The Indian National Congress and the Raj, 1929–1942: The Penultimate Phase

215 Pages·1976·24.195 MB·English

by  B. R. Tomlinson (auth.)

THE INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS
AND THE RAJ, 1929-1942
CAMBRIDGE COMMONWEALTH SERIES
Published in association with the Managers of the Cambridge
University Smuts Memorial Fund for the Advancement of
Commonwealth Studies
General Editor: E. T. STOKES, Smuts Professor of the History
of the British Commonwealth, University of Cambridge
Titles published by the Cambridge University Press
John S. Galbraith: M~kinnon and East Africa, 1878-1895
G. Andrew Maguire: Toward 'Uhuru' in Tan~ania
Ged Martin: The Durham Report and British Policy
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Titles published by Macmillan
Roger Anstey: The Atlantic Slave Trade and British Abolition,
1760-1810
Partha Sarathi Gupta: Imperialism and the British Labour
Movement, 1914-1964
Ronald Hyam and Ged Martin: Reappraisals in British
Imperial History
B. R. Tomlinson: The Indian National Congress
and the Raj, 1929-1942
John Manning Ward: Colonial Self-Government: The British Experience,
1759-1856
The Indian National Congress
and the Raj,
1929-1942
The Penultimate Phase
B. R. TOMLINSON
©B. R. Tomlinson 1976
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1976
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without permission
First published 1976 by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
London and Basingstoke
Associated companies in New York
Dublin Melbourne Johannesburg and Madras
SBN 333 19369 5
ISBN 978-0-333-19369-3 ISBN 978-1-349-02873-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-02873-3
This book is sold subject
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Contents
Acknowledgements Vll
Abbreviations Vlll
Introduction 7
7 British Policy and the Indian
Problem 1919-35 7
2 The Gandhian Ideal and the Socialist
Plan: Central Congress Politics 1933-7 32
3 Provincial Congress Politics 1934-9 65
4 Central Congress Politics in the
Ministry Period 1937-9 113
5 British Policy and Indian Response 1939-42 137
Epilogue 159
Map 161
Notes 162
Bibliography 195
Glossary 200
Index 201
Acknowledgements
This book is based in part on my doctoral thesis Nationalism and Indian
Politics: the Indian National Congress 1934-1942 (Cambridge, 1974). In the
course of my postgraduate and post-doctoral research work I have
incurred many obligations.
I am grateful to the Department of Education and Science for a
Hayter Research Studentship that enabled me to work in India and
Britain; to the Managers of the Smuts Memorial Fund, Cambridge,
who have made a contribution towards the cost of this publication and
to the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge, who granted
me Studentships in 1969 and 1973, assisted with the cost of this publi
cation and made generous extra contributions towards the expenses
incurred during my researches.
I wish to record the kind assistance of the librarians and staffs of the
India Office Library, the British Museum, the Public Record Office,
the National Archives of India, the Nehru Memorial Museum and
Library, the State Central Record Office, Patna, the Sinha Memorial
Library, Patna, the A. N. Sinha Institute for the Social Sciences, Patna,
and the Cambridge University Library. I am also indebted to the
Editors of the Indian Nation and Searchlight newspapers for allowing me
to use their archives; and to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for
allowing me to base the map on p. 161 on one which appeared in the
1940 India Office List.
I should like to thank my many friends and teachers who have
contributed so much to this book, in particular Chris Baker, Chris
Bayly, John Gallagher, Gil MacDonald, Rajat Ray, Peter Reeves,
Francis Robinson and David Wash brook. My greatest debts are to Anil
Seal, who has provided constant help and encouragement at every
stage of my research; Eric Stokes, who has greatly assisted the trans
formation of a thesis into a book; and Caroline, my wife, who has been
helpmate, research assistant, copy-editor and breadwinner for the last
stx years.
Trinity College, Cambridge B. R. TOMLINSON
july 1975
Abbreviations
A.I.C.C. All India Congress Committee
AICC All India Congress Committee
Office Papers
A.I.V.I.A. All India Village Industries
Association
CAB Cabinet Office Papers
C.C.C. City Congress Committee
C.L.A. Central Legislative Assembly
C.P. Central Provinces and Berar
C.P.B. Congress Parliamentary Board
C.S.P. Congress Socialist Party
D.C.C. District Congress Committee
G.o.l. Government of India
I.N.C. Indian National Congress
I.O.L. India Office Library
M.L.A. Member Legislative Assembly
N.A.I. National Archives oflndia
N.M.M. Nehru Memorial Museum and Library
P.C.C. Provincial Congress Committee
P.L.A. Provincial Legislative Assembly
P.L.C. Provincial Legislative Council
P&J Public and Judicial Department
PREM Premier's Office Papers
Pt. Pandit (see Glossary)
S.C.R.O. State Central Record Office
T.C.C. Town or Taluka Congress Committee
U.P. United Provinces
Introduction
This book is a study of the collapse of British power in India and of the
rise of the Indian National Congress, which has dominated the gov
ernment and politics of independent India since 1947. The winding up
