TF Towards Freedom: Documents on the Movement for Independence in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1985–2010), 11 vols.
TNA The National Archives, London
TP N. Mansergh et al. (eds.), Constitutional Relations between Britain and India: The Transfer of Power, 1942–47 (London: HMSO, 1970–83), 12 vols.
WCP War Cabinet Papers
PROLOGUE
1. IAR, July–December 1939, vol. 2, p. 21.
2. Honourable mention must be made of books and articles by Daniel Marston, T. R. Moreman, Alan Jeffreys, Anirudh Deshpande, Kaushik Roy, Tarak Barkawi and Indivar Kamtekar.
3. Robert J. Blyth, The Empire of the Raj: India, Eastern Africa and the Middle East, 1858–1947 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); James Onley, ‘The Raj Reconsidered: British India’s Informal Empire and Spheres of Influence in Asia and Africa’, Asian Affairs, vol. 40, no. 1 (2009), pp. 44–62.
4. Cited in Blyth, Empire of the Raj, p. 8.
5. Karl Joseph Schmidt, ‘India’s Role in the League of Nations, 1919–39’, PhD thesis, Florida State University, 1994.
1. POLITICS OF WAR
1. Thomas R. Metcalf, Imperial Connections: India in the Indian Ocean Arena 1860–1920 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007); Sugata Bose, A Hundred Horizons: The Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Empire (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2009).
2. Sunil S. Amrith, Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2013).
3. Fortnightly Report by Secretary of State for India, 12 September 1939, WCP, NMML.
4. Quarterly Review, May–31 July 1939, Linlithgow Papers, Acc. No. 2324, NAI.
5. Statement to press, 5 September 1939, CWMG, vol. 70, pp. 161–2.
6. Mahadev Desai to G. D. Birla, 10 September 1939, TF, 1939, part 1, pp. 299–300.
7. Rajmohan Gandhi, Rajaji: A Life (New Delhi: Penguin, 1997), p. 203; Sugata Bose, His Majesty’s Opponent: Subhas Chandra Bose and India’s Struggle Against Empire (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 2011), p. 171; Rajendra Prasad, Autobiography (New Delhi: Penguin, 2010, originally published in 1946), p. 473.
8. Text of Resolution, 14 September 1939, CWMG, vol. 70, pp. 409–13.
9. Gandhi’s statement, 15 September 1939, CWMG, vol. 70, p. 177.
10. Linlithgow to H. J. Twynam, 9 September 1939, Linlithgow Papers, Acc. No. 2174, NAI.
11. Erskine to Linlithgow, 3 September 1939, cited in Sarvepalli Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography, vol. 1 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1975), p. 250.
12. Linlithgow to Zetland, 12 September 1939, Linlithgow Papers, Acc. No. 2156, NAI.
13. Ibid.
14. IAR, July–December 1939, vol. 2, p. 19.
15. Cited in Ian Copland, The Princes of India in the Endgame of Empire 1917–1947 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 181.
16. Fortnightly Report by Secretary of State for India, 12 September 1939, WCP, NMML.
17. Figures are from Fortnightly Reports by Secretary of State for India, 17 October 1939 and 17 February 1940, WCP, NMML and Copland, Princes of India, p. 185.
18. Dhananjay Keer, Dr. Ambedkar: Life and Mission (Mumbai: Popular Prakashan, 1954, reprtd 2009), pp. 325–6.
19. Linlithgow to Zetland, 7 October 1939, Linlithgow Papers, Acc. No. 2156, NAI.
20. Savarkar’s statement of 9 October 1939; Savarkar to Tatyarao, 6 September 1939; Jayakar to Ganpat Rai, 12 September 1939, TF, 1939, part 2, pp. 1900, 1889–90.
21. Linlithgow to Zetland, 7 October 1939, Linlithgow Papers, Acc. No. 2156, NAI; Savarkar’s statement of 9 October 1939, TF, 1939, part 2, p. 1900.
22. Cited in Gowher Rizvi, Linlithgow and India: A Study of British Policy and the Political Impasse in India, 1936–1943 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1978), p. 84.
