The Government of India Act and  the Second World War

While the Civil Disobedience Movement was going on, the British Government made an important announcement. Mr Ramsay Macdonald announced the Communal Award on 17^th August 1932. According to this Award the Muslim, European and Sikh voters would elect candidates by voting in separate communal electorates. The Depressed Classes were allowed to vote in a general constituency. However, it was felt that it might be difficult for the Depressed Classes to get adequate representation; therefore special constituencies were earmarked for the Depressed Classes.

There was a lot of discussion in the Congress party regarding the Communal Award and there were sharp differences in the party. In this award the seats allotted to the communities other than the Hindus were far in excess to their numerical strength. For instance, the position of Hindus in Bengal was especially deplorable. Out of the 250 seats in the legislature only 80 seats were allotted to the Hindus while the Muslims were given 119. Quite naturally, the Muslims members of the Congress favoured the award. But the Hindu members, led by Gandhi, in order to placate the Muslims refrained from definitely condemning it. It is necessary to point out that the greatest disservice done by Gandhi to the cause of Indian nationalism was his frank admission, in season and out of season, that no solution to the communal problem would be acceptable to him, which was not supported by the Muslims. This placed in the hands of the Muslim reactionaries the power to put a veto on all constitutional progress in India and this power was used to the hilt by the Muslims both in the Round Table Conference and later by Jinnah.

Immediately after the suspension of the Civil Disobedience Movement and the withdrawal of the ban on the Congress, Gandhi announced his complete disassociation from the Congress party of which he ceased to be ‘even a 4 anna member’. The reasons he gave for this were stated in a lengthy statement. In this statement he reviewed the fundamental principles in which he believed but to which scant regard was paid by most Congressmen. Some references may be quoted:

1.      I put the spinning wheel and khadi in the forefront. Hand spinning by Congress intelligentsia has all but disappeared.

2.      As regards prohibition of entry into legislatures, many have supported it against their convictions, simply out of regard for me…. Many have despaired of resisting me. This is a humiliating revelation to a born democrat.

3.      I have fundamental differences with the Socialist Group in the Congress. If they gain ascendancy in the Congress, as they well may, I cannot remain in the Congress. For to be in active opposition should be unthinkable.

4.      Non-violence is a fundamental creed with me but after 14 years of trial it still remains only a policy with the majority of Congressmen. It has not yet become an integral part of the lives of Congressmen.

While the Civil Disobedience Movement was under way, work going on in London to prepare a new constitution for India. This Constitution was intended to keep as much control in British hands as possible. After four years of study and three Round Table Conferences a bill embodying the government’s recommendation was tabled in Parliament. In August 1935, this bill became law and was known as the Government of India Act (1935). Some of the main features of the Act were as follows:

1.      Burma was separated from India and two new provinces were formed -Orissa and Sind.

2.      The Act provided for a federation that would include not only the provinces of British India but also the Princely States.

3.      A federal form of government was envisaged at the centre. Provinces were for the first time endowed with a legal personality and all provincial subjects were transferred to popular control. The allocation of seats was based on the Communal Award.

4.      A very complex division of power was set up at the Centre: the Chief Executive was to be the Governor General and he was to be assisted by a Council of Ministers; however the Governor General retained certain special responsibilities. The country was considered to be not yet ready for the transfer of full responsibility at the Centre, which meant that there would be no responsible government.

In 1936, both the Congress and the Muslim League met separately to discuss the Act and decided to contest the Provincial elections. These elections were to be held in January 1937. At the beginning Jawaharlal Nehru wanted to boycott the elections; later however he agreed that it was the only way to carry the message “to the millions of voters and to the scores of millions of the disenfranchised to acquaint them with our future programme and policy”. When the results arrived in March 1937, the Congress had swept the polls. They formed governments in the United Provinces, the Central Provinces, Bihar, Orissa, Madras, and Bombay. Later, even Assam and North-West Provinces came under its control. The only provinces outside the control of the Congress were: Punjab, Sind and Bengal. Although all these provinces had a Muslim majority, the people did not vote the Muslim League to power. The Congress Ministries passed many useful and beneficent measures in the Provinces ruled by them, such as programmes of primary education, Harijan uplift and prohibition. Even non-Congress Ministries did salutary work in the Provinces ruled by them.

