indian National Congress or the Muslim League. 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