Day .44- JAWAHARLAL NEHRU - The Discovery of India (Continued)

The Challenge: Quit India Resolution

On my return from Kulu after a fortnight's absence I realized that the internal situation was changing rapidly. The reaction from the failure of the last attempt at a settlement had grown and there was a feeling that no hope lay in that direction. British official statements in Parliament and elsewhere had confirmed that view and angered the people. Official policy in India was definitely aiming at the suppression of our normal political and public activities and there was an all-round tightening of pressure. Many of our workers had remained in prison throughout the Cripps negotiations; now some of the nearest and most important of my friends and colleagues had been arrested and imprisoned under the Defence of India Act. Rafi Ahmad Kidwai was arrested early in May. Shri Krishnadat Palliwal, president of the United Provinces Provincial Congress committee, followed soon after, and so did many others. It seemed that most of us would be picked off in this way and removed from the scene of action, and our national movement prevented from functioning and gradually disintegrated. Could we submit to all this passively? We had not been trained that way, and both our personal and national pride rose in revolt against this treatment.

But what could we do in view of the grave war crisis and possibility of invasion? Yet inaction was no service even to this cause, for it was leading to the growth of sentiments which we viewed with anxiety and apprehension. There were many trends in public opinion, as was natural in such a vast country and at such a time of crisis. Actual pro-Japanese sentiment was practically nil, for no one wanted to change masters, and pro-Chinese feelings were strong and widespread. But there was a small group which was indirectly pro-Japanese in the sense that it imagined that it could take advantage of a Japanese invasion for Indian freedom. They were influenced by the broadcasts being made by Subhas Chandra Bose who had secretly escaped from India the year before. Most people were, of course, just passive, dumbly awaiting developments. If unfortunately circumstances so fashioned themselves that a part of India was under the invader's control, then there would undoubtedly be many collaborators, especially among the upper income groups, whose ruling passion was to save themselves and their property. That breed and mentality of collaborators had been cherished and encouraged by the British Government in India in the past for its own purposes, and they could adapt them-selves to changing circumstances, always keeping their own personal interests in view. We had seen collaboration in full flood even in France and Belgium and Norway and many of the occupied countries of Europe, in spite of growing resistance movements. We had seen how the men of Vichy had (in Pertinax's words) 'racked their brains to palm off shame as honour, cowardice as courage, pusillanimity and ignorance as wisdom, humiliation as virtue, and wholehearted acceptance of the German victory as moral regeneration.' If that had been so in France, that country of revolution and fiery patriotism, it was certainly not unlikely among similar classes in India, where the mentality of collaboration had flourished for so long under British patronage and brought so many rewards. Indeed it was highly likely that chief among those who might collaborate with the invader would be many of the persons who had been collaborating with British rule and who proclaimed their loyalty to that rule from the house tops. They had perfected the art of collaboration and would find no difficulty in holding on to that basis even though the superstructure changed. Arid if subsequently there was yet another change of that superstructure, well they would readapt them-selves again as others of their kind were doing in Europe. When necessity arose they could take advantage of the anti-British feelings that had grown more powerful than ever after the failure of the Cripps negotiations. So would others also, not for personal and opportunist reasons but pushed on by different motives, losing all perspective and forgetting the larger issues. These developments filled us with dismay and we felt that the growth of enforced and sullen submission to British policy in India would lead to all manner of dangerous consequences and the complete degradation of the people.

There was a fairly widespread feeling that in case of attempted invasion and occupation of some eastern areas, there would be a breakdown of the civil administration over larger areas else-where, leading to chaotic conditions. What had happened in Malaya and Burma was before us. Hardly anyone expected any considerable part of the country to be occupied by the enemy even if the chances of war favoured him. India was vast, and we had seen in China that space counts. But space counts only when there is a determination to take advantage of it and resist, and not to collapse and submit. Apparently well-founded reports stated that the Allied armed forces would probably withdraw to inner lines of defence, leaving wide areas open to enemy occupation, though probably the enemy, as in China, might not actually occupy them all. So questions arose as to how we should meet this situation both in these areas as well as in other areas where the civil administration might cease to function. We tried, as far as we could, to prepare mentally and otherwise for such crises by encouraging local organizations which could function and keep order, and at the same time by insisting that the invader had to be resisted at any cost.

