The Path to India’s Independence: Vellore Sepoy Mutiny, Jallianwala Baag Massacre to Quit India Movement

India’s independence was not won in one day or by one person. Sacrifices were made by brave souls – known and unknown – to rid India of foreign rule. The brave but unknown sepoys of Madras Regiment lit the torch of freedom in 1806 at Vellore. This torch was carried forward by the mutineers and freedom fighters in 1857. The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre only lent greater glow to the torch, thanks to Sir CS Nair, the torch finally had passed on to Mahatma Gandhi.

Chandrashekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru, Ashfaqulla and countless others kept the torch aglow and the flag of defiance aloft.

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India has two genuine national festivals – the Independence Day and the Republic Day. These are truly pan-Indian and inclusive in every sense of the term. But there is another festival that predates these two and should have been celebrated with equal gusto. The Quit India Day of August 8, 1942 which launched the ‘Do or Die’ struggle for India’s freedom from August 09 onwards. The Quit India Movement is also referred to as the August Kranti.

Students of history will know that no revolution happens suddenly. Therefore, several events, individual actions and global as well as local economic, social and political factors contributed towards India’s independence movement.

The East India Company, which had entered the Indian subcontinent as a trading entity, soon turned into colonisers. The conquests of Arcot and Plassey and later Seringapatnam whetted their greed. Their exploitative rule and contempt for the natives soon triggered off resentment that exploded into mutinies. The first major mutiny was the Vellore Sepoy Mutiny. It was in reaction to, among other things, replacement of the Sepoys’ traditional headgear with the one designed by the Company. This hurt the sentiments of both the Hindu as well as Muslim soldiers. The Vellore Mutiny, which began in July 1806, predated the First War of Independence by full fifty years.

Another event that acted as a catalyst for India’s freedom movement was the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Unarmed, peaceful and defenceless civilians were ruthlessly shot down. People were pulled out of their homes and made to crawl in the streets, forcing them to salute Englishmen even as they were kicked and abused. The Golden Temple was desecrated in an unspeakable manner. All this would have died in the files of the British Raj had not Sir Chettur Sankaran Nair, a patriotic civil servant from Kerala, decided to protest. In the bargain, he attracted retribution in the form of court cases in England.

Who was Sir Nair? We learn from the well-researched biography, “The Case that Shook the Empire” by Raghu Palat & Pushpa Palat, that Sir Nair was a Member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council – a position second only to that of the Viceroy. He resigned from the post in protest against the Jallianwala Bagh massacre despite the pleas of Motilal Nehru, Annie Besant, C.F. Andrews and many others. He went to England, fought a court case against O’Dywer and exposed the barbarity of the British Government in India. The details that came out during the court proceedings shocked the world and tilted the world opinion in favour of India’s freedom movement.

Today, these factors may appear intangible but they certainly made tactile contributions to India’s freedom struggle. The fires lit during the Vellore Sepoy Mutiny kept smouldering, flared up in the form of 1857 War of Independence and providing spirit and substance to Gandhiji’s epic struggle for India’s independence.

However, the path to freedom was never smooth. There were sceptics, dissenters and outright saboteurs. At Wardha in July 1942, the Civil Disobedience Movement Resolution was passed. It essentially exhorted the Indians to not support the British war effort during the Second World War. The Communists criticized it as no more than a ploy to obtain concessions from the imperialists. The Muslim League openly supported the British war effort. However, within the party too there was dissent. C. Rajagopalachari opposed the resolution and quit the party. Nehru and Maulana Azad too were uneasy about the wisdom of the Civil Obedience Movement but they fell in line. Sardar Patel, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, Asoka Mehta and JP Narayan supported the resolution.

On 8 August, 1942 at the All India Congress Committee Bombay Session, Mahatma Gandhi introduced Quit India Resolution. Gandhiji’s Karo Ya Maro (Do or Die) war cry electrified the people of India and alarmed the British who resorted to tough measures for quelling the movement. Between 60,000 and 100,000 people were arrested. The entire Indian National Congress leadership, including Mahatma Gandhi, Abdul Kalam Azad, Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, was kept behind bars until the end of World War 2. The second line of leadership comprising Aruna Asif Ali, JP Narayan etc. kept the struggle going.

The British Government collaborated with Hindu Mahasabha and the Muslim League to discredit the Movement. In those days, Hindu Mahasabha and Muslim League were coalition partners in governments formed in the Undivided India’s North West Frontier Province, Bengal and Sindh. It is impossible to believe that there was no mutual understanding between these two communal parties for sabotaging the Quit India Movement and therefore stall India’s freedom struggle.

There is enough archival material to show that Savarkar did not just distance the Hindu Mahasabha from Quit India Movement but actually ganged up with the Muslim League to thwart the Movement. Shyama Prasad Mookerjee pledged to ensure that the Movement would not grow roots in Bengal. Here, Muslim League and Hindu Mahasabha coalition was ruling the province and Mookerjee was part of this government. Golwalkar’s RSS also remained busy with creating communal divide in the country, which eminently suited the British and Muslim League interests.

But, as an Urdu poet once observed, “Muddai lakh bura chahe to kya hota hai, vohi hota hai jo Manzoor-e-Khuda hota hai” (Doesn’t matter if the opponent wishes the worst for you, only the God’s dictate prevails.” Here the God’s will was the popular sentiment carefully nurtured by Gandhiji. Gandhiji’s efforts finally fetched us the long-cherished freedom, but at a price that hurts even today. Every Indian, irrespective of gender, age, class, caste, creed, region or religion, has paid this price.

Whatever the divisive communal forces say or do, every Indian is a stakeholder in the Secular, Socialist and Democratic Republic of India. Anybody who says otherwise is an antinational deshdrohi.