Gandhi and the Quit India Movement

Gandhi and the Quit India Movement — page 3 — In August 1942 the time of Gandhi’s arrest at Birla House the war raged throughout the Pacific The UK colony of Burma east of India had recently fallen to the Japanese who were threatening India’s eastern borders The conquest of India seemed like a real possibility 2 Call for rebellion An INC meeting has taken place in Bombay over the last few days Before a crowd of thousands of people the Indian National Congress has declared its unanimous support for Gandhi’s Quit India campaign Gandhi called upon the United Kingdom to transfer power to Indian leaders immediately or face a nonviolent rebellion against UK rule on a massive scale The scene that is now unfolding on Malabar Hill is the UK response to this The UK government feels that in a time of war it has no choice but to stamp down on the protest and arrest Gandhi at Birla House Gandhi seated and fellow leaders address a political meeting in the 1940s

Gandhi and the Quit India Movement — page 4 — Crackdown Now the small crowd that has gathered outside the house watches as police escort the frail shaven-headed leader to the waiting car and on to prison Other INC leaders are also arrested in dawn raids The arrests will not go unchallenged All over India the news will spark waves of protest But not all of the protests will be nonviolent as Gandhi urges them to be The UK response will also be violent Over the next years Gandhi’s Quit India campaign will have far-reaching consequences for all of India It will affect the politics of the whole region and its people right up to the present day Gandhi’s campaign will indeed prove very important but not in the way he had planned

Gandhi and the Quit India Movement — page 5 — India Under the Raj By 1942 when Gandhi launched his Quit India campaign the British Empire’s influence in India had existed for hundreds of years European interest in the region began back in the 1500s In the 1500s Muslim emperors called the Mughals ruled India By the 1600s Britain France and Portugal had set up trading posts and built forts around India’s coasts A trading company called the British East India Company represented the interests of the British Empire It gradually grew more powerful as the influence of the Mughals declined in the 1700s and as the many small states that made up India became more independent 1 In the early days Britain’s chief interest in India was trade not conquest taking over the country However the East India Company gradually came to collect taxes from Indian landowners and later it collected taxes more widely using force when taxes were withheld In 1757 Robert Clive of the East India Company defeated the ruler of Bengal in eastern India Many historians see this as the start of the British Empire in India 2 Rebellion and the Raj By the early 1800s the United Kingdom was the dominant European power in the region The East India Company continued to increase the size of its lands and influence But in 1857 UK interests received a setback A rebellion started among Indian soldiers called sepoys They refused to obey an order to use gun cartridges that they believed were greased with beef and pork fat This was contrary to the beliefs of India’s two main religions Hinduism the religion of Hindus and Islam the religion of Muslims The soldiers rebellion began near the city of Delhi and quickly spread across north-central India It took the United Kingdom a year to stop it The UK government now decided to take direct control of India The lands of the East India Company became British India The UK administration was called the Raj a Hindi word meaning rule

Gandhi and the Quit India Movement — page 6 — The subcontinent The British referred to India as the subcontinent The region included what is now Pakistan in the northwest Bangladesh in the east and also neighboring Burma In 1900 this vast region held about 292 million people who belonged to different cultures and had different religious beliefs Roughly 70 percent of the population were Hindus and 25 percent were Muslims There were also Christians Sikhs Buddhists and Jains 3 Many different languages were spoken throughout India The United Kingdom controlled about two-thirds of India directly British India was divided into 11 provinces each of which was ruled by a governor These governors reported to the UK monarch’s queen’s representative in India called the viceroy The remaining third of India was made up of over 550 independent princely states of varying sizes each with its own prince However most princes cooperated with the United Kingdom In 1876 the UK Parliament gave the UK queen Victoria a new title she became Empress of India to reflect the United Kingdom’s control over the country During the late 1800s the United Kingdom’s army in India mainly made up of Indian soldiers commanded by senior officers from the United Kingdom campaigned in neighboring Afghanistan and Burma bringing more land under UK control The British saw India as the jewel in the crown of the British Empire which was by then the largest empire in the world

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