Why had the Chinese fought so stoutly for many years? Why, above all others, had the Russians and other peoples of the Soviet Union fought with such courage, tenacity, and whole-heartedness? Elsewhere people fought bravely also because they were moved by love of country, fear of aggression, and desire to pre-serve their ways of life. And yet there appeared to be a difference in the whole-heartedness of the war effort between Russia and other countries. Others had fought magnificently as at the time of Dunkirk and after, but there had been some moral slackening of effort when the immediate crisis was past; it seemed as if there were some doubts about the future, though the war had anyhow to be won. In the Soviet Union, so far as one could judge from the material available, there seemed to be no doubt or debate (though it was true that debate was not encouraged), and there was a supreme confidence in both the present and the future.

In India? There was a deep-seated dislike of the present and the future seemed equally dark. No patriotic urge to action moved the people, only a desire to defend themselves against invasion and a worse fate. A few were moved by international considerations. Mixed up with all these feelings was resentment at being ordered about, suppressed and exploited by an alien and imperialist power. There was a fundamental wrongness in a system under which everything depended on the wishes and whims of an autocrat. Freedom is dear to all, but most of all to those who have been deprived of it, or those who are in danger of losing it. Freedom in the modern world is conditioned and limited in many ways but those who do not possess it, do not realize these limitations, and idealize the conception till it be-comes a passionate craving and an overwhelming and consuming desire. If anything does not fit in with this longing or seems to go counter to it, that thing must inevitably suffer. The desire for freedom, for which so many in India had laboured and suffered, had not only received a check but it seemed that the prospect of it had receded into some dim and distant future. Instead of tack-ing that passion on to the world struggle that was going on, and drawing upon the vast reservoir of energy in the cause of Indian and world freedom and for India's defence, the war had been isolated from it, and no hope was centred in its issue. It is never wise to leave any people, even enemies, without hope.

There were some of course in India who looked upon the war as something far bigger and vaster than the petty ambitions of the statesmen of the various countries involved in it; some who felt its revolutionary significance in their bones and realized that its ultimate issue and the consequences that would flow from it would take the world far beyond military victories and the pacts and utterances of politicians. But the number of these people was inevitably limited and the great majority, as in other countries, took a narrower view, which they called realistic, and were governed by the considerations of the moment. Some, inclined to opportunism, adapted themselves to British policy and fitted them-selves into it, as they would have collaborated with any other authority and policy. Some reacted strongly against this policy and felt that a submission to it was a betrayal not only of India's cause, but the world's cause. Most people became just passive, static, quiescent: the old failing of the Indian people against which we had struggled for so long.

While this struggle was going on in India's mind and a feel-ing of desperation was growing, Gandhiji wrote a number of articles which suddenly gave a new direction to people's thoughts, or, as often happens, gave shape to their vague ideas. Inaction at that critical stage and submission to all that was happening had become intolerable to him. The only way to meet that situation was for Indian freedom to be recognized and for a free India to meet aggression and invasion in co-operation with the allied nations. If this recognition was not forthcoming then some action must be taken to challenge the existing system and wake up the people from the lethargy that was paralyzing them and making them easy prey to every kind of aggression.

There was nothing new in this demand, for it was a repetition of what we had been saying all along, but there was a new urgency and passion in his speech and writing. And there was the hint of action. There was no doubt that he represented at the moment the prevailing sentiment in India. In a conflict between the two, nationalism had triumphed over internationalism, and Gandhiji's new writings created a stir all over India. And yet that nationalism was at no time opposed to internationalism and indeed was trying its utmost to find some opening to fit in with that larger aspect, if only it could be given an opportunity to do so honourably and effectively. There was no necessary conflict between the two for, unlike the aggressive nationalisms, of Europe, it did not seek to interfere with others but rather to co-operate with them to their common advantage. National freedom was seen as the essential basis of true internationalism and hence as the road to the latter, as well as the real foundation for co-operation in the common struggle against fascism and nazism. Meanwhile that internationalism, which was being so much talked about, was beginning to look suspiciously like the old policy of the imperialist powers, in a new, and yet not so new, attire; indeed it was itself an aggressive nationalism which, in the name of empire or commonwealth or mandatory, sought to impose its will on others.

