Cripps Mission

1942 Quit India Movement

Date: 
08 Aug 1942
Event location: 

Gowalia Tank Maidan, Bombay, India

About: 

On 8 August 1942 at the All-India Congress Committee session in Bombay, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi launched the 'Quit India' movement. The next day, Gandhi, Nehru and many other leaders of the Indian National Congress were arrested by the British Government. Disorderly and non-violent demonstrations took place throughout the country in the following days.

By the middle of 1942, Japanese troops were approaching the borders of India. Pressure was mounting from China, the United States and  Britain to solve the issue of  the future status of India before the end of the war. In March 1942, the Prime Minister dispatched Sir Stafford Cripps, a member of the War Cabinet, to India to discuss the British Government's Draft Declaration. The draft granted India Dominion status after the war but otherwise conceded few changes to the British Government Act of 1935. The draft was unacceptable to the Congress Working Committee who rejected it. The failure of the Cripps Mission further estranged the Congress and the British Government.

Gandhi seized upon the failure of the Cripps Mission, the advances of the Japanese in South-East Asia and the general frustration with the British in India. He called for a voluntary British withdrawal from India. From 29 April to 1 May 1942, the All India Congress Committee assembled in Allahabad to discuss the resolution of the Working Committee. Although Gandhi was absent from the meeting, many of his points were admitted into the resolution: the most significant of them being the commitment to non-violence. On 14 July 1942, the Congress Working Committee met again at Wardha and resolved that it would authorise Gandhi to take charge of the non-violent mass movement. The Resolution, generally referred to as the 'Quit India' resolution, was to be approved by the All India Congress Committee meeting in Bombay in August.

On 7 to 8 August 1942, the All India Congress Committee met in Bombay and ratified the 'Quit India' resolution. Gandhi called for 'Do or Die'. The next day, on 9 August 1942, Gandhi, members of the Congress Working Committee and other Congress leaders were arrested by the British Government under the Defence of India Rules. The Working Committee, the All India Congress Committee and the four Provincial Congress Committees were declared unlawful associations under the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1908. The assembly of public meetings were prohibited under rule 56 of the Defence of India Rules. The arrest of Gandhi and the Congress leaders led to mass demonstrations  throughout India. Thousands were killed and injured in the wake of the 'Quit India' movement. Strikes were called in many places. The British swiftly suppressed many of these demonstrations by mass detentions; more than 100,000 people were imprisoned.

The 'Quit India' movement, more than anything, united the Indian people against British rule. Although most demonstrations had been suppressed by 1944, upon his release in 1944 Gandhi continued his resistance and went on a 21-day fast. By the end of the Second World War, Britain's place in the world had changed dramatically and the demand for independence could no longer be ignored.

Organizer: 
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
People involved: 

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Subhas Chandra Bose, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Asoka Mehta, Jaya Prakas Narayan, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Dr Rajendra Prasad, Chakravarti Rajgopalachari.

Published works: 

Gandhi, Mahatma, Quit India, ed. by R. K. Prabhu and U. R. Rao (Bombay: Padma Publications, 1942)

Secondary works: 

Bakshi, Rakesh Ranjan, Quit India Movement in U. P.: Sabotage, Bomb, and Conspiracy Cases (Sitapur: NP Publishers, 1992) 

Bakshi, S. R., Congress and Quit India Movement (New Delhi: Criterion Publications, 1986)

Basavapunnaiah, M., Quit India Call and the Role of the Communists: A Reply to Arun Shourie (New Delhi: National Book Centre, 1984)

Bhaskaran, Krishna, Quit India Movement: A People's Revolt in Maharashtra (Mumbai: Himalaya Publishing House, 1999)

Bhuyan, Arun Chandra, The Quit India Movement: The Second World War and Indian Nationalism (New Delhi: Manas Publications, 1975)

Chakrabarty, Bidyut, Local Politics and Indian Nationalism: Midnapur, 1919-1944 (New Delhi: Manohar, 1997)

