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Political Mobilization in the Localities: The 1942 Quit India Movement in Midnapur

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Bidyut Chakrabarty
Bidyut Chakrabarty
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Delhi University
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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
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 4 , October 1992 , pp. 791 - 814
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

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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Indian Nation in 1942, and Rodrigues, Livi, ‘Rural Protest and Politics: A Study of Peasant Movement in Maharashtra’, unpublished PhD dissertation, University of London, 1984, pp. 400–19.Google Scholar

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51 Ibid.

52 IOR, R/3/2, District Magistrate, Midnapur to the Chief Secretary, Government of Bengal, 3/12/43.