Some of us were disturbed and upset by this new development, for action was futile unless it was effective action, and any such effective action must necessarily come in the way of the war effort at a time when India herself stood in peril of invasion. Gandhiji's general approach also seemed to ignore important international considerations and appeared to be based on a narrow view of nationalism. During the three years of war we had deliberately followed a policy of non-embarrassment, and such action as we had indulged in had been in the nature of symbolic protest. That symbolic protest had assumed huge dimensions when 30,000 of our leading men and women were sent to prison in 1940-41. And yet even the prison-going was a selected individual affair and avoided any mass upheaval or any direct interference with the governmental apparatus. We could not repeat that, and if we did something else it had to be of a different kind and on a more effective scale. Was this not bound to interfere with the war on India's borders and encourage the enemy?

These were obvious difficulties and we discussed them at length with Gandhiji without converting each other. The difficulties were there and risks and perils seemed to follow any course of action or inaction. It became a question of balancing them and choosing the lesser evil. Our mutual discussion led to a clarification of much that had been vague and cloudy, and to Gandhiji's appreciation of many international factors to which his attention was drawn. His subsequent writing underwent a change and he himself emphasized these international considerations and looked at India's problem in a wider perspective. But his fundamental attitude remained: his objection to a passive submission to British autocratic and repressive policy in India and his intense desire to do something to challenge this. Sub-mission, according to him, meant that India would be broken in spirit and, whatever shape the war might take, whatever its end might be, her people would act in a servile way and their freedom would not be achieved for a long time. It would mean also submission to an invader and not continuing resistance to him regardless even of temporary military defeat or withdrawal. It would mean the complete demoralization of our people and their losing all the strength that they had built up during a quarter of a century's unceasing struggle for freedom. It would mean that the world would forget India's demand for freedom and the post-war settlement would be governed by the old imperialist urges and ambitions. Passionately desirous of India's freedom as he was, India was to him something more than his loved homeland; it was the symbol of all the colonial and exploited peoples of the world, the acid test whereby any world policy must be judged. If India remained unfree then also the other colonial countries and subject races would continue in their present enslaved condition and the war would have been fought in vain. It was essential to change the moral basis of the war. The armies and the navies and air forces would function in their respective spheres and they might win by superior methods of violence, but to what end was their victory? And even armed warfare requires the support of morale; had not Napoleon said that in war 'the moral is to the physical as three to one?' The moral factor of hundreds of millions of subject and exploited people all over the world realizing and believing that this war was really for their freedom was of immense importance even from the narrower viewpoint of the war, and much more so for the peace to come. The very fact that a crisis had risen in the fortunes of the war necessitated a change in outlook and policy and the conversion of these sullen and doubting millions into enthusiastic supporters. If this miracle could take place all the military might of the axis powers would be of little avail and their collapse was assured. Many of the peoples of the axis countries might themselves be affected by this powerful world sentiment.

In India it was better to convert the sullen passivity of the people into a spirit of non-submission and resistance. Though that non-submission would be, to begin with, to arbitrary orders of the British authorities, it could be turned into resistance to an invader. Submissiveness and servility to one would lead to the same attitude towards the other and thus to humiliation and degradation.