Chakravarty, Shachi, Quit India Movement: A Study (Delhi: New Century Publications, 2002)

Chaudhari, K. K., Quit India Revolution: The Ethos of Its Central Direction (Mumbai: Popular Prakashan, 1996)

Chopra, P. N., Historic Judgement On Quit India Movement: Justice Wickenden's Report (Delhi: Konark Publishers, 1989)

Chopra, P. N., Quit India Movement: British Secret Report (Faridabad: Thomson Press, 1976)

Congress Responisibility for the Disturbances, 1942-43 (Delhi: Manager of Publications, 1943)

Desai, Sanjiv P., Calendar of the 'Quit India' Movement in the Bombay Presidency (Bombay: Department of Archives, Government of Maharashtra, 1995)

Dwivedi, Surendranath, Untold Story of August Revolution (Delhi: Ajanta Publications, 1993)

Goyal, P. K., Battle of India's Freedom Movement (Delhi: Vista International Publishing House, 2005)

Hutchins, Francis G., India's Revolution: Gandhi and the Quit India Movement (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973)

Hutchins, Francis G., Spontaneous Revolution: The Quit India Movement (Delhi: Manohar Book Service, 1971)

Jana, Anil Kumar, Quit India Movement in Bengal: A Study of Contai Subdivision (Delhi: Indian Publishers' Distributors, 1996)

Kamath, Suryanath U., Quit India Movement in Karnataka (Bangalore: Lipi Prakashana, 1988)

Kamtekar, Indivar, What Caused the 'Quit India' Movement? (Calcutta: Indian Institute of Management, 1990)

Kumar, Ravindra, Champaran to Quit India Movement (New Delhi: Mittal, 2002)

Limaye, Madhu, The August Struggle: An Appraisal of Quit India Movement (Bombay: Sindhu Publications, 1993)

Limaye, Sirubhau, Nau Ogasta (Pune: Manasanmana Prakasana, 1996)

Maity, Pradyot Kumar, Quit India Movement in Bengal and the Tamralipta Jatiya Sarkar (Tumluk, Purba Medinipur: Purvadri Prakasani, 2002)

Malhotra, S. L., From Civil Disobedience to Quit India: Gandhi and the Freedom Movement in Punjab and Haryana, 1932-1942 (Chandigarh: Punjab University Publication Bureau, 1979)

Mathur, Y. B., Quit India Movement (Delhi: Pragati Publications, 1979)

Mehta, Chitra P., I Fought for My Country's Freedom: Being an Inspiring and Instructive Story of the Part Played by a Young Non-Violent Soldier in the Historic Indian Struggle for Freedom of 1942-44 (Bombay: Hamara Hindoostan Publications, 1946)

Naidu, C. M., Mahatma Gandhi's Leadership and Quit India Movement in Coastal India (Visakhapatnam: C. M. Naidu, 1996)

Nimbkar, Krishnabai, Pages from a Quit India Freedom Fighter's Diary (1944-45) (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1996)

Pandey, Gyanendra, The Indian Nation in 1942 (Calcutta: Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta & K. P. Bagchi, 1988)

Panigrahi, D. N., Quit India and the Struggle for Freedom (New Delhi: Vikas, 1984)

Pati, Biswamoy, Turbulent Times, India, 1940-44 (Mumbai: Popular Prakashan, 1998)

Patil, V. T., Gandhi, Nehru and the Quit India Movement (Delhi: B. R. Pub. Corp., 1984)

Pattanayaka, Jagannatha, Landmarks of Quit India Movement in Orissa (Cuttack: Orissa State Freedom Fighters' Samity, 1992)

Ramu, P. S., Gandhi-Subhas and 'Quit India' (Delhi: S. S. Publishers, 1995)

Ramu, P. S., Prelude to 'Quit India': Home Rule to Satyagraha (Delhi: S. S. Publishers, 1996)

Rath, Bijay Chandra, Quit India Movement in Orissa (Cuttack: Arya Prakashan, 1994)

