Mahatma Gandhi: Quit India Speech

Audience

The first group Gandhi addressed in his speech was India's Muslim population. The Cripps Mission had reaffirmed British willingness to recognize the demands of Jinnah for a separate Muslim province. Political developments since the Lahore Resolution of 1940, which had demanded adequate and effective safeguards for Muslims to protect their rights and interests as a minority community, had elevated Jinnah to the position of spokesman for nearly all Muslims in India and had significantly impaired the ability of the Congress to represent the entire nation. For Gandhi, a messenger of religious brotherhood, the unity of religious communities was crucial for the success of any nationwide anti-British agitation. He vociferously criticized Jinnah as well as Hindu extremists like B. S. Moonje and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar for having preached and encouraged the doctrine of violence against followers of other faiths. Gandhi stressed the need for the unity of hearts and a joint effort by Hindus and Muslims in the fight for freedom. Religious divisions, in Gandhi's view, were not to stand in the way of Indian independence.

Another audience consisted of the committee members who had voted on the Quit India Resolution—both for and against it. Clearly, he was appreciative of those who voted in favor of the resolution, but he also commends those who voted against it, as long as they were voting their conscience. At the same time, he was addressing such figures as Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Jawaharlal Nehru, who objected to the timing of the resolution in light of ongoing hostilities in World War II. In this sense, Gandhi was walking a fine line between continuing his calls for Indian independence but doing so in a way that would not undermine the British fight against Fascism.

Gandhi directly appealed to specific groups such as journalists, princes, landlords, soldiers, government officials, and students to follow broad lines of action in resistance to British authority. He did not ask them, as he had in earlier civil-disobedience movements, to boycott their classes, courts, or offices. Instead, he entrusted them to continue their work while at the same time openly declaring themselves Congress members and free subjects.