It was quite refreshing to note that just three days before the ‘August Kranti Divas’ on August 9, Prime Minister Narendra Modi very respectfully recalled the Quit India movement launched by Mahatma Gandhi, at a function to lay the foundation stone for the redevelopment of numerous railway stations across the country.

He said:

“Friends…9th August holds historical significance as the momentous Quit India Movement was launched on this date. Mahatma Gandhi gave the clarion call of Quit India Movement igniting a new surge of energy in the footsteps of India towards independence. Inspired by this spirit, today the entire nation is raising its voice against all evils…”

The surprise

Praise for the Quit India Movement, coming from a leader thoroughly moulded by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s ideology, is quite heartening.

It is a well-known fact that during the Quit India Movement, the RSS sided with V.D. Savarkar’s Hindu Mahasabha. In the midst of the ‘do or die’ call by the Mahatma, it “kept itself within the law, and in particular, has refrained from taking part in the disturbances that broke out in August 1942…” the Bombay Home Department observed.

Their head, M.S. Golwalkar and whole timers Deendayal Upadhyaya, Balraj Madhok, and L.K. Advani, during this period, did not participate in the Movement.

The Hindu Mahasabha and the Quit India Movement

Savarkar was openly against the Quit India Movement. He issued a statement urging Hindu Mahasabhaites and “Hindus in general” “not to extend any active support” to the Movement. He had continued by saying that any movement the Congress inspired would “prove most detrimental” to Hindu interests and “the integrity and strength of India as a nation and a state.”

Syamaprasad Mukherjee of the Bengal Hindu Mahasabha, as cabinet minister of the A.K. Fazlul Haq government of Bengal, was not to be left behind. Haq had, meanwhile, just a little over a year ago, presented the Lahore Resolution of 1940 for creation of Pakistan on behalf of the Muslim League. Mukherjee wrote to the Governor on July 26, 1942:

“The question is how to combat this movement (Quit India) in Bengal?…It should be possible for us, especially responsible Ministers, to be able to tell the public that the freedom for which the Congress has started the movement, already belongs to the representatives of the people…Indians have to trust the British, not for the sake for Britain, not for any advantage that the British might gain, but for the maintenance of the defence and freedom of the province itself.”

Savarkar’s diktat on the Mahasabhaites was already in force. He had announced, in this War against Japan, that “Hindudom must ally unhesitatingly, in a spirit of responsive co-operation with the war effort of the (British) Indian government…by joining the Army, Navy and the Aerial forces in as large a number…especially in the provinces of Bengal and Assam”.

This, at a time when Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose was working on the military strategies to take help of the German and Japanese forces to liberate India.

The Boses on Savarkar

Rash Behari Bose, founder of the Indian National Army, who had in 1938 opened up a Hindu Mahasabha branch in Japan, got perturbed at Savarkar’s volte face. He made frantic appeal to him on March 21, 1942 from Tokyo, “England’s difficulty is India’s opportunity”.

He added:

“Please do not let your vision be blurred at this critical moment…Japan and her allies, being England’s enemy, are India’s friend…I have decided to mobilise all my Indian brothers in a supreme effort to strike at the fetters…But I shall not succeed unless yourself and other leaders at home support me…Then would you fail now when the long awaited chance for its success has fallen into our very laps?…India has nothing in common with England. But with Japan she is culturally united. Then, why side with England in a war against Japan? Rather why not side with Japan and destroy the British power?…I have nothing more to request.”

But Savarkar paid no heed to Rashbehari’s appeal.

In disgust, Netaji had written in his Indian Struggle, “Mr Savarkar seemed to be oblivious of the international situation and was only thinking how Hindus could secure military training by entering Britain’s army in India….”

It is pertinent to mention at this juncture that not only did the Hindu Mahasabha and RSS oppose the Quit India Movement, rulers of the Princely states too opposed it. The Muslim League (ML) and the Communist Party of India (CPI) stayed aloof. Despite CPI’s call for keeping aloof, large number of communist activists participated in the movement.

Netaji on the Quit India Movement

Netaji, who had left India differing with Gandhi’s soft approach towards the British, on reading the news in Berlin of Gandhi launching the ‘Quit India’ movement told his close associate A.C.N. Nambiar that he need to be with Gandhi at that stage. In his message over the ‘Azad Hind Radio’ he called the Quit India Movement “non-violent guerrilla warfare”.

He appealed to the leaders in India and the countrymen, over radio on August 17, 1942, “Comrades…the movement in India has been continuing with unabated vigour, and has been spreading like wild fire from towns to the countryside…I would request Mr Jinnah, Mr Savarkar, and all those leaders who still think of a compromise with the British, to realise once for all that in the world of tomorrow there will be no British Empire…Inquilab Zindabad.”

He appealed to every section of the community to participate in this movement. He suggested that tactics of guerrilla war need to be applied and gave guidance on the same. He called for boycott, interruptions, disruptions, destruction and demonstrations, as the case may be, of all British establishments.

Over a lakh arrests were made which included all top leadership of Congress, including Gandhi. Mass fines were levied and demonstrators were subjected to public flogging. According to the British estimate, 63 officers were killed, 2,000 officers wounded, and 200 officers fled. Over 1,000 freedom fighters were killed (Congress estimated 4,000-10,000) and over 3,000 wounded.

A ‘Congress Radio’ was set up clandestinely in Bombay as the broadcasting mouthpiece of the Congress. It could be heard all over India and up to Burma. The station continued to broadcast recorded messages from prominent leaders of the movement including Mahatma Gandhi. It reported on incidents from across the country, countering the narratives from the official state broadcaster ‘All India Radio’. Due to its guerrilla tactics applied the government found it difficult to jam the broadcast. It took them three months to finally arrest all those associated with this successful liaison work.

Congress’ jibe

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge was quick to pick up Modi’s reference to the Quit India Movement as “igniting a new surge of energy in the footsteps of India towards independence”, a mantra given by Gandhi.

He mentioned Modi’s utterance as “our victory” – considering those who did not remember the Quit India Movement for 75 years are doing so now. He said, “Your political forefathers pitted Indians against Indians, supported British rule, served as informers for them and strongly opposed Quit India. They had a suspect role in the conspiracy to assassinate Gandhi. They opposed the Tricolour. They did not hoist it till 52 years of Independence. Sardar Patel had to warn them over boycotting the tricolour.”

A reformist?

Modi’s departure from the Hindu Mahasabha and RSS view of the Quit India Movement is not new.

Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, in his 2017 article, in The Wire, ‘Narendra Modi’s Position On Quit India Doesn’t Quite Match His Predecessors‘, had raised this question first: “Is Modi the first saffron revisionist?”

(Sumeru Roy Chaudhury is an architecture graduate from IIT, Kharagpur. He was the chief architect of the CPWD. Courtesy: The Wire.)