Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh (Hum.), Vol. 63(2), 2018, pp. 261-281 QUIT INDIA MOVEMENT: MEDIA DISCOURSE AND MASS MOBILIZATION IN EASTERN BENGAL* Mohammad Golam Rabbani** Abstract The Quit India Movement of 1942 was the ever-biggest mass movement spear headed by the Indian National Congress and was characterized by spontaneous and sporadic revolts. It took a violent turn in many urban places across the country. In Bengal, it was intense in Kolkata and in some western districts but fairly moderate in eastern districts as a whole. Nevertheless, a very tangible evidence of public mobilization into this movement in some eastern districts is accessible. But over the long period of time as of today, the public history sources on the Quit India movement in Eastern Bengal are rare. Newspaper reports are also scanty. The archival documents contain only few police reports on public agitations versus police actions. However, the historiography of Quit India Movement has remained aloof towards what happened in the eastern districts of Bengal, so far. In this backdrop, this paper attempts to shed light on the media discourse and mass mobilization of the Quit India Movement in Eastern Bengal. Key words: Eastern Bengal, eastern districts, mass mobilization, Indian National Congress, Muslim League Introduction Abide by Gandhi’s motto- ‘do or die’, the Quit India Movement, adopted by the Indian National Congress on 8 August 1942, turned out to be the biggest civilian uprising in the course of Indian independence movement. It was projected initially as the mass Civil Disobedience of 1942.1 However, the colonial rulers were challenged in a real sense for the first time as it was admitted by India's then Commander-in- Chief, General Archibald P. Wavell when he broadcast from Delhi saying that danger was closer to India than it had been for 150 years. But ‘what would save India’, said General Wavell, was her ‘fighting men’, not the ‘undisciplined schoolboys’ and * This article is based on my paper, titled – ‘Role of the people of East Bengal in Quit India Movement’, presented at the international conference- Revisiting 42, organized by Virasat Arts Ayatokhetro and RAD, ICCR, Kolkata, 16-17 January, 2018. ** Associate Professor, Department of History, Jahangirnagar University, Savar, Dhaka, Bangladesh & PhD Fellow, Centre for South Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. 1 See for details, Gyanendra Pandey, ‘The Indian Nation in 1942’, in: Shekhar Bandyopadhyay, (ed.) Nationalist Movement in India, A Reader, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 144. 262 Mohammad Golam Rabbani ‘ignorant hooligans’.2 Viceroy Linlithgow himself had described this movement as ‘by far the most serious rebellion since that of 1857’.3 However, Sumit Sarkar argues that the ‘Quit India’ resolution was remarkably vague about the details of the coming movement.4 Nevertheless, it turned to be a ‘massive and violent’ revolt against the colonial establishments. History attests that the Quit India Movement was not welcomed by all Indians. There were sharp differences of opinion among the nationalist leaders and parties about the movement in the face of the national and international crisis of 1942.5 It was also proved to be controversial within the Congress. For instance, prominent Congress leader Chakravarti Rajagopalachari had quit the Congress over this decision and so did many regional leaders. Even Jawaharlal Nehru and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad were apprehensive about the movement but accepted it and stuck with Gandhi’s leadership. The Muslim League did not support the Quit India Movement in response to Congress’ opposition to its demand for Pakistan. Sumit Sarkar observes that the Muslims almost everywhere kept themselves aloof from 1942 and they remained neutral rather than actively hostile or pro-British.6 But Muslim League was active against the Quit India Movement at least in some places of Gujarat7 and in Eastern Bengal.8 The Muslim League was, however, of the view that if the British left India in its current state, the Muslims would be suppressed by the Hindu majority. On the other hand, the Communist Party of India, because of their ‘People’s War’ strategy, and to get the ban lifted (at that time it was banned by the British government) did not support the Quit India Movement.9 The labour class also played a limited and short-lived role in the movement. Another large section of the Indian society, not so well organized politically, the ‘untouchable’ or dalits, being disturbed by the emerging balance of forces within the Congress, did not support this movement.10 The industrialists, traders and businessmen, in general, were benefited from the 2 Time Magazine, 14 September 1942. 3 Sumit Sarkar, Modern India, 1885-1947, Mumbai: Macmillan India Limited, 1983, p. 391. 4 Ibid, p. 390. 5 Gyanendra Pandey, op. cit., p. 139. 6 Sumit Sarkar, op. cit., p. 399. 7 Shekhar Bandyopadhyay, From Plassey To Partition and After, A History of Modern India, New Delhi: Orient Black Swan, Second Edition, 2015, p. 422. 