QUIT INDIA MOVEMENT – BHARAT CHORO ANDOLAN / AUGUST REVOLUTION
The second World War had started in 1939 and using the justification of the war, the British government in India put in force draconian measures and suppressed basic civil liberties.
Also people were facing hardships due to rising prices and war time shortages and there was a fear of an imminent British collapse and a Japanese attack.
The Congress Working Committee at its meeting in Wardha on 14 July 1942, accepted the idea of launching a nation-wide struggle, and on 8 August 1942, the AICC session was held at Gowalia Tank in Bombay to pass a resolution to that effect.
There was a huge crowd which waited outside while the meeting was going on and the feeling of expectation was so high that in the open session when the leaders gave speeches there was pin drop silence.
Gandhi made a speech in Hindustani and concluded it in English, in which he spoke in his usual quiet and unrhetorical style, but it had the most electrifying impact.
He said that first he will try to negotiate with the Viceroy to accept the demands of the Congress for complete independence and will not accept any offer short of that.
Then he told the people that he wanted to give a short mantra to them: “Here is a mantra, a short one that I give you. You may imprint it on your hearts and let every breath of yours give expression to it. The Mantra is: Do or Die: We shall either free India or die in the attempt: we shall not live to see the perpetuation of our slavery.”
In the meanwhile, he suggested that people can do things like spinning the wheel and follow a eighteen-fold constructive programme.
In the early hours of 9 August 1942, all top leaders of the Congress were arrested.
The leadership of the movement was taken up by provincial and local level leaders and there was a nation-wide mass upsurge in which violent acts were done such as the destruction of railway stations and railway tracks, post offices and police stations were attacked, telegraph lines were cut, and there were strikes and hartals.
The most intense rebellion was seen in Bihar and east U.P. where Britishers were attacked and killed and their bodies were paraded in the towns. Parallel governments were founded here.
The British government came down heavily on the Indians and brutally suppressed the mass phase of the movement.