Roy, Pankaj Kumar, The Quit India Movement in Bihar: The Special Reference to the Old Division of Bhagalpur (Delhi: Capital Publishing House, 1991)

Sarkar, Kalyan Kumar, The 'Quit India' Movement in the District of Nadia (Calcutta: Barnali, 1988)

Sengupta, Syamalendu, and Gautam Chatterjee, Secret Congress Broadcasts and Storming Railway Tracks during Quit India Movement (New Delhi: Navrang, 1988) 

Sharma, Alka, History of Modern India: The Quit India Movement (Delhi: H. K. Publications, 1992)

Shourie, Arun, 'The Only Fatherland': Communists, 'Quit India', and the Sovjet Union (New Delhi: ASA Publications, 1991)

Shukla, Vivekananda, Rebellion of 1942: Quit India Movement (Delhi: H. K. Publishers and Dsitributors, 1989)

Thomas, Anthony, Mahatma Gandhi and the Communal Problem: From the Khalifat Movement to Quit India (New Delhi: Indian Social Institute, 1983)

The Transfer of Power, 1942-7 (London: H. M. S. O., 1971)

Venkataramani, M. S., Quit India: The American Reponse to the 1942 Struggle  (New Delhi: Vikas, 1979)

Wolpert, Stanley, Shameful Flight: The Last Years of the British Empire in India (New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)

Zaidi, A. M., Defying a Distant King: A Study of the Quit India Movement (New Delhi: Publications Department, Indian Institute of Applied Political Research, 1986)

Zaidi, A. M., The Way Out to Freedom: An Enquiry Into the Quit India Movement Conducted by Participants (New Delhi: Orientalia, 1973)

Tags for Making Britain: 
Second World War
Civil Disobedience Movement
Indian National Congress
Partition
Cripps Mission
Indian independence

Stafford Cripps

About: 

Stafford Cripps was born in 1889 in London to Charles Alfred Cripps and his wife Theresa. His father was a Conservative MP and later a Labour cabinet minister.

After turning down a scholarship to New College, Oxford, in 1907 he studied for an MSc degree at University College, London. In 1911, he married Isobel Cripps (née Swithinbank), whom he had met a year earlier when helping out with his father's campaign. When war broke out in 1914, Cripps, still recovering from a breakdown, did not join the forces. Instead, he became a lorry driver for the Red Cross. In 1929, Cripps joined the Labour Party and became a minister in Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government the year after. His campaign to become an MP was supported by Sukhsagar Datta. In 1933 he became chairman of the Socialist League, which he dissolved in 1937. Cripps was also heavily involved with the Left Book Club.

At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Cripps went on a tour of India, China, Russia and the United States. Cripps' first visit to India was intended to explore the possibility of self-government; he was warmly received by Jawaharlal Nehru. After India he went to China where he befriended Chiang Kai-shek, then he went to Russia where he met Foreign Minister Molotov. From June 1940 to January 1942 he served as the British Ambassador to the Soviet Union. Cripps succeeded in bringing Russia and Britain together as allies during the war, and consequently, in February 1942, Churchill brought Cripps into the government as Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons. Only a month later, on 22 March, Cripps would fly to Delhi on the so-called Cripps Mission, which was intended to secure Indian self-government after the war in return for support in the British war effort. The Cripps Mission failed and the Indian National Congress and the British Government became further estranged. The failure of the mission was the catalyst for Gandhi  to launch the Quit India movement in August 1942. After his return to Britain, Cripps' status within the Government had diminished and in the autumn of that year he resigned from the War Cabinet and took up the post of Minister of Aircraft Production.

After Clement Attlee's Labour victory in 1945, Cripps remained interested in the question of Indian independence, and from March to June 1946 Cripps travelled to India for the third time, along with Secretary of State, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, and Lord of the Admiralty, A. V. Alexander. The Cabinet Mission's offer of a three-tier structure was accepted by Jinnah and the Muslim League but Gandhi and the Congress turned it down. Cripps realized that the future government of India lay in the hands of the Indian leaders. By the end of 1946, at the behest of Cripps, Attlee appointed Lord Mountbatten the last Viceroy of India and set a date for British withdrawal. This paved the way to Independence and Partition in 1947.