23. Cited in ibid., p. 110.
24. Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 47–8.
25. Note of an interview between the viceroy and Jinnah, 4 November 1939, Linlithgow Papers, Acc. No. 2306, NAI.
26. Note of an interview between the viceroy and Jinnah, 5 October 1939, cited in Rizvi, Linlithgow and India, p. 110.
27. Fazlul Haq to Linlithgow, 13 October 1939, Linlithgow Papers, Acc. No. 2306, NAI.
28. Linlithgow to Zetland, 10 October 1939, Linlithgow Papers, Acc. No. 2335, NAI.
29. Article by Chhotu Ram, Leader, 27 September 1939, TF, 1939, part 1, pp. 342–4.
30. Linlithgow to Zetland, 25 September 1939, Linlithgow Papers, Acc. No. 2335, NAI.
31. War Cabinet, 27 September 1939, CAB 65/1/29, TNA.
32. Sarvepalli Gopal, ‘Churchill and India’, in idem, Imperialists, Nationalists, Democrats: The Collected Essays (Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2013), p. 139.
33. Cited in Gandhi, Rajaji, p. 206.
34. CWMG, vol. 70, pp. 413–14.
35. Viceroy’s declaration, 17 October 1939, TF, 1939, part 1, pp. 394–8.
36. Gandhi’s statement to the press, 18 October 1939, CWMG, vol. 70, p. 267; Nehru’s statements, 18 October 1939, SWJN, vol. 10, pp. 191, 193.
37. Cited in Gandhi, Rajaji, p. 205.
38. Congress Working Committee Resolution, 22 October 1939, CWMG, vol. 70, pp. 419–20.
39. Gandhi’s statements of 10 October 1939, CWMG, vol. 70, p. 246.
40. Intelligence Bureau report ‘Communism in India – A Survey of Recent Developments’, TF, 1939, part 2, p. 1722.
41. Victor Kiernan, ‘The Communist Party of India and the Second World War’, in Prakash Karat (ed.), Across Time and Continents (New Delhi: LeftWord, 2003), p. 210.
42. Editorial in New Age, 4 September 1939, TF, 1939, part 1, pp. 348–52.
43. Intelligence Bureau report ‘Communism in India – A Survey of Recent Developments’, TF, 1939, part 2, pp. 1724–5.
44. The best study on Roy is Kris Manjapra, M. N. Roy: Marxism and Colonial Cosmopolitanism (New Delhi: Routledge, 2010).
45. Roy to Central Executive Committee Members, 8 October 1939, M. N. Roy Papers, NMML.
46. Article by G. Adhikari in National Front, 23 April 1939, TF, 1939, part 2, pp. 1579–80; Narayan’s statement, 21 May 1939, TF, 1939, part 2, pp. 1610–11; Article by P. C. Joshi in National Front, 18 June 1939, TF, 1939, part 2, pp. 1634–5.
47. Memorandum by Zetland, 23 October 1939, CAB 67/2/3, TNA.
48. War Cabinet, 25 October 1939, CAB 65/1/60, TNA; War Cabinet, 4 November 1939, CAB 65/2/70, TNA.
49. Memoranda by Zetland, 23 October 1939, TNA; 4 November 1939, CAB 67/2/3, TNA.
50. Cited in Jalal, Sole Spokesman, p. 48.
51. Cited in Rizvi, Linlithgow and India, p. 90.
52. 19 November 1939, CWMG, vol. 70, pp. 362–3.
