Quit India and the road to transfer of power, 1942-1946

By 1942, the Second World War had brought the question of India's future to a head. In March 1942, the Cripps Mission, led by Sir Stafford Cripps, offered India dominion status after the war and the right to frame its own constitution, but it kept defence in British hands during the war and allowed provinces to opt out of the future union. The Congress rejected the offer, and Gandhi, who called the proposals a post-dated cheque on a failing bank, pressed for immediate action.

On 8 August 1942, the Congress passed the Quit India Resolution at Bombay, calling for the British to leave India and for a mass struggle on non-violent lines, with Gandhi's slogan, Do or Die. The government arrested Gandhi and the whole Congress leadership the next morning, and the movement that followed was leaderless, with strikes, sabotage of communications, and parallel governments in parts of Bihar, Bengal, and Maharashtra, notably at Ballia, Tamluk, and Satara. The government suppressed it with force, and by 1943 the rising was over, though underground activity continued.

After the war, negotiations resumed. The Simla Conference of 1945, called by the Viceroy Lord Wavell, failed over the representation of Muslims, and the Cabinet Mission of May 1946 proposed a loose federation with a weak centre and strong provinces, grouped into sections, with the right of provinces to opt out after ten years. The Congress accepted the plan with reservations, the Muslim League accepted it at first and then withdrew, and on 16 August 1946 the League called Direct Action Day to press its demand for Pakistan, leading to communal killings in Calcutta that spread to other provinces.

By late 1946 an Interim Government, headed by Jawaharlal Nehru as Vice-President of the Viceroy's Executive Council, was in office, but it governed a country sliding towards communal violence, and the British government, exhausted by war and facing pressure from the United States and from Indian opinion, announced in February 1947 that it would transfer power by June 1948 at the latest. The date would in fact come much sooner, and the price would be Partition.