[Mahatma Gandhi with Mohammad Ali Jinnah]

"..immediate ending of the British rule in India, was an urgent necessity both for the sake of India and the success of United Nations.."

Quit India

The Congress prepared to launch the third mass movement against British rule. In August 1942, Gandhiji gave forth the slogan "Quit India". The Congress passed a resolution on 8 August 1942 which stated that the "immediate ending of the British rule in India, was an urgent necessity both for the sake of India and the success of United Nations". The congress resolved to launch a mass Civil Disobedience struggle on the widest possible scale "for the vindication of India's unalienable right to freedom and independence" if the British rule did not end immediately. The day after the resolution was passed, the Congress was banned and all the important leaders were arrested including Gandhiji. The arrest of the nationalist leaders provoked spontaneous demonstrations at many places and people resorted to the use of violence to dislodge the foreign rule. The Government used police and army to suppress the movement. Despite the government's ruthlessness the struggle continued throughout the period of the second world war.

The Demand for Pakistan

The new development of communal politics in India was the propagation of what is known as the "two-nation theory". According to this theory, the Muslim League led by Jinnah claimed that India consisted of 2 separate nations, Hindus and Muslims. He claimed that the differences between Hindus and Muslims were not just confined to religion but covered the whole range of their social, cultural and economic life. In March 1940, the 2 nation theory was officially accepted by the All-India Muslim League which declared that no constitutional plan for India could be workable or acceptable to Muslims unless it was based on a demarcation of Muslim majority areas in the north-west and the east as independent states.