53. Congress Working Committee Resolution, 22 November 1939, CWMG, vol. 70, pp. 370–73.
54. Cited in Gopal, Nehru, p. 258.
55. Jinnah’s statement, 9 December 1939, TF, 1939, part 2, pp. 1827–8.
56. Jinnah’s statement of 6 December 1939, TF, 1939, part 2, 1826.
57. Cited in Keer, Ambedkar, p. 330.
58. Cited in Gandhi, Rajaji, p. 207.
59. Statement of 15 January 1940, CWMG, vol. 71, pp. 109–10
60. Telegram to Zetland, 18 December 1939, Linlithgow Papers, Acc. No. 2335, NAI.
61. Viceroy’s speech, 10 January 1940, Linlithgow Papers, Acc. No. 2329, NAI.
62. Memorandum by Zetland, 21 September 1939, CAB 66/2/5, TNA.
63. Chiefs of Staff appreciation, 11 October 1939, CAB 66/2/33, TNA.
64. Memorandum by Zetland, 31 January 1940, CAB 67/4/37, TNA.
65. The next three paragraphs draw on War Cabinet, 2 February 1940, CAB 65/5/30, TNA.
66. Gandhi to Linlithgow, 14 January 1940, CWMG, vol. 71, p. 107.
67. Statement to the press, 6 February 1940, CWMG, vol. 71, pp. 186–8.
68. Gopal, Nehru, p. 2
61.
69. Discussion at Congress Working Committee, 15 March 1940, CWMG, vol. 71, pp. 337–40.
70. Gandhi’s speech, 20 March 1940, CWMG, vol. 71, pp. 357–8.
71. Bose’s presidential address, 19 March 1940, TF, 1940, part 1, pp. 267–70.
72. Statement of 7 March 1940, TF, 1940, part 1, pp. 287–91.
73. Linlithgow to Zetland, 6 February 1940, Linlithgow Papers, Acc. No. 2162, NAI.
74. Jalal, Sole Spokesman, pp. 50–57.
75. Linlithgow to Zetland, 8 March 1940, Linlithgow Papers, Acc. No. 2335, NAI.
76. Linlithgow to Zetland, 5 April 1940, Linlithgow Papers, Acc. No. 2162, NAI.
77. Linlithgow to Zetland, 6 April 1940, Linlithgow Papers, Acc. No. 2162, NAI.
78. Cited in Rizvi, Linlithgow and India, p. 118.
79. Memorandum by Zetland, 11 March 1940, CAB 67/5/23, TNA.
80. Report for April 1940, WCP, NMML.
81. Memorandum by Zetland, 9 April 1940, CAB 67/5/46, TNA.
2. DEFENCE OF INDIA
1. David Omissi, The Sepoy and the Raj: The Indian Army 1860–1940 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1994), p. 199.
2. The Army in India Committee Majority Report, 1912, L/MIL/17/5/1751, AAC. ‘Army in India’ was the official term used after 1895 to describe the entire military establishment in India, including British troops. The term ‘Indian Army’ was applied to units comprising Indian soldiers, while ‘British Army in India’ referred to units of the British Army deployed in India.
3. Alan Warren, Waziristan, the Faqir of Ipi and the Indian Army: The North West Frontier Revolt of 1936–37 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); T. R. Moreman, The Army in India and the Development of Frontier Warfare 1849–1947 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998).
4. Bisheshwar Prasad, Defence of India: Policy and Plans (Delhi: Combined Inter-Services Historical Section, 1963), pp. 22–61.
5. Cited in Keith Jeffery, ‘ “An English Barrack in the Oriental Seas”? India in the Aftermath of the First World War’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 15, no. 3 (1981), p. 372.
6. B. R. Tomlinson, The Political Economy of the Raj 1914–1947: The Economics of Decolonization in India (London: Macmillan, 1979).
7. Cited in John Gallagher and Anil Seal, ‘Britain and India between the Wars’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 15, no. 3 (1981), p. 399.
8. G. Balachandran, John Bullion’s Empire: Britain’s Gold Problem and India between the Wars (London: Curzon Press, 1996).
9. Dietmar Rothermund, India in the Great Depression, 1929–1939 (New Delhi: Manohar, 1992).
10. Srinath Raghavan, ‘Liberal Thought and Colonial Military Institutions in India’, in Kanti Bajpai et al. (eds.), India’s Grand Strategy: History, Theory, Cases (New Delhi: Routledge, 2012).
11. Cited in Anirudh Deshpande, British Military Policy in India, 1900–1945: Colonial Constraints and Declining Power (New Delhi: Manohar, 2005), p. 136.
12. Michael Howard, The Continental Commitment: The Dilemma of British Defence Policy in the Era of the Two World Wars (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974), pp. 97–106; Arthur J. Marder, Old Friends, New Enemies: The Royal Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy, Strategic Illusions, 1936–1941 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981).