Muslim  Politics

We have already seen how the Hindu-Muslim fraternity artificially created by Gandhi during the Khilafat agitation had collapsed and was followed by bitter feuds leading to communal riots. Mohammed Ali who was the principal lieutenant of Gandhi in the Khilafat agitation had by 1930 turned against Gandhi. He refused to work with Gandhi and made no secret of his Pan-Islamism. He   said: “I belong to two circles of equal size but which are not concentric. One is India and the other is the Muslim world. We are not Nationalists but Supernationalists.” However the influence of the Ali brothers was on the wane and it was Mohammed Ali Jinnah who took the lead of the Muslim community. By 1928, his whole concentration was on the improvement of the political status of the Muslims in India. In this he was aided by two factors:

1.      The clever move by the British who declared that no political concession would be given to the Indian people unless there was a fair measure of agreement between the Hindus and the Muslims. 

2.      Secondly the repeated declaration of Gandhi and the Congress party that there could be no solution to the constitutional problem in India unless there was complete agreement between the two communities.

Jinnah exploited this situation in a masterly manner. In 1929, as the leader of the Muslim League, he repudiated the Nehru Constitution and proposed his fourteen points. It is true that Jinnah was defeated in the Convention but he gained on two fronts; firstly, the Nehru report lapsed and secondly he killed the Nationalist Muslim Party formed by Ansari. Ansari had all  along been claiming that his party truly represented the Muslims. Jinnah and Ansari soon drifted apart and within a short time, the Muslim League became the sole representative of the Muslims. The Congress claim that it represented the whole nation, including the Muslims suffered a serious setback. From this time onwards, Jinnah stressed the need of maintaining the unity and solidarity of the Muslims as a separate social and political unity. Jinnah warned the Congress not to interfere in Muslim affairs, thus implying that no Muslim who was not a member of the Muslim League should be regarded as a true representative of the Muslims. He looked upon the Muslim community as a distinct and separate community. This feeling was further increased by the proposal made by Mohammed Iqbal. In the Allahabad Congress of 1930, he said: “I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single State. Self-government within the British Empire or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India.” This idea was taken up by a young man, educated in Cambridge, Rahmat Ali. His conception was that since 712 AD, the four States mentioned above were the natural home of the Muslims since they were in a majority in those areas. To him the Hindu-Muslim conflict was not a clash of religions or economic factors. It was an international conflict between two national entities. He said: “Our religion, culture, history, tradition literature, economic system, laws of inheritance, succession and marriage are fundamentally different from those of the Hindus. These differences are not confined to broad basic principles; they extend to the minutest details of our lives. Therefore for us to seal our national doom in the interest of one Indian nationhood would be a treachery against our posterity, a betrayal of our history and a crime against humanity for which there would be no salvation.” However, at the beginning, the scheme proposed by Rahmat Ali was considered a student’s impractical scheme.

The Socialist Programme in the Congress

In the Congress session of 1934 in Bombay, a new trend began to emerge – this was the Socialist trend. Influenced by the emergence of   Socialism and Communism in Europe, the radical or left wing forces began to play an important role in the Congress Party, which led to the formation of a Socialist Bloc. Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose led this Socialist Bloc. Nehru pleaded “for social and   economic equality, for the ending of all special class privileges and vested interests.” He believed that the choice before the world was between Communism and Fascism. While he intensely disliked Fascism, he advocated Communism in an adapted form for India. He said: “But I do think that the basic ideology of Communism and its scientific interpretation of history is sound.” Subash Bose did not agree with Nehru. He believed that India had to evolve a system of her own which would harmonise the opposite view points.

In any case, these views created an awkward situation in the inner politics of the Congress party. Gandhi was bitterly opposed to Communism and though Nehru’s views strengthened the Socialist wing, he never wavered in his personal allegiance to Gandhi. This was because though the intellectual Nehru fought against Gandhi’s programme and theory, the emotional Nehru always submitted to his authority. Nehru has himself explained this phenomenon. He says: “How came we to associate ourselves with Gandhiji politically and to become, in many instances, his devoted followers? The question is hard to answer. Personality is an indefinable thing, a strange force that has a power over the souls of men, and he possesses this in ample measure. He attracted people. They did not agree with his philosophy of life, or even with many of his ideals. But the action he proposed was something tangible. Any action would have been welcome after the long tradition of inaction which our spineless politics had nurtured; brave and effective action with an ethical halo about it had an irresistible appeal and we went along with him although we did not accept his philosophy.”

