Now Reading: Quit India Movement: How Ordinary Indians Defied British Rule
-
01
Quit India Movement: How Ordinary Indians Defied British Rule
About 900 civilians were killed and 60,000 arrested between August and November 1942 during the Quit India Movement, Rediff reports. The campaign followed the failure of the Cripps Mission, which offered dominion…
The Story in Brief
About 900 civilians were killed and 60,000 arrested between August and November 1942 during the Quit India Movement, Rediff reports. The campaign followed the failure of the Cripps Mission, which offered dominion status during World War II. Congress passed its Quit India resolution at Bombay’s Gowalia Tank Maidan on August 7. Gandhi was arrested two days later, along with other senior leaders.
With Congress leaders jailed, the movement became a mass uprising involving students, workers, farmers and women. Strikes, boycotts and attacks on railways, police stations and courts spread across several regions. Underground organisers, including Usha Mehta and socialist leaders Ram Manohar Lohia and Jayaprakash Narayan, helped maintain resistance as the British imposed arrests, censorship and whipping punishments.
The Indian Opinion
Two lazy narratives deserve caution: that one leader alone carried the struggle, or that the movement was uniformly peaceful. The arrests forced ordinary people and underground organisers into central roles, while attacks on public institutions also formed part of the campaign. The human cost should not be reduced to patriotic slogans. Any account should test its claims against the documented toll of 900 civilian deaths and 60,000 arrests.
Source: rediff.com
This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
