Quit India Movement

The Quit India Movement ( ), or the August Movement (August Kranti) was a civil disobedience movement launched in India in August 1942 in response to Mohandas Gandhi's call for immediate independence. Gandhi hoped to bring the British government to the negotiating table.The call for determined, but passive resistance that signified the certitude that Gandhi foresaw for the movement is best described by his call to Do or Die, issued on 8 August at the Gowalia Tank Maidan in Bombay, since re-named August Kranti Maidan (August Revolution Ground). Almost the entire Indian National Congress leadership, and not just at the national level, was put into confinement less than twenty-four hours after Gandhi's speech, and the greater number of the Congress leaders were to spend the rest of World War II in jail.

World War II and Indian involvement

By 1942, Indians were divided over World War II, as the British Governor-General of India, Lord Linlithgow, had unilaterally and without consultation brought India into the war. Some wanted to support the British in their Battle of Britain, hoping for eventual independence through this support. Others were enraged by the British disregard for Indian intelligence and civil rights, and were unsympathetic to the travails of Britons in the United Kingdom.

Opinions on the war

At the outbreak of war, the Congress Party had passed a resolution during the Wardha meeting of the working-committee in September 1939,...
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