We were familiar with all these arguments; we believed them and had ourselves used them frequently. But the tragedy was that the policy of the British Government prevented that miracle from taking place; all our attempts to solve the Indian problem, even temporarily, during the course of the war had failed, and all our requests for a declaration of war aims had been turned down. It was certain that a further attempt of this kind would also fail. What then? If it was to be conflict, however much it might be justified on moral or other grounds, there could be no doubt that it would tend to interfere greatly with the war effort in India at a time when the danger of invasion was considerable. There was no getting away from that fact. And yet, oddly enough, it was that very danger that had brought this crisis in our minds, for we could not remain idle spectators of it and see our country mismanaged and ruined by people whom we considered incompetent and wholly incapable of shouldering the burden of a people's resistance which the occasion demanded. All our pent-up passion and energy sought some outlet, some way of action.

Gandhiji was getting on in years, he was in the seventies, and a long life of ceaseless activity, of hard toil, both physical and mental, had enfeebled his body; but he was still vigorous enough, and he felt that all his life work would be in vain if he submitted to circumstances then and took no action to vindicate what he prized most. His love of freedom for India and all other exploited nations and peoples overcame even his strong adherence to non-violence. He had previously given a grudging and rather reluctant consent to the Congress not adhering to this policy in regard to defence and the state's functions in an emergency, but he had kept himself aloof from this. He realized that his half-hearted attitude in this matter might well come in the way of a settlement with Britain and the United Nations. So he went further and himself sponsored a Congress resolution which declared that the primary function of the provisional government of free India would be to throw all her great resources in the struggle for freedom and against aggression, and to co-operate fully with the United Nations in the defence of India with all the armed as well as other forces at her command. It was no easy matter for him to commit himself in this way, but he swallowed the bitter pill, so overpowering was his desire that some settlement should be arrived at to enable India to resist the aggressor as a free nation.

Many of the theoretical and other differences that had often separated some of us from Gandhiji disappeared, but still that major difficulty remained—any action on our part must interfere with the war effort. Gandhiji, to our surprise, still clung to the belief that a settlement with the British Government was possible, and he said he would try his utmost to achieve it. And so, though he talked a great deal about action, he did not define it or indicate what he intended to do.

While we were doubting and debating, the mood of the country changed, and from a sullen passivity it rose to a pitch of excitement and expectation. Events were not waiting for a Congress decision or resolution; they had been pushed forward by Gandhiji's utterances, and now they were moving onwards with their own momentum. It was clear that, whether Gandhiji was right or wrong, he had crystallized the prevailing mood of the people. There was a desperateness in it, an emotional urge which gave second place to logic and reason and a calm consideration of the consequences of action. Those consequences were not ignored, and it was realized that whether anything was achieved or not the price paid in human suffering would be heavy. But the price that was being paid from day to day in torture of the mind was also heavy and there was no prospect of escape from it. It was better to jump into the uncharted seas of action and do something, rather than be the tame objects of a malign fate. It was not a politician's approach but that of a people grown desperate and reckless of consequences; yet there was always an appeal to reason, an attempt to rationalize conflicting emotions, to find some consistency in the fundamental inconsistencies of human character. The war was going to be a long one, to last many more years; there had been many disasters and there were likely to be more, but the' war would continue in spite of them till it had tamed and exhausted the passions which gave rise to it and which it had itself encouraged. This time there would be no half-success which are often more painful than failures. It had taken a wrong turn not only in the field of military action but even more so in regard to the more fundamental objectives for which it was supposed to be fought. Perhaps such action as we might indulge in might draw forcible attention to this latter failure and help to give a new and more promising turn. And even if present success was lacking it might serve that saving purpose in the longer run, and thus help also in giving powerful support in the future to military action.

If the temper of the people rose, so also did the temper of the Government. No emotional or other urge was required for this, for it was its natural temper and its normal way of functioning —the way of an alien authority in occupation of a subject country. It seemed to welcome this opportunity of crushing once for all, as it thought, all the elements in the country which dared to oppose its will; and for this it prepared accordingly.