In 1947, Cripps was appointed Minister for Economic Affairs but took over the post of Chancellor of Exchequer six weeks later. He fought hard to restore the British economy in the post-war years. At this point, Cripps was also seriously ill and was reconvalescing at the Bircher Benner clinic in Zürich. Cripps resigned as Chancellor and as MP on 20 October 1950 on grounds of ill health. He died at the Bircher Benner Clinic on 21 April 1952.

Published works: 

The Choice for Britain: Capitalism in Crisis, vol. 4 (London: Socialist League, 1934)

Why This Socialism? (London: Victor Gollancz, 1934)

'National' Fascism in Britain (London: Socialist League, 1935)

(with Michael Foot) The Struggle for Peace (London: Victor Gollancz, 1936)

(with James Maxton and Harry Pollitt), The Unity Campaign (London: National Unity Campaign Committee, 1937)

Empire (Speech Delivered at the Conference on Peace and Empire Organised by the India League and the London Federation of Peace Councils (London: India League, 1938)

Democracy Up-to-Date: Some Practical Suggestions for the Reorganization of the Politcal and Parliamentary System (London: Allen & Unwin, 1939)

The Petition: The Speech (London, 1939)

Shall the Spell be Broken? Rectorial Address the the University of Aberdeen Delivered on 6 February 1943 (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1943)

Britain and Austria (London: Anglo-Austrian Democratic Society, 1945)

Towards Christian Democracy (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1945)

Democracy Alive: A Selection from Recent Speeches ([S. I.]: Sidgwich and Jackson, 1946)

The Church and the World Economic Crisis (Westminster: Industrial Christian Fellowship, 1948)

The Survival of Christianity (London: World's Evangelical Alliance, 1948)

God in Our Work Religious Addresses ([S. I.]: Thomas Nelson and sons, 1949)

The Spiritual Crisis: A Sermon Preached in St. Paul's Cathedral (London: A. R. Mowbray & Co, 1950)

Stafford Cripps in Moscow, 1940-1942: Diaries and Papers, ed. by Gabriel Gorodetsky (Edgware: Vallentine Mitchell, 2007)

Are You a Worker? Where the Middle Class Stands ([S. I.]: Labour Party, n.d.)

Can Socialism Come by Constitutional Methods? (The Socialist League, n.d.)

Parliamentary Institutions and the Transition to Socialism (n.d.)

The Ultimate Aims of the Labour Party (Labour Party, n.d.)

Date of birth: 
24 Apr 1889
Connections: 

 Albert Alexander, Clement Attlee, Claude Auchinleck, Abul Kalam Azad, Barbara Castle, Winston Churchill, Sukhsagar Datta, Michael Foot,  Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Agatha Harrison, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Louis Johnson, Chiang Kai-shek, Harold Laski, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, Lord Linlithgow, Krishna Menon, Naomi Mitchison, Lord Mountbatten, Jawaharlal Nehru, George Padmore, Vallabhbhai Patel, Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, Paul Robeson, Lord Wavell, Lord Zetland.

Contributions to periodicals: 

The Listener

Secondary works: 

Addison, Christopher, Problems of a Socialist Government (London: Gollancz, 1933) 

Baume, Eric, India! We Call on the People of Britain!! (London: India League, 1942)

Bryant, Christopher, Stafford Cripps: The First Modern Chancellor (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1997) 

Burgess, Simon, Stafford Cripps: A Political Life (London: Gollancz, 1999)

Chatterji, Prashanto K., The Cripps Mission, 22 March-11 April 1942: An In-Depth Study (Kolkata: Minerva Associates, 2004)

Clarke, Peter, The Cripps Version: The Life of Sir Stafford Cripps (London: Allen Lane, 2002)

Clarke, Peter, and Toye, Richard, 'Cripps, Sir (Richard) Stafford (1889-1952)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/32630]

Cooke, Colin Arthur, The Life of Richard Stafford Cripps (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1957)

