Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress leaders were arrested in Bombay on August 9. 1942 after the All-India Congress Committee passed the “Quit India” resolution. THE HINDU: “Having got the A.I.C.C. to adopt that resolution, Gandhiji made it clear that he was resolved to explore every avenue to a peaceful settlement, including personal discussion with the Viceroy and stated that a mass movement would be started only as a last resort. But the Government were obviously unwilling to give him a chance to do this. Without making the slightest attempt to understand the new resolution or consider it seriously with a view to finding out whether it offered better prospects of settlement than the Wardha resolution seemed to do, the Government have resolved to force a fight on the Congress just as the Willingdon Government did after the Second Round Table Conference.”
AUGUST 11, 1942
A colossal blunder
THE ACTION OF THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA IN ARRESTING Gandhiji and the members of the Congress Working Committee, barely a few hours after the Bombay resolution was adopted, was a colossal blunder. It is not the first time that the Government have thus misjudged the situation, but so extraordinary are the circumstances in which they have elected to precipitate a crisis that the verdict of history will be that they acted even more irresponsibly than they had done on previous occasions. Mr. Amery throws out his chest and declares triumphantly: “By their prompt and resolute action the Government of India have saved India and the Allied cause from grave disaster”. Would that we could believe it. For, disastrous as would undoubtedly be the trouble, which Mr. Amery is confident, “could be dealt with by the Government of India through the police and the courts,” the damage the Government have inflicted on popular morale and the cause of the Allies, which by a curious irony they profess to have served, may prove far more disastrous and irreparable in the long run. For, by the manner in which they have met the Congress demand, the Government have proclaimed to all the world that they, notwithstanding all their professions to the contrary, will not for a moment tolerate the raising of a purely political issue in a crucial way that makes it necessary for them to face it squarely.
The Government have said that they would regard it as wholly incompatible with their responsibilities to the people of India and their obligations to the Allies, that a demand should be discussed, the acceptance of which would plunge India into confusion and anarchy internally and would paralyse her war effort in the common cause of human freedom.” And Mr. Amery, not to be outdone by his henchmen at Delhi, has emphasised that “the real concern is not the demand, which cannot be taken seriously, but the action which the Congress is resolved upon and for which preparation has been for some time in progress.” What is this preposterous demand that cannot be taken seriously? It is that Britain should declare that, so far as she is concerned. India is free from this moment, and should accompany this with a transfer of power which would invest that declaration with reality; if she was ready to do this the Congress said it was prepared to co-operate power. By what stretch of imagination can this demand be represented as calculated to produce internal anarchy or to handicap the war effort? Be it remembered that Britain, through Sir Stafford Cripps, had declared that she would be prepared to confer independence on India after the war: in other words, she had conceded the principle of the Congress demand. She had also appeared to agree to transfer to Indian hands all power forthwith other than that which it was essential for Britain to keep in her own hands for the successful prosecution of the war. The issue had therefore narrowed down to this: what was the irreducible minimum of control that Britain should retain for the duration of the war so that the fight could be carried on with the maximum of efficiency? Instead of facing this problem steadily and trying to find a solution in concert with Indian opinion – the Congress was more than willing to do all it could to help find such a solution – Sir Stafford Cripps incontinently ran away from it, making Gandhiji’s non-violence, the minorities’ opposition et hoc the pretext. The resolution adopted by the A.I.C.C. at Bombay last week-end was expressly designed to leave no room for either genuine misapprehensions or such wanton misrepresentation as Mr. Amery has been repeatedly guilty of. Having got the A.I.C.C. to adopt that resolution, Gandhiji made it clear that he was resolved to explore every avenue to a peaceful settlement, including personal discussion with the Viceroy and stated that a mass movement would be started only as a last resort. But the Government were obviously unwilling to give him a chance to do this. Without making the slightest attempt to understand the new resolution or consider it seriously with a view to finding out whether it offered better prospects of a settlement than the Wardha resolution seemed to do, the Government have resolved to force a fight on the Congress just as the Willingdon Government did after the second Round Table Conference.
The laboured apologia that the Government of India have offered for the action they have taken is really a damning indictment of the fundamentally vicious system which they represent, a system which not only the Congress but all true patriots in whatever camps they may be found wish to put an end to. The Government approvingly describe themselves as “a Government stronger and more representative than ever in the past, a Government predominantly Indian and non-official.” And yet this same Government have no hesitation in declaring that “for the demand of the Congress leaders there is no warrant;” indeed, they go on to repeat parrot-like Mr. Amery’s gibe that “that demand is difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile with a full sense of responsibility on the part of the leaders of the Congress Party.” We have shown, we hope, that the Congress demand, on the contrary, is nothing new, that Britain at one stage was prepared to concede – or at any rate made an elaborate show of conceding – it in substance. If nevertheless the present Government of India – which, for all its being ‘predominantly Indian and non-official’ is a creature of the British Power–is prepared to denounce that demand in such unbridled terms, because Britain finds it convenient to provoke a showdown now, that only shows conclusively the correctness of the stand taken by the Congress during the Cripps negotiations, when it insisted that the Government of India could not be an indigenous or national Government even if the members of the Executive Council were cent per cent Indians, if that Government did not have the confidence and backing of the people. The Government of India condescend to admit that “the Congress Party has for long occupied a position of great prominence and great importance in India’s political life;” they are even prepared to concede that “at this day its importance is substantial.” Have the signatories to this pompous statement asked themselves what, applying the same test, the world would rate their own importance to be, individually or collectively? Precisely nothing, however estimable and patriotic the individual members of this predominantly Indian and nonofficial” Government may be. It is to say the least ridiculous that such a Government should try to discredit the Congress by airily remarking that they cannot accept the claim of the Congress Party to speak for India as a whole.” If the Congress cannot speak for India as a whole surely the Government of India can have far less justification for speaking in the name of the Indian people. And only a Government at Delhi that can speak for the united people of India can save the country from the crisis that threatens to engulf it today. That is India’s demand and Britain cannot hope to burke it or help the Allied cause by spurning it. Jailing Congress leaders is easy, but it has not paid in the past and will not pay any more now. The problem they present must be faced by Britain boldly, sympathetically and in a spirit of true statesmanship. Otherwise the prospect for both countries is indeed dark.
Reference:
The First 100
A Selection of Editorials, 1878-1978, THE HINDU, VOLUME I