Events marched ahead, and yet, curiously, Gandhiji, who had said so much about action to protect the honour of India and affirm her right to freedom, and as a free nation to co-operate fully in the fight against aggression, said nothing at all about the nature of this action. Peaceful, of course, it had necessarily to be, but what more ? He began to lay greater stress on the possibilities of an agreement with the British Government, of his intention to approach it again and try his utmost to find a way out. His final speech at the All-India Congress Committee expressed his earnest desire for a settlement and his determination to approach the Viceroy for this. Neither in public nor in private at the meetings of the Congress Working Committee did he hint at the nature of the action he had in mind, except in one particular. He had suggested privately that in the event of failure of all negotiations he would appeal for some kind of non-co-operation and a one-day protest hartal, or cessation of all work in the country, something in the nature of a one-day general strike, symbolic of a nation's protest. Even this was a vague suggestion which he did not particularize, for he did not want to make any further plans till he had made his attempt at a settlement. So neither he nor the Congress Working Committee issued any kind of directions, public or private, except that people should be prepared for all developments, and should in any event adhere to the policy of peaceful and non-violent action.

Though Gandhiji was still hopeful of finding some way out of the impasse, very few persons shared his hope. The course of events and all the development that had taken place pointed inevitably to a conflict, and when that stage is reached middle positions cease to have importance and each individual has to choose on which side he will range himself. For Congressmen, as for others who felt that way, there was no question of choice; it was inconceivable that the whole might of a powerful government should try to crush our people and that any of us should stand by and be passive spectators of a struggle in which India's freedom was involved. Many people of course do stand by in spite of their sympathies, but any such attempt to save himself from the consequences of his own previous acts would have been shameful and dishonourable for prominent Congressmen. But even apart from this there was no choice left far them. The whole of India's past history pursued them, as well as the agony of the present and the hope of the future, and all these drove them forward and conditioned their actions. 'The piling up of the past upon the past goes on without relaxation,' says Bergson in his 'Creative Evolution.' 'In reality the past is preserved by itself, automatically. In its entirety, probably, it follows us at every instant.... Doubtless we think with only a small part of our past, but it is with our entire past, including the original bent of our soul, that we desire, will and act.'

On August 7th and 8th, in Bombay the All-India Congress Committee considered and debated in public the resolution, which has since come to be known as the 'Quit India Resolution.' That resolution was a long and comprehensive one, a reasoned argument for the immediate recognition of Indian freedom and the ending of British rule in India 'both for the sake of India and for the success of the cause of the United Nations. The continuation of that rule is degrading and enfeebling India and making her progressively less capable of defending herself and of contributing to the cause of world freedom.' 'The possession of empire, instead of adding to the strength of the ruling power, has become a burden and a curse. India, the classic land of modern imperialism, has become the crux of the question, for by the freedom of India will Britain and the United Nations be judged, and the peoples of Asia and Africa be filled with hope and enthusiasm.' The resolution went on to suggest the formation of a provisional government, which would be composite and would represent all important sections of the people and whose 'primary function must be to defend India and resist aggression with all the armed as well as the non-violent forces at its command, together with its allied powers.' This government would evolve a scheme for a constituent assembly which would prepare a constitution for India acceptable to all sections of the people. The constitution would be a federal one, with the largest measure of autonomy for the federating units and with the residuary powers vesting in those units. 'Freedom will enable India to resist aggression effectively with the people's united will and strength behind it.'

This freedom of India must be the symbol of the prelude to the freedom of all other Asiatic nations. Further, a world federation of free nations was proposed, of which a beginning should be made with United Nations.

The Committee stated that it was 'anxious not to embarrass in any way the defence of China and Russia, whose freedom is precious and must be preserved, or to jeopardize the defensive capacity of the United Nations.' (At that time the dangers to China and Russia were the greatest.) 'But the peril grows both to India and these nations, and inaction and submission to a foreign administration at this stage is not only degrading India and reducing her capacity to defend herself and resist aggression but is no answer to that growing peril and is no service to the peoples of the United Nations.'

The Committee again appealed to Britain and the United Nations 'in the interest of world freedom.' But—and there came the sting of the resolution—'the Committee is no longer justified in holding the nation back from endeavoring to assert its will against an imperialist and authoritarian Government which dominates over it and prevents it from functioning in its own interest and in the interest of humanity. The Committee resolves therefore to sanction, for the vindication of India's inalienable right to freedom and independence, the starting of a mass struggle on non-violent lines under the inevitable leadership of Gandhiji.' That sanction was to take effect only when Gandhiji so decided. Finally, it was stated that the Committee had 'no intention of gaining power for the Congress. The power, when it comes, will belong to the whole people of India.'