of the British empire is one of the most significant events of modern
history. India was once the jewel in Britain's imperial crown and the
ending of the Raj removed the coping-stone of the largest empire that
the world has known. The primary aim of this book is to provide a
documented and analytical account both of imperial policy and of
nationalist politics during the penultimate phase of British rule in
India. This account will also investigate the reasons that dictated the
timing and manner of the collapse of British control and of the rise of
the forces that successfully challenged and replaced it. In this process,
several different strands of policy-making and political action were at
work. The three major participants were imperial planners in London,
the Government of India in New Delhi and the central leaders of the
Indian National Congress. All three did have certain concepts and
problems in common, and at times the paths of their activities crossed,
but each was pursuing separate aims along separate roads and each
was affected by different constraints. Taken together, their tripartite
meanderings comprise a major part of the political history of British
India.
The work concentrates on the years 1929 to 1942, a short but vital
period in the history of modern India. In this period the British devised
a new strategy for rule in India. While handing over some power in the
provinces, they aimed to retain some of the vital attributes of sove
reignty, keeping control over crucial departments of central govern
ment (defence and foreign affairs) and substituting influence for control
over others (setting up a semi-independent Reserve Bank to manage
the currency and national debt). At the same time they hoped to enlist
collaborators at the all-India level by giving them responsibility over
some areas of central government. These plans were embodied in the
1935 Government of India Act. The next seven years revealed their
shortcomings. By March 1942 London had been forced to recognise
that the constitutional structure of the Raj would have to be reshaped
yet again, and that the extent ofBritish formal rule in India would have
to be limited still further.
A
2 The Indian National Congress and the Raj
From first to last, the activities of the all-India political associations
were closely connected with the constitutional arrangements of the Raj.
Whether they wanted to press for further concessions, or to work
reforms once they had been conceded, Indian politicians, particularly
on the national stage, could not ignore the framework of rule which the
British imposed. Thus a period which saw important changes in the
structure of British rule is bound to be a vital one in the history of
Indian political development. The Indian National Congress was the
most important and powerful political association in the sub-continent
and the history of its activities falls into this pattern of stimulus and
response. But the Congress was also capable of imposing upon itself
periods of exile from constitutional politics, periods in which it resorted
to full-scale agitation against the Raj. Between 1930 and 1934 the Con
gress had been following a programme of civil disobedience and in 1942
it again took up the non-violent cudgels of revolt in an attempt to force
the British to quit India. But, in perspective, it is constitutional politics
rather than agitation which characterises the history of the Congress,
and by 1934 Congressmen were preparing themselves to work within
the scheme of the new reforms. In 1936-7 the Congress contested the
elections for provincial government and between 1937 and 1939 it sup
plied the ministries in six of the eleven provinces ofBritish India. These
events led to a considerable rise in the membership and the power of
the Congress in the provinces and, by 1939, in the control of the central
leaders over their subordinates. The greatest fear of the British
administrators who were trying to make the 1935 Act work was that the
internal structure of the Congress, and its support in the country at
large, would prove strong enough to enable the all-India Congress
leaders to secure a stranglehold on the working of responsible govern
ment in the provinces and at the centre. This is what happened in 1939.
Although the contemporary view of the dictatorial powers of the Con
gress Working Committee was false, by 1939 the central Congress
leaders had managed to impose their dominance on their followers in
the localities and provinces, as was symbolised by their success in
securing the resignation of all the Congress ministries on the outbreak
of war. For the next year and a half, the Congress leaders used both
constitutional and agitational techniques to further their struggle
against the British. The years from 1934 to 1942 established the Con
gress as the most important of the opponents of British rule and as the
best-equipped ofthe heirs apparent to the Raj. Between 1929 and 1934
the British had been able to construct a new Government of India Act
while virtually ignoring the voice of the Congress; by 1942 it was clear
that Congress consent would be one of the essential preconditions of
any further scheme of constitutional advance.
This account deals with high policy, with the metropolitan institu
tions and interests that decided and controlled the main lines of con-