Previous Year Question

The distinction here is between giving the call for the movement and actually leading its operations after its commencement.

(b) is the correct answer, meaning the observation is not true.

• On 8 August 1942, the All-India Congress Committee adopted the Quit India Resolution at Gowalia Tank in Bombay.

• Gandhi gave the “Do or Die” call and provided the ideological and moral direction for the movement.

• However, Gandhi and almost the entire top Congress leadership were arrested on the morning of 9 August.

• Gandhi could not direct the movement’s day-to-day operations, regional activities or strategic coordination after it commenced.

• Consequently, the actual movement developed in a largely leaderless, decentralised and spontaneous manner. It is in this operational sense that UPSC treats statement (b) as not true.

(a) is treated as a true observation by UPSC.

• The Congress resolution and Gandhi’s prescribed struggle were founded on non-violence.

• Gandhi explicitly stated that both the resolution and the contemplated struggle were rooted in Ahimsa.

• After the leadership was arrested, incidents such as cutting telegraph lines, damaging railways and attacks on government establishments occurred in several places. Nevertheless, the question treats the movement’s declared programme and character as non-violent, rather than claiming that every local incident remained non-violent.

(c) is true.

• The immediate arrest of the top leadership prevented the execution of any centrally coordinated programme.

• Students, peasants, local activists and underground leaders acted on their own initiative.

• Parallel authority structures emerged in places such as Ballia, Tamluk and Satara. The movement is therefore described as spontaneous and decentralised.

(d) is broadly true.

• The participation of organised labour at the all-India level remained limited and uneven.

• After Germany attacked the Soviet Union, the Communist Party characterised the war as a “People’s War,” supported the Allied war effort and opposed the Quit India campaign. This restricted participation by Communist-influenced trade unions.

• Strikes and working-class participation did occur in certain industrial centres. Thus, the statement does not mean that no workers participated; the expression “in general” indicates limited overall participation.

caution: Some guidebooks mark (d) or (a), but the official 2011 UPSC key obtained through RTI records (b) as the answer.