13. Report of the Expert Committee on the Defence of India, 1938–39, L/MIL/5/886, AAC.
14. Cited in Elisabeth Mariko Leake, ‘British India versus the British Empire: The Indian Army and an Impasse in Imperial Defence, c. 1919–1939’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 48, no. 1 (2014), p. 317.
15. The Defence Problems of India – Report by the Sub-Committee, May 1938, L/MIL/5/886, AAC.
16. John Connell, Auchinleck: A Biography of Field-Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck (London: Cassell, 1959), pp. 68–9; Lord Chatfield, It Might Happen Again (London: Heinemann, 1947), pp. 148–9.
17. Fortnightly Report by Secretary of State for India, 12 September 1939, WCP, NMML.
18. Government of India (Defence Department) to Secretary of State for India, 6 September 1939, CAB 67/1/6, TNA.
19. Memorandum by Foreign Office, 6 December 1939, CAB 66/3/50, TNA.
20. Milan Hauner, ‘The Soviet Threat to Afghanistan and India, 1938–40’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 15, no. 2 (1981), pp. 293–6.
21. Joint Memorandum by Secretary of State for India and Foreign Secretary, 7 September 1939, CAB 67/1/14, TNA.
22. Fortnightly Report by Secretary of State for India, 16 January 1940, WCP, NMML; G. N. Molesworth, Curfew on Olympus (London: Asia Publishing House, 1965), p. 149.
23. Memorandum by Zetland, 21 September 1939, CAB 66/2/5, TNA.
24. Appreciation by Chiefs of Staff, 9 October 1939, CAB 66/2/24, TNA; Draft telegram to India, 11 October 1939, CAB 66/2/33, TNA; Review of Strategic Situation by Chiefs of Staff, 2 November 1939, CAB 66/3/3, TNA.
25. Memorandum by Foreign Office, 6 December 1939, CAB 66/3/50, TNA.
26. Memorandum by Chiefs of Staff, 8 March 1940, CAB 66/6/21, TNA.
27. War Cabinet, 5 April 1940, CAB 65/6/27, TNA.
28. Report by Secretary of State for India for May 1940, WCP, NMML.
29. Report by Secretary of State for India for June 1940, WCP, NMML.
30. Cited in Prasad, Defence of India, pp. 66–71.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid., pp. 72–4.
33. Government of India (Defence Department) to Secretary of State for India, 18 May 1940, CAB 67/6/37, TNA.
34. Report by Chiefs of Staff, 29 May 1940, CAB 67/6/37, TNA.
35. Government of India (Defence Department) to Secretary of State for India, 25 June 1940, CAB 66/10/22, TNA.
36. Appreciation by Chiefs of Staff, 9 October 1939, CAB 66/2/24, TNA.
37. Memorandum by Foreign Office, 6 December 1939, CAB 66/3/50, TNA; Report by Chiefs of Staff, 5 December 1939, CAB 66/3/48, TNA.
38. Report by Minister for Defence Coordination, 13 January 1940, CAB 66/4/48, TNA.
39. Report by Chiefs of Staff, 17 October 1939, CAB 66/2/35, TNA.
40. Ian Kershaw, Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World 1940–41 (London: Allen Lane, 2007), ch. 1.
41. Report by Chiefs of Staff, 28 April 1940, CAB 66/7/18, TNA; Reports for May and June 1940, WCP, NMML.
42. Report by Chiefs of Staff, 5 December 1939, CAB 66/3/48, TNA.
43. Review of Strategic Situation by Chiefs of Staff, 2 November 1939, CAB 66/3/3, TNA.
44. Memorandum by Chiefs of Staff, 18 March 1940, CAB 66/6/32, TNA; Report by Secretary of State for India for April 1940, WCP, NMML.
3. COMPETING OFFERS
1. Report by Secretary of State for India for June 1940, WCP, NMML.
2. ‘Panic’, 4 June 1940, CWMG, vol. 72, p. 135.
