74th Quit India Movement commemoration is followed throughout the country on August 8, 2016. It is noted that the Quit India or August Kranthi Movement was launched at the Bombay Session of All India Congress Committee on August 8, 1942.
Quit India:-
The Quit India Movement, or the India August Movement (August Kranti), was a civil disobedience movement launched at the Bombay session of the All-India Congress Committee or more simply by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi on 8 August 1942, during World War II, demanding an end to British Rule of India.
- The Cripps Mission had failed, and on 8 August 1942, Gandhi made a call to Do or Die in his Quit India speech delivered in Mumbai at the Gowalia Tank Maidan. The All-India Congress Committee launched a mass protest demanding what Gandhi called “An Orderly British Withdrawal” from India.
- Even though it was wartime, the British were prepared to act. Almost the entire leadership of the INC was imprisoned without trial within hours of Gandhi’s speech. Most spent the rest of the war in prison and out of contact with the masses.
- The British had the support of the Viceroy’s Council, of the All India Muslim League, the princely states, the Indian Imperial Police, the British Indian Army and the Indian Civil Service.
- Many Indian businessmen profiting from heavy wartime spending did not support Quit India. Many students paid more attention to Subhash Chandra Bose, who was in exile and supporting the Axis Powers.
- The only outside support came from the Americans, as President Franklin D. Roosevelt pressured Prime Minister Winston Churchill to give in to some of the Indian demands. The Quit India campaign was effectively crushed.
- The British refused to grant immediate independence, saying it could happen only after the war against the Axis powers had ended.
- Sporadic small-scale violence took place around the country and the British arrested tens of thousands of leaders, keeping them imprisoned until 1945.
- In terms of immediate objectives Quit India failed because of heavy-handed suppression, weak co-ordination and the lack of a clear-cut programme of action.
- However, the British government realized that India was ungovernable in the long run due to the cost of World War II, and the question for postwar became how to exit gracefully and peacefully. For several weeks there was widespread rioting and the British lost control in some parts of the country.
- Only the strongest measures, including the use of machine guns and aerial bombing, restored their rule – at the cost of thousands of Indian lives.
- The British swiftly responded with mass detentions. Over 100,000 arrests were made, mass fines were levied and demonstrators were subjected to public flogging. Hundreds of civilians were killed in violence many shot by the police army.
- Many national leaders went underground and continued their struggle by broadcasting messages over clandestine radio stations, distributing pamphlets and establishing parallel governments.
Celebrations:-
On marking this day, Maharashtra Govt. launched Quit India II from Swaraj to Suraj Movement which would emphasize on freedom in literacy, water, Addiction among youth and corruption and also the honorable CM presents awards to several prize winners in these celebrations.
PM Narendra Modi Unveils Yaad Karo Kurbani on the Quit India Day
In order to mark the 70 years of Independence and 74 years of Quit India Movement, Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled the ‘Yaad Karo Kurbani’ celebrations at Alirajpur, birthplace of freedom fighter Chandra Shekhar Azad in Madhya Pradesh on August 8.
- BJP leader and Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Venkaiah Naidu addressed that all the Union Ministers will visit 150 places all over the country associated with Indian freedom movement. The list of Mnisters and their visiting places as follows,
- Home Minister Rajnath Singh – Jharkhand, birthplace of Birsa Munda and Asfaqullah Khan in Uttar Pradesh.
- Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar – Cellular jail in Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Rewari, Haryana the birthplace of Rao Tularam. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley – Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar and Hiranagar in Jammu and Kashmir.
- Information and Broadcasting Minister Venkaiah Naidu – Azad Maidan in Mumbai and Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu, the birthplace of Tamil poet Subramania Bharathiyar and V O Chidambaram Pillai. It is noted that Azad Maidan is from where the Quit India movement was launched.
- BJP president Amit Shah – Kakori.