There was no session of the Congress in 1937. The high command was busy with the problems facing the administration; some of these problems were regarding thousands of detenus in jails in   Andaman, the continuance of repressive laws, the sufferings of the cultivators, etc. All these were reminders of the   regime of British Imperialism and a sense of frustration began to grow. This frustration was relieved by the Communist organisations that rallied the farmers into Kisan organisations. This had an impact within the Congress. The Socialist wing of the Congress became a powerful force and   the younger section began to lose faith in the non-violent programme of Gandhi. It will be worthwhile to note that although Gandhi had ceased to be a member of the Congress, yet he attended the meetings of the Working Committee and the AICC. As the official history of the Congress Party says: “Though not a member of the Congress, Gandhi was still the power behind the throne”. Nehru describes it thus: “Gandhi was the permanent super-President of the Congress and the Congress at present meant Gandhi.”

This became evident in the next two years. In February 1938, at the Congress session in Gujarat, Subash Bose was unanimously elected the President. As war clouds were gathering in Europe, the differences between Gandhi and Subash Bose were increasing. These differences were on two fronts: the Socialist programme of Subash Bose and his attitude towards Britain in the war, which was radically opposed to that of Gandhi. The differences became sharp and wide. The next session of the Congress was held in March 1939 in Tripura. Three names were proposed for the President: Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad, Subash Chandra Bose and Pattabhi Sitaramayya. Azad declined to accept the post, and this necessitated an election between the remaining two. Gandhi supported Sitaramayya with the whole weight of his authority. But Bose had a great deal of public support. As a result he won the election by a majority of 95 votes. Gandhi reacted by saying: “the defeat of Subhas’s rival was his own defeat”. This led to consternation in the Congress and was followed by a fast undertaken by Gandhi in protest against the election of Subash Bose. When the Congress met later, 13 members of the Working Committee sent in their resignation leaving only Subash Bose and his brother Sarat Bose on the Committee. A formal notice given to the President by Govind Vallabh Pant and 160 members of the AICC followed this. They passed a resolution, the operative part of which ran as follows: “In view of the critical situation that may develop during the coming year and in view of the fact that Mahatma Gandhi alone can lead the Congress and the country to victory during such a crisis, the Committee regards it as imperative that the Congress Executive should command his implicit confidence and request the President to nominate the Working Committee in accordance with the wishes of Gandhi”.

This tore off the democratic mask of the Congress and showed it in its true colour as a totalitarian body under the dictatorship of Gandhi.

Let us see what Sri Aurobindo remarked about the Congress:

“The Congress at the present stage—what is it but a Fascist organization? Gandhi is the dictator like Stalin, I won't say like Hitler: what Gandhi says they accept and even the Working Committee follows him; then it goes to the All-India Congress Committee which adopts it, and then the Congress. There is no opportunity for any difference of opinion, except for Socialists who are allowed to differ provided they don't seriously differ. Whatever resolutions they pass are obligatory on all the provinces whether the resolutions suit the provinces or not. There is no room for any other independent opinion. Everything is fixed up before and the people are only allowed to talk over it—like Stalin's Parliament”.

As a result of the refusal of the Congress Working Committee with Subash Bose who was the elected President of the Congress, he resigned from the Presidentship. Immediately after that he proceeded to form a radical and progressive party within the Congress with a view to rallying the entire Left Wing under one banner. This party was called the Forward Bloc.

Soon after, the Second World War broke out. The declaration of war by Britain against Germany made India a belligerent as in the First World War. But there was a substantial difference now. The popular ministries were in charge of the Provincial Governments. Let us see the reactions of the different parties to the War.

The initial reaction of the Congress at the beginning of the War was one of sympathy for Britain. On a hurried return from China, on 8 September, Nehru declared: “We do not approach the problem with a view to take advantage of Britain’s difficulties…In a conflict between democracy and freedom on the one side and fascism and aggression on the other, our sympathies must inevitably lie on the side of democracy. I should like India to play her full part and throw all her resources into the struggle for a new order”. But when the Congress Working Committee met in September 1939 it declared that “India cannot associate herself with a War said to be for democratic freedom, when that freedom is denied to her.  It added that ‘the issue of war and peace for India must be decided by the Indian people’. The Viceroy issued a statement in October 1939 that Dominion Status was its goal and he proposed “the establishment of a consultative group, representative of all major parties in British India and of the Indian Princes, over which the Governor General himself would preside”.

After this statement by the Viceroy, the Congress declared itself unable to give any support to Great Britain. The Congress High Command followed it up by directing the Congress Ministries in the provinces to resign. All the Congress Ministries resigned between 27 October and 15 November 1939. Sri Aurobindo commented on this step: “It is the Congress that spoiled everything. If without resigning they had put pressure at the Centre they would have got by now what they want”.