Coupland, Reginald, The Cripps Mission (London: Oxford University Press, 1942)

Economic Survey for 1947 (1947)

Estorick, Eric, Stafford Cripps: A Biography (London: William Heinemann, 1949)

Gorodetsky, Gabriel, Stafford Cripps' Mission to Moscow, 1940-42 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984)

Hall, Robert Lowe, The Robert Hall Diaries, 1947-1953, ed. by Alec Cairncross (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989)

Harrison, Agatha, and Bailey, George William, India, 1939-1942: A Summary of Events up to and Including the Cripps Mission (London: National Peace Council, 1942)

India League Executive Committee, India and the British Proposals (London: India League, 1942)

Labour Party Annual Conference Report (1935)

Mishra, B. K., The Cripps Mission: A Reappraisal (New Delhi: Concept Pub. Co., 1982)

Nehru, Jawaharlal, Jawaharlal Nehru on the Cripps Mission: An Authoritative Statement on the Breakdown of the Negotiations at New Delhi (London: India League, 1942)

Patel, Harbans, Cripps Mission: The Whole Truth (New Delhi: Indus Pub. Co., 1990)

Patil, V. T., Jawaharlal Nehru and the Cripps Mission (Delhi: BR Pub. Corp., 1984)

Singh, Bhim Sen, The Cripps Mission: A Handiwork of British Imperialism (New Delhi: Usha, 1979)

Strauss, Patricia, Cripps: Advocate and Rebel (London: Victor Gollancz, 1943)

Subrahmanyam, M., Why Cripps Failed, 2nd edn (New Delhi: Hindustan Times Press, 1943)

Tyler, Froom, Cripps: A Portrait and a Prospect (London: G. G. Harrap & Co., 1942)

Weigold, Auriol, Churchill, Roosevelt, and India: Propaganda during World War II (London: Routledge, 2008)

Archive source: 

Private papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford

Private papers, Nuffield College, Oxford

CAB 127/57-154, Correspondence and papers, National Archives, Kew

Beatrice Webb Diary, Passfield MSS, British Library of Political and Economic Science, London School of Economics

Corespondence with Clement Attlee,  Bodleian Library, Oxford

Correspondence with Lord Monckton,  Bodleian Library, Oxford

Correspondence with Arthur Creech Jones, Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies, Rhodes House, Oxford

Correspondence with Bristol South East Labour Party and Its Secretary H. E. Rogers, Bristol Record Office

Correspondence with A. V. Alexander, Churchill College, Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge

Correspondence with Dame Caroline Haslett, Institution of Electrical Engineers, London

Correspondence with Sir B. H. Liddell Hart, Liddell Hart Centre, King's College, London

Correspondence with Huw T. Edwards, National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth

Correspondence with Thomas Jones, National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth

Correspondence with Lord Cherwell, Nuffield College, Oxford

Current affairs footage, British Film Institute, National Film and Television Archive, London

Documentary footage, British Film Institute, National Film and Television Archive, London

News footage, British Film Institute, National Film and Television Archive, London

Propaganda film footage (Ministry of Information), British Film Institute, National Film and Television Archive, London

Actuality footage, Film and Video Archive, Imperial War Museum

Documentary footage, Film and Video Archive, Imperial War Museum

News footage, Film and Video Archive, Imperial War Museum London

Current affairs recording, Sound Archive, British Library, St Pancras

15271, 'What Has Become of Us?', Channel 4, November 1994, Sound Archive, Imperial War Museum, London

Oral history interview, Sound Archive, Imperial War Museum, London

Involved in events: 

Cripps Mission

Indian Independence and Partition

City of birth: 
London
Country of birth: 
England
Other names: 

Sir Richard Stafford Cripps

Date of death: 
21 Apr 1952
Location of death: 
Bircher Benner Clinic, Zurich, Switzerland
Tags for Making Britain: 
politician
Second World War
Quit India
Indian National Congress
Cripps Mission
Indian independence
Indian independence movement
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