Summit Failures and Cabinet Obstacles, August 1944–July 1945
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August 1944–July 1945 4 Summit Failures and Cabinet Obstacles, August 1944–July 1945 S THE UNITED STATES took upon itself the lion’s share of the Allied war against Japan, Roosevelt’s frustration at Churchill’s in- A transigence over India grew stronger. FDR’s personal envoy, Am- bassador Phillips, reported, after returning to Washington, that when he talked to Churchill about India, “Churchill banged the table and said ‘I have always been right about Hitler and everyone else in Europe. I am also right about Indian policy, any change in Indian policy now will mean a blood bath.’”1 Whenever Roosevelt himself tried to discuss India with Churchill he received “a blunt cold shoulder.” By late summer of 1944 he entirely agreed with Phillips’s forthright report of what needed to be done about British policy in India. Since India would have to become a major base of future operations against Burma and Japan, “We should have around us a sympathetic India rather than an indifferent and possibly hostile India,” Phillips wrote. Indi- ans currently felt that “they have no voice in the Government and therefore no responsibility in the conduct of the war. They feel that they have nothing to fight for as they are convinced that the professed war aims of the United Nations do not apply to them. The British Prime Minister in fact has stated that the provisions of the Atlantic Charter are not applicable to India.” The Indian Army was “purely mercenary,” Phillips told FDR, adding that Gen- eral Stilwell was quite worried about “the poor morale” of Indian officers. The attitude of the general public is even worse. While India is broken politically . all have one object in common, eventual freedom and inde- pendence from British domination. Even though the British should fail Copyright © 2009. Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law. [67] EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 5/4/2020 1:18 PM via JAWAHARLAL NEHRU UNIV AN: 299117 ; Wolpert, Stanley A..; Shameful Flight : The Last Years of the British Empire in India Account: s1147250 Shameful Flight again it is high time they should make an effort to improve conditions and re-establish confidence among the Indian people. It is not right for the British to say this is none of your business when we alone presumably will have the major part to play in the struggle with Japan.2 The British Embassy in Washington was quick to telegraph this letter back to Whitehall and on to India, but careful to keep it out of London and Indian newspapers. Labor Members of Britain’s House of Commons continued, moreover, not simply to ask probing questions about India, but to demand a full “de- bate” on the government’s India policy, which finally came up for discus- sion in the Commons early in August of 1944. Amery was relieved to report that “all the speeches were moderate and responsible in tone,” but in light of American feeling, agreed with Wavell to start “talking” to Gandhi and encouraging him to meet with Jinnah. On both of those points Churchill expressed “grave uneasiness,” insisting it was “most undesirable that the viceroy should find himself in correspondence with Mr. Gandhi . [who] had consistently been a bitter enemy of this country.”3 The thought that “immediate independence” after the war ended and a “National Govern- ment” prior to its end might even be mentioned to Gandhi by Wavell out- raged Churchill to the point of demanding that the war cabinet devote no fewer than three meetings to redrafting that letter. “We are much concerned at the negotiations which you have got into with Gandhi who was released on the medical advice that he would not again be able to take part in active politics,” Churchill wired Wavell.4 “There is no question of negotiations,” Wavell replied. I am merely informing Gandhi of the position repeatedly stated by His Majesty’s Government in the Cripps offer. It was not possible to ignore medical opinions. I think you must admit that I have done my best. I have borne constantly in mind the necessity to compose the differences between Hindus and Muslims. I do not think meeting between Gandhi and Jinnah will produce settlement but it will at least clear up position between two principle [sic] parties. I am naturally keeping rights and in- terests of other minorities in view.5 A weary Amery replied the next day: “I am afraid the Cabinet have introduced a good many amendments to your draft, but they felt that it was essential to recapitulate clearly the main points. On the whole I hope you will think that the revised draft . changes nothing of substance.”6 After a week of telegraphic revisions and uncounted hours of war cabinet ministers’ time they finally agreed on the wording of a letter to Gandhi, in which the viceroy should state: “I see no reason why preliminary work on the new Constitution should not begin as soon as the Indian leaders are Copyright © 2009. Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law. [68] EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 5/4/2020 1:18 PM via JAWAHARLAL NEHRU UNIV AN: 299117 ; Wolpert, Stanley A..; Shameful Flight : The Last Years of the British Empire in India Account: s1147250 August 1944–July 1945 prepared to co-operate to that end. If they can arrive now at a genuine agree- ment as to the method of framing new Constitution as suggested above I see no reason why any very long time need be spent after the war in reaching final conclusions and in negotiating a treaty with His Majesty’s Government.”7 “I do not like the War Cabinet’s draft of the reply to Gandhi,” Wavell wired Amery. “It does not differ greatly . from the draft I proposed, but seems to me much more unfriendly. As I explained . our immediate object should be to get as good a press as we can without giving anything away. Politeness costs nothing and is likely to pay a dividend not only here, but at home and in the United States.”8 Some twenty-five of Gandhi’s Congress Party followers had been arrested in Bombay a day earlier, August 9, 1944, for attempting to read aloud in public the ‘Quit India’ resolution adopted by the Congress Party two years before. “It is disappointing,” the not insen- sitive viceroy confessed to Amery, “to be unable to do anything . more palatable to educated Indians.” The good news Wavell reported was that the RAF had just recently flown enough of its planes into Manipur’s capital of Imphal to smash Netaji (“Leader”) Subhas Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army (INA) that had advanced to its outskirts before the monsoon began. Bose’s INA consisted of about 20,000 of the British Indian soldiers captured by the Japanese in Singapore, who had volunteered to serve under Netaji Bose when he offered them “Freedom” if they were willing to risk their “Blood” to liberate India a year earlier. The British considered Bose and his “army of traitors” no better than their Japanese sponsors, but to most of Bengal’s 50 million Indians, Bose was a great national hero and potential “Liberator.” The INA was stopped before entering Bengal, first by monsoon rains and then by the RAF, and forced to retreat, back through Burma and down its coast to the Malay pen- insula. (In May 1945, Bose would fly out of Saigon on an overloaded Japa- nese plane, headed for Taiwan, which crash-landed and burned. Bose suffered third-degree burns and died in the hospital on Formosa.) Wavell’s bad news was that the general food situation was “unchanged,” with serious scarcity suffered throughout south India’s Travancore and Cochin states, where the mon- soon had failed, and food grain harvests were less than “one-third of normal.” Wavell tried to keep himself informed not only of Gandhi’s activities, but also of his political plans and objectives. In a SECRET report on Gandhi since his return to his ashram, Governor Twynam of the Central Provinces told the viceroy that Gandhi had drafted a statement containing bitter criti- cism of government but Rajagopalachari managed to dissuade him from publishing it. It was also said that Gandhi had no faith in the Pakistan scheme and no hope of a successful outcome of the discussions with Jinnah but that “his objective is to place both Government and Jinnah in the wrong in the eyes of the world.”9 Press reports indicated that Gandhi was to meet with Jinnah in Bombay on August 16, but by August 11 the war cabinet still Copyright © 2009. Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law. [69] EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 5/4/2020 1:18 PM via JAWAHARLAL NEHRU UNIV AN: 299117 ; Wolpert, Stanley A..; Shameful Flight : The Last Years of the British Empire in India Account: s1147250 Shameful Flight refused to give the viceroy approval to send his encouraging letter to Gandhi, awaiting Churchill’s permission. “I feel strongly on this matter,” Wavell wired Amery. “I cannot understand why War Cabinet should not approve my revised draft. I suggest you put this to Attlee .