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(GIST OF YOJANA) MAHATMA GANDHI’S CLARION CALL “DO OR DIE” November 2017

(GIST OF YOJANA) MAHATMA GANDHI’S CLARION CALL “DO OR DIE” -November-2017

MAHATMA GANDHI’S CLARION CALL “DO OR DIE”

Hon’ble Prime Minister in his recent ‘Mann-ki-baat’ on July 20, 2017 referred to the importance of the month of August as the “Month of Revolution”. He said “We have been hearing this as a natural fact right from our childhood and the reason is, the Non-Cooperation Movement was launched on the 1st of August 1920; the Quit India Movement, which is also known as ‘AgastKranti’ began on the 9th of August 1942; and on August 15,1947 India became independent.

In a way, there are many events in the month of August that are closely associated with the history of our freedom movement. This year, we are to observing the 75th Anniversary of the Quit India Movement. But very few people know the fact that the slogan, ‘Quit India’ was coined by Dr. Yusuf mehar Ali. Our young generation must know what had happened on the 9th of August 1942.

Gandhiji challenged the British Rulers in India in 1942 with the powerful and historic slogans ‘Quit India’s to the British Raj and ‘Do or Die’ to the people of India. This historic call came from Mahatma Gandhi on the 8th of August 1942 in Bombay.

In the Midst of Violence

The World War II was the started in 1939. Linlithgwo, the then Viceroy, without consulting the elected provincial Governments in India, declared India at war with Germany on September 3, 1939. The Congress objected to it very strongly.

The government turned a blind eye. The Viceroy lLinlithgow could only offer to form a ‘Consulative Committee’ for advisory function. The dissatisfied Congress tendered its resignation on October 22, 1939.

Quit India

Mahatma Gandhi in his speech delivered on August 7, 1042, a day before Quit India Movement started, showed the way to the British ‘Quit India’. Quit India Movement was the final call to end the British Raj in India Through this speech he waged a non-violent war against the British. But he was very cautious in his approach. While introducing the resolution, Gandhiji said, “Before you discuss the resolution, let me place before you one or two things. I want you to understand two thing very clearly and consider them from the same point of view from which I am placing them before you. Here are people who ask me whether I am the same man that I was in 1920 or whether there has been any change in me. You are right in asking that question. I may tell you than I am the same man today that I was in 1920. The only difference is that I am much stronger in certain things now than I was in 1920.

Mahatma Gandhi invited the people to join the movement. He said, “My democracy means every man is his own master. I have read sufficient history and I did not see such an experiment on so large a scale for the establishment of democracy by non-violence. Once you understand these things you will forget the difference between the Hindus and the Muslims.”

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Unfortunate Violence

Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violence was in test. The government wanted to crush the movement under its authority and decided the course of action even before the launching of the movement. When it received the message that the AICC had approved the Quit India Resolution, they sent signals to all the Provincial Governors, Chief Commissioners and Political
Presidents in Princely States to act according to the plan all over India in a systematic way.

Almost the entire Congress leadership, and not merely at the national level, event at the grass root level was put into confinement less than twenty-four hours after Gandhiji’s speech, and the Congress leaders and volunteers were to spend the rest of the war in jail.

Second World War

The Second World War ended with the unprecedented death of lakhs and lakhs of people when America dropped its atom bomb on August 6 and 9, 1945 at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

There was also a gragile argument to disrespect and discredit the mass awakening by Gandhiji that the huge expenditure incurred by the British during the Second World War led to the decision to give Independence to India. In fact, British would have kept India like a colony with a big market for recuperating their economy. Gandhiji also rejected yet another argument that it was sabotage and underground activity which had strengthened the national cause or brought freedom to India.

Statesman Par Excellence

Finally, the British decided to negotiate independence to India by sending the Cabinet mission to Delhi. As Gandhiji visualized and predicted, the freedom to India paved way to the freedom to most of the colonies of Asia and Africa. As Queen Elizabeth in her speech at Philadelphia on the occasion of the United States Bicentennial said, “The British lost the American colonies in the eighteenth century because we lacked the statesmanship to know the right time, and manner of yielding what is impossible to keep”. Gandhiji taught this statesmanship to the British with his gentle non-violent approach and thus created a conductive atmosphere to the British to quit India at the right time with dignity and honour.