In their concluding speeches Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the Congress president, and Gandhiji made it clear that their next steps would be to approach the Viceroy, as representing the British Government, and to appeal to the heads of the principal United Nations for an honourable settlement, which, while recognizing the freedom of India, would also advance the cause of the United Nations in the struggle against the aggressor Axis powers.

The resolution was finally passed late in the evening of August 8th, 1942. A few hours later, in the early morning of August 9th, a large number of arrests were made in Bombay and all over the country. And so to Ahmadnagar Fort.

CHAPTER TEN

AHMADNAGAR FORT AGAIN The Chain of Happening

AHMADNAGAR FORT. AUGUST THIRTEENTH, NINETEEN FORTY-FOUR.

It is just over two years since we came here, two years of a dream life rooted in one spot, with the same few individuals to see, the same limited environment, the same routine from day to day. Sometime in the future we shall wake up from this dream and go out into the wider world of life and activity, finding it a changed world. There will be an air of unfamiliarity about the persons and things we see; we shall remember them again and past memories will crowd into our minds, and yet they will not be the same, nor will we be the same, and we may find it difficult to fit in with them. Sometimes we may wonder whether this renewed experience of everyday living is not itself a sleep and a dream from which we may suddenly wake up. Which is the dream and which is the waking ? Are they both real, for we experience and feel them in all their intensity, or are they both unsubstantial and of the nature of fleeting dreams which pass, leaving vague memories behind ?

Prison and its attendant solitude and passivity lead to thought and an attempt to fill the vacuum of life with memories of past living, of one's own life, and of the long chain of history of hu-man activity. So during the past four months, in the course of this writing, I have occupied my mind with India's past records and experiences, and out of the multitude of ideas that came to me I have selected some and made a book out of them. Looking back at what I have written, it seems inadequate, disjointed and lacking in unity, a mixture of many things, with the personal element dominant and giving its colour even to what was intended to be an objective record and analysis. That personal element has pushed itself forward almost against my will; often I checked it and held it back but sometimes I loosened the reins and allowed it to flow out of my pen, and mirror, to some extent, my mind.

By writing of the past I have tried to rid myself of the burden of the past. But the present remains with all its complexity and irrationality and the dark future that lies beyond, and the burden of these is no less than that of the past. The vagrant mind, finding no haven, still wanders about restlessly, bringing discomfort to its possessor as well as to others. There is some envy for those virgin minds which have not been soiled or violated by thought's assault, and on which doubt has cast no shadow nor written a line. How easy is life for them in spite of its occasional shock and pain.

Events take place one after the other and the uninterrupted and unending stream of happenings goes on. We seek to under-stand a particular event by isolating it and looking at it by itself, as if it were the beginning and the end, the resultant of some cause immediately preceding it. Yet it has no beginning and is but a link in an unending chain, caused by all that has preceded it, and resulting from the wills, urges, and desires of innumerable human beings coalescing and conflicting with each other, and producing something different from that which any single individual intended to happen. Those wills, urges, and desires are themselves largely conditioned by previous events and experiences, and the new event in its turn becomes another conditioning factor for the future. The man of destiny, the leader who influences the multitude, undoubtedly plays an important part in this process, and yet he himself is the product of past events and forces and his influence is conditioned by them.

The Two Backgrounds: Indian and British

What happened in India in August, 1942, was no sudden development but a culmination of all that had gone before. Much has been written about it, in attack, criticism or defence, and many explanations given. And yet most of this writing misses the real meaning, for it applies purely political considerations to something that was deeper than politics. Behind it all lay an intense feeling that it was no longer possible to endure and live under foreign autocratic rule. All other questions became secondary—whether under that rule it was possible to make improvements or progress in some directions, or whether the consequences of a challenge might be more harmful still. Only the overwhelming desire to be rid of it and to pay any price for the riddance remained, only the feeling that whatever happened this could not be endured.