3. Gandhi’s interview, 22 April 1940, CWMG, vol. 72, p. 11.
4. Rajendra Prasad, Autobiography (New Delhi: Penguin, 2010, originally published in 1946), p. 479.
5. Nehru to Azad, 16 May 1940, SWJN, vol. 11, p. 34.
6. Nehru to Prasad, 15 May 1940, SWJN, vol. 11, p. 31.
7. Sarvepalli Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography, vol. 1 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1975), p. 264.
8. Cited in Rajmohan Gandhi, Rajaji: A Life (New Delhi: Penguin, 1997), p. 219.
9. Cited in Rajmohan Gandhi, Patel: A Life (Ahmedabad: Navjivan Publishing House, n.d.), p. 293.
10. Rajagopalachari’s draft resolution, 3 July 1940, CWMG, vol. 72, p. 466
11. Discussions at Congress Working Committee, 3–7 July 1940, CWMG, vol. 72, pp. 235–6, 245–6.
12. Congress Working Committee resolution, 7 July 1940, CWMG, vol. 72, p. 467.
13. Gopal, Nehru, p. 265.
14. Nehru’s article, 21 July 1940, SWJN, vol. 11, p. 84.
15. Nehru note, n.d., SWJN, vol. 11, pp. 28–9.
16. Cited in Sarvepalli Gopal, ‘All Souls and India’, in idem, Imperialists, Nationalists, Democrats: The Collected Essays (Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2013), p. 78.
17. Amery’s statement, 23 May 1940, TF, 1940, part 1, pp. 166–7.
18. Gopal, Nehru, p. 264.
19. Amery to Linlithgow, 2 June 1940, War Cabinet, 20 July 1940, CAB 66/10/2, TNA.
20. Linlithgow to Amery, 10 June 1940, War Cabinet, 20 July 1940, CAB 66/10/2, TNA.
21. Amery to Linlithgow, 17 June 1940, War Cabinet, 20 July 1940, CAB 66/10/2, TNA.
22. Gandhi to Linlithgow, 30 June 1940, CWMG, vol. 72, pp. 212–15.
23. Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 62.
24. Memorandum by Amery, 6 July 1940, War Cabinet, CAB 67/7/23, TNA.
25. These exchanges can be followed in War Cabinet, 30 July 1940, CAB 66/10/3, TNA.
26. These exchanges are available in War Cabinet, 20 July 1940, CAB 66/10/2, TNA.
27. War Cabinet, 25 July 1940, CAB 65/8/24, TNA.
28. Viceroy’s statement, 8 August 1940, TF, 1940, part 1, pp. 173–4.
29. Gowher Rizvi, Linlithgow and India: A Study of British Policy and the Political Impasse in India, 1936–1943 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1978), p. 159.
30. Nehru’s article and remarks to press, 10 August & 27 August 1940, SWJN, vol. 11, pp. 101–14, 128.
31. Gandhi, Patel, p. 295.
32. Gandhi, Rajaji, p. 222.
33. Nehru’s remarks to press, 10 August & 27 August 1940, SWJN, vol. 11, p. 129.
34. Congress Working Committee Resolution, 22 August 1940, TF, 1940, part 1, pp. 185–6.
35. All-India Congress Committee Resolution, 15 September 1940, CWMG, vol. 73, pp. 1–3.
36. Statement, 18 September 1940, CWMG, vol. 73, p. 31.
37. Gandhi, Patel, p. 295.
38. Rajagopalachari to Gandhi, 23 September 1940, CWMG, vol. 73, pp. 56–7.
39. Gandhi, Rajaji, p. 222.
40. Muslim League Working Committee Resolution, 2 September 1940, TF, 1940, part 1, pp. 187–9.
41. Muslim League Working Committee Resolution, 28 September 1940, TF, 1940, part 1, pp. 191–2.
42. Statement, 15 January 1940; Hindu Mahasabha Working Committee Resolution, 19 May 1940, TF, 1940, part 1, pp. 111, 165.
43. Savarkar to Linlithgow, 19 August 1940, TF, 1940, part 1, pp. 180–83.
44. Savarkar to Linlithgow, 22 October 1940, TF, 1940, part 1, pp. 25–6.
India's War Page 54