8 Taj ul-Islam Hashmi, Peasant Utopia: The Communalization of Class Politics in East Bengal, 1920-47, Dhaka: University Press Limited, 1994, p. 222. 9 Shekhar Bandyopadhyay, op. cit., p. 422. 10 Gyanendra Pandey, op. cit., p. 141. Quit India Movement 263 World War II in its first phase.11 Therefore, they also did not support the Quit India Movement. The Indian Imperial Police, the British Indian Army, the Indian Civil Service, Princely States were in favour of the British Government. And, the British had the support of the Viceroy’s Council which had a majority of Indians. With all these supports, the British government had decided on a policy of wholesale repression.12 Then the wartime emergency powers were taken advantage of to use the army to crush this civilian agitation. However, by the end of 1942, the British had definitely come out victorious. But “the victory” as Sumit Sarkar argues, “was ambiguous and with severe limits, and had been possible only because war conditions had allowed really ruthless use of force”.13 The strongest centres of the Quit India Movement were Bombay, Satara, and Ahmedabad in the west, United Provinces (UP) and Bihar in the north, and Bengal and Orissa in the east. And, the agencies for this movement were different in different places. 14 It is interesting to note that in the Quit India Movement, there were frequent gap between the high commands and the local men-in-actions of almost every political party. For instance, while the Communist Party’s formal position was in favour of the British government, many party members supported the Quit India Movement and even took a leading role in different parts of the country.15 However, as Bandopadyay observes, the Quit India Movement was vigorous in some regions, less forceful but more prolonged in others and was fairly moderate in some places.16 It appeared to have been most powerful in Bihar in terms of both intensity and extent, where the Kisan Sabha had done major preparatory organizational groundwork. Background of the Quit India Movement The Quit India Movement was the most revolutionary anti-colonial movement under Gandhi’s leadership. Then, why Gandhi and the Congress had adopted such revolutionary movement in 1942? The answer might have been rooted into the political scenario of the late 1930s. The Congress leadership did not undertake any major movement against the British government in the 1930s. Therefore, the ascendency of the Congress was challanged in numerous ways by the emergence of 11 Sumit Sarkar, op. cit., p. 393. 12 Ibid, p. 391. 13 Ibid, p. 404. 14 Gyanendra Pandey, op. cit., p. 139. 15 Ibid, p. 147. 16 Shekhar Bandyopadhyay, op. cit., p. 421. 264 Mohammad Golam Rabbani several new poltical forces and the resurgence of some older ones.17 Therefore, they were losing control over many trends within the national movement which were moving in different directions. In such a situation, as Bhaskar Chakrabarty observes, the Congress, after years of organizational weakness, had come up with Quit India Movement to ascertain its vitality and organizational power although with limited effect in many regions.18 The decease of the Civil Disobedience movement around 1934 resulted in serious contention within the Congress. The socialist and other leftist elements like Jayaprakash Narayan, Achhut Patwardhan, Asoke Mehta, Yusuf Mehrali, Narendra Dev and Minoo Masani formed the Congress Socialist Party (CSP) in May 1934. Jawaharlal Nehru on the other hand, despite his sympathy for socialism never joined this group. However, the CSP, which rapidly gained strongholds in UP, ‘was meant to operate from within the Congress and tried to change its orientation towards a socialist programme’. 19 On the other hand, in order to mobilize peasant grievances against the zamindari attacks on their occupancy rights, Swami Sahajanand Saraswati had formed the Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha (BPKS) in 1929. When it was revived in 1933, it increasingly came under the influence of the socialists. Around the same time, the Kisan Sabha movement gained in momentum in central Andhra districts under the leadership of the CSP activist N. G. Ranga. This Kisan movement sought to construct a broad front of the peasantry. All these developments on the peasant front culminated in the formation of the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) at the Lucknow session of the Congress in April 1936 with Swami Sahajanand Saraswati as its first president. However, the AIKS manifesto contained radical demands, such as the abolition of zamindari, graduated income tax on agricultural income, granting of occupancy rights to all tenants etc. 20 In the annual conference of 1938, AIKS denounced the Gandhian principle of class collaboration and announced that an agrarian revolution would be its ultimate goal.21 The establishment of CSP and AIKS were powerful indicators of the new trends in mass politics.22 People were becoming unmanageable and many Congress activists and supporters were leaving the party.