Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday hailed the courage of those who took part in the struggle for freedom, while Congress leader Jairam Ramesh reminded that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) had opposed the 1942 movement.
"We remember with deep gratitude all those brave people who, under the inspiring leadership of Bapu, took part in the Quit India Movement. Their courage lit a spark of patriotism that united countless people in the quest for freedom," Modi said in a tribute marking the anniversary of the movement.
The Quit India Movement, launched by Mahatma Gandhi in August 1942 with the call of “Do or Die,” demanded an immediate end to British rule. Nearly the entire Congress leadership was arrested by colonial authorities soon after its launch.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh, in a series of posts, recalled that the All India Congress Committee passed the historic Quit India resolution late at night on August 8, 1942.
"Thereafter Mahatma Gandhi gave his iconic 'Do or Die' speech heralding the launch of the Quit India movement. In the very early hours of Aug 9th, 1942, the top leadership of the Congress were jailed. Gandhiji himself was kept at the Aga Khan palace in Pune till May 6, 1944. Nehru, Patel, Azad, Pant, and others were taken to Ahmednagar Fort prison where they remained till March 28, 1945," he said.
He noted that for Jawaharlal Nehru, it was the ninth imprisonment, and between 1921 and 1945, he spent a total of nine years in jail. It was in Ahmednagar Fort prison that Nehru wrote The Discovery of India.
"While the entire Congress leadership languished in jail and while the entire nation was stirred, the RSS brotherhood actively opposed the Quit India movement. Seven years later it was to oppose the Constitution of India as well," Ramesh wrote.
The RSS opposition to the Quit India Movement is well-recorded. It sided with V.D. Savarkar’s Hindu Mahasabha.
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose was disgusted by it. On August 17, 1942, in a speech on radio, he said: “I would request Mr Jinnah, Mr Savarkar, and all those leaders who still think of a compromise with the British, to realise once for all that in the world of tomorrow there will be no British Empire…Inquilab Zindabad.”
Syama Prasad Mookerjee, founder of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh from which the BJP was born, also opposed the 1942 movement.
The Sangh of today has sought to revise that history, which includes the BJP’s attempted appropriation of the legacy of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel who had banned the RSS.