Modern Indian History

August Offer, Individual Satyagraha, Cripps Mission and Quit India 1939-42

• Linlithgow's August Offer 1940: dominion status as goal, expanded Executive Council, post-war constituent body, minority veto; rejected by Congress and League
• Individual civil disobedience from October 1940: Vinoba Bhave first, Nehru second, Brahma Datt third; Delhi Chalo; freedom of speech against war
• Cripps proposals March 1942: Indian Union with Dominion status, constituent assembly partly elected by provincial assemblies and partly nominated by princes, provinces free to stay out and sign separate agreements with Britain, defence retained by Britain; post-dated cheque
• AICC at Gowalia Tank, Bombay, adopts the Quit India resolution on 8 August 1942; Gandhi's do or die; leaders arrested 9 August
• Quit india course and parallel governments
• Congress response to World War II: conditional cooperation, constitutional demands and the debate over immediate struggle
• Wartime emergency powers, censorship, preventive detention and colonial repression in 1939-40