That feeling was no new sensation; it had been there for many years. But previously it had been restrained in many ways and disciplined to keep pace with events. The war itself was both a restraining and releasing factor. It opened out our minds to vast developments and revolutionary changes, to the possibility of the realization of our hopes in the near future; and it put a brake on much that we might otherwise have done because of our desire to help, and certainly not to hinder in any way, the struggle against the Axis powers.

But, as the war developed, it became ever clearer that the western democracies were fighting not for a change but for a perpetuation of the old order. Before the war they had appeased fascism, not only because of the fear of its consequences but also because of a certain ideological sympathy with it and an extreme dislike of some of the probable alternatives to it. Nazism and fascism were no sudden growths or accidents of history. They were the natural developments of the past course of events, of empire and racial discrimination, of national struggles, of the growing concentration of power, of technological growth which found no scope for its fulfillment within the existing framework of society, of the inherent conflict between the democratic ideal and a social structure opposed to it. Political democracy in western Europe and North America, opening the door to national and individual progress, had also released new forces and ideas, aiming inevitably at economic equality. Conflict was inherent in the situation; there would either be an enlargement of that political democracy or attempts to curb it and end it. Democracy grew in content and area, in spite of constant opposition, and became the accepted ideal of political organization. But a time came when a further expansion endangered the basis of the social structure, and then the upholders of that structure became clamant and aggressive and organized themselves to oppose change. In countries so circumstanced that the crisis developed more rapidly, democracy was openly and deliberately crushed and fascism and nazism appeared. In the democracies of western Europe and North America the same processes were at play though many other factors delayed the crisis and probably the much longer tradition of peaceful and democratic government also helped. Behind some of these democracies lay empires where there was no democracy at all and where the same kind of authoritarianism which is associated with fascism prevailed. There also, as in fascist countries, the governing class allied itself to reactionary and opportunist groups and feudal survivals in order to suppress the demand for freedom. And there also they began to assert that democracy, though good as an ideal and desirable in their own home lands, was not suited to the peculiar conditions prevailing in their colonial domains. So it was a natural consequence for these western democracies to feel some kind of an ideological bond with fascism, even when they disliked many of its more brutal and vulgar manifestations.

When they were forced to fight in self-defence, they looked forward to a restoration of that very structure which had failed so dismally. The war was looked upon and presented as a defensive war, and this was true enough in a way. But there was another aspect of the war, a moral aspect which went beyond military objectives and attacked aggressively the fascist creed and outlook. For it was a war, as has been said, for the soul of the peoples of the world. In it lay the seeds of change not only for the fascist countries but also for the United Nations. This moral aspect of the war was obscured by powerful propaganda, and emphasis was laid on defence and perpetuation of the past and not on creating a new future. There were many people in the west who ardently believed in this moral aspect and wanted to create a new world which would afford some guarantees against that utter failure of human society which the World War represented. There were vast numbers of people everywhere, including especially the men who fought and died on the field of battle, who vaguely but firmly hoped for this change. And there were those hundreds of millions of the dispossessed and exploited and racially discriminated against in Europe and America, and much more so in Asia and Africa, who could not isolate the war from their memories of the past and their present misery, and passionately hoped, even when hope was unreasonable, that the war would somehow lift the burdens that crushed them.

But the eyes of the leaders of the United Nations were turned elsewhere; they looked back to the past and not forward to the future. Sometimes they spoke eloquently of the future to appease the hunger of their people, but their policy had little to do with these fine phrases. For Mr. Winston Churchill it was a war of restoration and nothing more, a continuation, with minor changes, of both the social structure of England and the imperial structure of her empire. President Roosevelt spoke in terms of greater promise, but his policy had not been radically different. Still many people all over the world looked to him with hope as a man of vision and high statesmanship.

