Article contents
Political Mobilization in the Localities: The 1942 Quit India Movement in Midnapur
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 November 2008
Extract
Following the adoption of 8 August resolution at Gowalia tank in Bombay, Indian masses rose to revolt, which became famous as the Quit India movement. It was a call for freedom. ‘Nothing less than freedom’, to quote Gandhi. Unlike the 1920–21 Non-cooperation and 1930–32 Civil Disobedience movements which were basically peaceful campaigns against the British rule in India, the Quit India movement was the ultimatum to the British for final withdrawal, a Gandhi-led un-Gandhian way of struggle since the Mahatma exhorted the people to take up arms in self-defence, and resort to armed resistance against a stronger and well-equipped aggressor.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992
References
1 Gandhi, , Collected Works, vol. 76, p. 384.Google Scholar
2 Harijan, 15.3.1942, and 29.3.1942.Google Scholar
3 Hutchins, F. G., Spontaneous Revolution: The Quit India Movement (Manohar Book Service, Delhi, 1971).Google Scholar
4 Omvedt, Gail, ‘The Satara Prati Sarkar’ in Pandey, G. (ed.), The Indian Nation in 1942 (K. P. Bagchi and Co., Calcutta, 1988), pp. 223–61.Google Scholar
5 Chaudhuri, N. C., Thy Hand Great Anarch: India: 1921–1952 (Chatto and Windus, London, 1988).Google Scholar
6 ibid., p. 704.
7 Ibid.
8 Mitra, Chandan, ‘Popular Uprising in 1942: The Case of Balia’, in Pandey, (ed.), The Indian Nation in 1942, pp. 165–84.Google Scholar
9 Pandey, (ed.), The Indian Nation in 1942.Google Scholar
10 The Times, 31 July 1941.Google Scholar
11 Kamtekar, Indivar, ‘The End of the Colonial State, 1940–47’, unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1988, p. 25.Google Scholar
12 ibid., p. 26.
13 Brown, Judith, Modern India (Oxford University Press (hereafter OUP), New Delhi, 1985), pp. 311–12.Google Scholar
14 India Office Records (hereafter IOR) R/3/2/25, Governor of Bengal to the Chief Secretary, Government of Bengal, 7.11.1940.
15 Indian Annual Register, July–December 1942 quoting Tottenham's Congress Responsibility for the Disturbances, February 1942.Google Scholar
16 Tottenham's, Congress Responsibility, quoted in Sarkar, Sumit, Modern India, 1985–1947 (Macmillan, Delhi, 1983), p. 390.Google Scholar
17 The Transfer of Power in India 1942–47, vol. II, ed. Mansergh, N. and Lumby, E. W. R. (HMSO, London, 1971), p. 953.Google Scholar
18 Telegram to Churchill, ibid., p. 853.
19 Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML hereafter), AICC papers, 231/42, Andhra Pradesh Congress committee Circular 29/7/1942.
20 See the Appendix.
21 National Archives of India (hereafter NAI) Delhi, Home-Poll, 3/52/1943(1), quoted in Sarkar, Modern India, p. 396;Google Scholar see also the Appendix.
22 NAI, Home-Poll, 3/52/1943(1), in ibid.
23 Ibid.
24 IOR, R/3/3/28 Bihar Chief Secretary's Telegram to the Secretary of State, London, 12/8/1942.
25 Toye, Hugh, Subhas Chandra Bose: The Springing Tiger (Cassell, London, 1959).Google Scholar
26 Brown, , Modern India, p. 316.Google Scholar
27 The Transfer of Power, 1942–47, vol. IV (HMSO, London, 1973), p. 334.Google Scholar
28 Nandy, Ashis, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism (OUP, New Delhi, 1988), pp. XIV, 10–11.Google Scholar
29 Brown, , Modern India, p. 317.Google Scholar
30 West Bengal State Archives, Calcutta, Home-Poll, 71/42, District Officer's Chronicals; Sarkar, Modern India, p. 394.Google Scholar
31 The Transfer of Power, vol. II, pp. 669, 682–3.Google Scholar
32 There were four major marches at taluka centres in Satara (between 24 August and 10 September) at Karad (4000), Targaon (8000), Wadiy (700) and Islampur (6000). In Shirala taluka, 32 patils resigned from their posts. The Reserved forest in Shirala was declared open to the public.
33 Congress Youth Squads conducted these attacks. In Kundal, a bank was robbed and in Shirala, grain from government stores was distributed to the public (1941–42 had been a year of famine and in 1942 there was a price inflation).
34 See, for details, Omvedt, ‘The Satara Prati Sarkar’, in Pandey, The Indian Nation in 1942, and Rodrigues, Livi, ‘Rural Protest and Politics: A Study of Peasant Movement in Maharashtra’, unpublished PhD dissertation, University of London, 1984, pp. 400–19.Google Scholar
35 Sanyal, Hitesranjan, ‘Congress Movement in the Villages of Eastern Midnapore, 1921–31’, in Thorner, Alice et al. , Asia Du Sud, Traditions et Changements (Paris, 1979);Google ScholarSanyal, Hitersranjan, ‘Nationalist Movement in South West Bengal’, in Chaturanga (Bengali) Calcutta, Baisakh-Assar, 1384.Google Scholar
36 Sanyal, , ‘Congress Movement in the Villages’, p. 172.Google Scholar
37 Ibid.
38 Ibid.
39 Ibid.
40 ibid., p. 173.
41 ibid., p. 174.
42 Chatterjee, Partha, ‘Some Considerations on the Making of the 1928 Bengal Tenancy (Amendment) Act’, Occasional Paper, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, 1980, pp. 40–1.Google Scholar
43 Sanyal, , ‘Congress Movement in the Villages’, p. 177.Google Scholar
44 IORL/PJ/12/47 Fortnightly Report, Second half of March, 1933.
45 IOR, L/PJ/12/144, Chief Secretary, Government of Bengal, Report for the second half of April 1939.
46 Dasgupta, S., ‘Local Politics in Bengal: Midnapore, 1921–32’, unpublished PhD dissertation, University of London, 1980.Google Scholar
47 West Bengal State Archives, Calcutta, Home-Poll 71/42, p. 16.Google Scholar
48 Ibid.
49 Chakrabarty, B., ‘Virangahas and the Quit India Movement’, The Statesman, 22 January 1989.Google Scholar
50 West Bengal State Archives, Calcutta Home-Poll 71/42, pp. 16–17.Google Scholar
51 Ibid.
52 IOR, R/3/2, District Magistrate, Midnapur to the Chief Secretary, Government of Bengal, 3/12/43.
- 2
- Cited by