It must be noted that this was not the only reason for the refusal of the Congress to cooperate with Britain. Gandhi also believed in non-violence and war was abhorrent to him and therefore to the Congress. He wrote a letter to the Prime Minister of England to this effect: “ I appeal for cessation of hostilities because war is bad in essence.   You want to kill Nazism.   Your soldiers are doing the same work of destruction as the Germans.    The only difference is that perhaps yours are not as thorough as the Germans.   I venture to present you with a nobler and a braver way worthy of the bravest soldiers.   I want you to fight Nazism without arms or with non-violent arms.   I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity.   Invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions.   Let them take possession of your beautiful island with your many beautiful buildings.   You will give these but not your souls not your minds.”

While all this was going on, the non-Congress Ministries in Punjab, Bengal and Sind pledged their full support to Britain. The Indian States were fully behind the Government too. Among the other parties, the Hindu Mahasabha unconditionally supported the war effort. The Muslim League, on the other hand, promised support on condition that no constitutional advance in India should be made without the approval of the Muslim League “ which is the only organisation that can speak on behalf of Muslim India”. The resignations by the Congress Ministries deprived the Congress of the political advantage it had enjoyed since 1937. The Viceroy quite predictably felt relieved by the resignations. There was no need any more to placate the Congress and he openly canvassed the support of the Muslim League This considerably strengthened the position of the Muslim League. Encouraged by this support it observed 22 December 1939 as a ‘Day of Deliverance from Congress rule’.  In March 1940, the Muslim League took the next step. At its Lahore session, it made a formal demand for a separate independent State. The Pakistan idea was born and began to take concrete shape.

Subash Bose

While the war clouds were gathering, Subash Bose took a completely different stand; he considered this as an opportunity to strike a blow for the freedom of India. His position was that England’s difficulty was India’s opportunity. The British Government arrested him on 2 July 1940. In November he decided to go on a hunger strike. He addressed a letter to the Governor of Bengal: ‘the individual must die, so that the nation may live. Today, I must die so that India may win freedom and glory’.  He commenced his fast and as he developed alarming symptoms he was released on 5 December 1940. After his release, he suddenly disappeared and was soon traced in Germany. Declaring that Germany was our natural ally, he hoped for a German victory, since ‘only after the defeat and break up of the British Empire could India hope to be free’. He made an agreement with Germany of forming Indian military units from Indian prisoners of war. Earlier, Indian residents of the occupied territories in Asia had formed themselves into pro-independence associations. These associations merged eventually to from the Indian Independence League and were led by Rash Behari Bose. In March 1942, The Azad Hind Fauj or the Indian National Army was formed. The nucleus of the force was made up of Indian soldiers who had been handed over to the Japanese by their British commanders after the fall of Singapore.

Sri Aurobindo

 Sri Aurobindo, who had retired from political activity in 1910, however came out openly during the War. He declared himself publicly on the side of the allies. He wrote in a letter to a disciple: “We feel that not only is this a battle waged in just self-defence and in defence of the nations threatened with the world-domination of Germany and the Nazi system of life, but that it is a defence of civilisation and its highest attained social, cultural and spiritual values and of the whole future of humanity. To this cause our support and sympathy will be unswerving whatever may happen; we look forward to the victory of Britain and, as the eventual result, an era of peace and union among the nations and a better and more secure world-order.

Again he wrote:

“You should not think of it as a fight for certain nations against others or even of India; it is a struggle for an ideal that has to establish itself on earth in the life of humanity, for a Truth that has yet to realise itself fully and against a darkness and falsehood that are trying to overwhelm the earth and mankind in the immediate future. It is the forces behind the battle that have to be seen and not this or that superficial circumstance… There cannot be the slightest doubt that if one side wins, there will be an end of all such freedom and hope of light and truth and the work that has to be done will be subjected to conditions which would make it humanly impossible; there will be a reign of falsehood and darkness, a cruel oppression and degradation for most of the human race such as people in this country do not dream of and cannot yet realise. If the other side that had declared itself for the free future of humanity triumphs, this terrible danger will have been averted and conditions will have been created in which there will be a chance for the Ideal to grow, for the Divine Work to be done, for the spiritual Truth for which we stand to establish itself on the earth. Those who fight for this cause are fighting for the Divine and against the threatened reign of the Asura”.

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