So the future for India and the rest of the world, in so far as the British ruling class could help it, would be in line with the past, and the present had necessarily to conform to it. In that very present the seeds of this future were being sown. The Cripps proposals, for all their seeming advance, created new and dangerous problems for us, which threatened to become insuperable barriers to freedom. To some extent they have already had this result. The all-pervading autocracy and authoritarianism of the British Government in India, and the widespread suppression of the most ordinary civil rights and liberties, had reached their further limits during, and under cover of, the war. No one in the present generation had experienced the like of these. They were constant reminders of our enslaved condition and continuing humiliation. They were also a presage of the future, of the shape of things to come, for out of this present, the future would grow. Anything seemed to be better than to submit to this degradation. How many people out of India's millions felt this way is impossible to say. For most of those millions all conscious feeling has been deadened by poverty and misery. Among the others were those who had been corrupted by office or privilege or vested interest, or whose minds had been diverted by special claims. Yet the feeling was very widespread, varying in intensity and some-times overlaid by other feelings. There were many gradations in it, from an intensity of belief and a desire to brave all hazards, which led inevitably to action, to a vague sympathy from a safe distance. Some, tragically inclined, felt suffocated and strangled at the lack of air to breathe in the oppressive atmosphere that surrounded them; others, living on the ordinary trivial plane, had more capacity to adapt themselves to conditions they disliked.

The background of the British governing personnel in India was entirely different. Indeed nothing is more striking than the vast gulf that separates the mind of the British and the Indians and, whoever may be right or wrong, this very fact demonstrates the utter incapacity of the British to function as a ruling class in India. For there must be some harmony, some common outlook, between the rulers and the ruled if there is to be any advance; otherwise there can only be conflict, actual or potential. The British in India have always represented the most conservative elements of Britain; between them and the liberal tradition in England there is little in common. The more years they spend in India, the more rigid they grow in outlook, and when they retire and go back to England, they become the experts who advise on Indian problems. They are convinced of their own rectitude, of the benefits and necessity of British rule in India, of their own high mission in being - the representatives of the imperial tradition. Because the national Congress has challenged the whole basis of this rule and sought to rid India of it, it has become, in their eyes, Public Enemy No. 1. Sir Reginald Max-well, the then Home Member of the Government of India, speaking in the Central Assembly in 1941, gave a revealing glimpse of his mind. He was defending himself against the charge that Congressmen and socialists and communists, detained without trial in prison, were subjected to inhuman treatment, far worse than that given to German and Italian prisoners of war. He said that Germans and Italians were, at any rate, fighting for their countries, but these others were enemies of society who wanted to subvert the existing order. Evidently, it seemed to him preposterous that an Indian should want freedom for his country or should want to change the economic structure of India. As between the two his sympathies were obviously for the Germans and Italians, though his own country was engaged in a bitter war against them. This was before Russia entered the war and it was safe then to condemn every attempt to change the social order. Before World War II began, admiration for the fascist regimes was frequently expressed. Had not Hitler himself said, in his 'Mein Kampf' and subsequently, that he wanted the British Empire to continue ?

The Government of India certainly was anxious to help in every way in the war against the Axis powers. But in its mind that victory would be incomplete if it was not accompanied by another victory—the crushing of the nationalist movements in India as represented mainly by the Congress. The Cripps negotiations had perturbed it and it rejoiced at their failure. The way was now open to deal the final blow at the Congress and all those who sided with it. The moment was favourable, for at no previous time had there been such concentration of unlimited power, both at the centre and in the provinces, in the hands of the Viceroy and his principal subordinates. The war situation was a difficult one and it was a feasible argument that no opposition or trouble could be tolerated. Liberal elements in England and America, interested in India, had been quietened by the Cripps affair and the propaganda that followed. In England the ever-present feeling of self-righteousness in relation to India had grown. Indians, or many of them, it was felt there, were intransigent, troublesome persons, narrow in outlook, unable to appreciate the dangers of the situation, and probably in sympathy with the Japanese. Mr. Gandhi's articles and statements, it was said, had proved how impossible he was and the only way left open was to put an end to all this by crushing Gandhi and the Congress once for all.