- Outbreak and Congress Stance (September 1939):
- The Second World War broke out in September 1939, two years after the Congress ministries had assumed office under the Government of India Act of 1935.
- Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Congress leaders were strongly critical of Hitler and the Nazis.
- The Congress promised to support the British war effort on the condition that the British, in return, promised to grant India independence once the war/hostilities ended.
- Failure of Initial Talks and Congress Ministries’ Resignation (October 1939):
- On 13 October 1939, Mahatma Gandhi and Rajendra Prasad met with the Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, to discuss the nature of India’s involvement in the war.
- The British refused to concede the demand for post-war independence, causing negotiations with the Viceroy to break down.
- In protest against this refusal, the Congress ministries resigned in October 1939.
- Individual Satyagrahas (1940–1941):
- Throughout 1940 and 1941, the Congress organised a series of individual satyagrahas to pressure the British rulers to promise freedom once the war ended.
- Baji Mohammad (President of the Nabrangpur Congress, Orissa) participated in protests against the Second World War.
- Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian National Army (INA):
- Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, a radical nationalist with socialist leanings who respected Gandhiji as the “Father of the Nation” but did not share his ideal of ahimsa, secretly left his Calcutta home in January 1941.
- Bose traveled to Singapore via Germany and raised the Azad Hind Fauj, or the Indian National Army (INA).
- The creation of the INA by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose during the Second World War was the clearest manifestation of linkages established between India and overseas Indians during the freedom struggle.
- To free India from British control, the INA attempted to enter India through Imphal and Kohima in 1944, but the campaign failed.
- INA members were subsequently imprisoned and tried, leading to widespread popular protests across the country against the INA trials.
- The Cripps Mission (Spring 1942):
- At this time, Britain had an all-party government with Labour members sympathetic to Indian aspirations, but led by Conservative Prime Minister Winston Churchill, a diehard imperialist who insisted he had not become the King’s First Minister to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.
- In the spring (March) of 1942, Churchill was persuaded to send one of his ministers, Sir Stafford Cripps, to India to forge a compromise with Gandhiji and the Congress.
- The talks broke down after the Congress insisted that if it was to help the British defend India from the Axis powers, the Viceroy had to appoint an Indian as the Defence Member of his Executive Council.
- The “Quit India” Movement (August 1942):
- Following the failure of the Cripps Mission, Mahatma Gandhi decided to launch his third major movement—the “Quit India” campaign—in the middle of the Second World War in August 1942.
- Gandhiji told the British they must quit India immediately and gave the people the call to “do or die” while adhering strictly to non-violence.
- Gandhiji and other Congress leaders were jailed at once, but the mass movement spread across the country, involving hundreds of thousands of ordinary Indians, especially peasants and youth who left colleges.
- Younger activists and socialist members of the Congress (such as Jayaprakash Narayan) led underground resistance, strikes, attacks on communications and symbols of state authority, and acts of sabotage.
- In several places, local “independent” or parallel governments were set up, including Medinipur in the east and Satara in the west (where the prati sarkar functioned from 1943 until the 1946 elections).
- The British responded with severe repression, including police firing and orders in many areas to machine-gun crowds from airplanes; by the end of 1943, over 90,000 people were arrested and around 1,000 were killed. It took the British more than a year to suppress the rebellion.
- Rise of the Muslim League During the War:
- While Congress leaders languished in jail during the war years, Mohammad Ali Jinnah and the Muslim League worked patiently to expand their influence.
- The League made significant political inroads into Punjab and Sind, provinces where it previously had scarcely any presence.
- Release of Gandhi and Post-War Transition (1944–1945):
- In June 1944, with the end of the war in sight, Mahatma Gandhi was released from prison.
- Later in 1944, Gandhiji held a series of talks with Jinnah in Bombay to attempt to bridge the gap between the Congress and the Muslim League.
- At the end of the war in 1945, a Labour government came to power in Britain committed to granting independence to India, and the British (under Viceroy Lord Wavell) opened formal tripartite negotiations with the Congress and the League.
- Post-War Global Context and Independent India:
- India was born as an independent nation-state in the backdrop of a devastating world war, marked by reconstruction efforts, the collapse of colonialism, the creation of nuclear weapons, the establishment of the UN, the emergence of Communist China, and the beginning of the Cold War division into US and USSR blocs.
- In the period immediately following the Second World War, many developing countries aligned with powerful states for aid and credits, but India adopted the policy of non-alignment and committed its foreign policy to respecting sovereignty and maintaining peace.
Reference Ncert Document
https://ncert.nic.in/textbook/pdf/leps204.pdf
https://ncert.nic.in/textbook/pdf/hess208.pdf
https://ncert.nic.in/textbook/pdf/lehs303.pdf
