. Quit India Movement Sometime in May Gandhi took it upon himself to steer the Indian National Congress into action. Gandhi’s decision to launch a mass struggle this time, however, met with reservation from C. Rajaji as much as from Nehru.
Conditions were ripe for an agitation. Prices of commodities had shot up many-fold and there was shortage of food- grains too. Congress Meet at Wardha It was in this context that the Working Committee of the Indian National Congress met at Wardha on July , . The meeting Last Phase of Indian National Movement Spread and Intensity of the Movement The spread of the movement and its intensity can be gauged from the extent of force that the colonial administration used to put it down.
By the end of , the number of persons arrested across India stood at , . The police shot dead persons during the same period. police outposts, railway stations and post offices were destroyed or damaged very badly. At least policemen defected and joined the rebels.
R.H. Niblett, who served as District Collector of Azamgarh in eastern United Province, removed from service for being too mild with the rebels, recorded in his diary that the British unleashed ‘white terror’ using an ‘incendiary police to set fire to villages for several miles’ and that ‘reprisals (becoming) the rule of the day.’ Collective fines were imposed on all the people in a village where public property was destroyed. Clandestine Radio Yet another prominent feature of the Quit India movement was the use of Radio by the rebels. The press being censored, the rebels set up a clandestine radio broadcast system from Bombay.
The transmitter was shifted from one place to another in and around the city. Usha Mehta was the force behind the clandestine radio operations and its broadcast was heard as far away as Madras. The Quit India movement was the most powerful onslaught against the colonial state hitherto. The movement included the Congress, the Socialists, and the