On This Day in History: August 8

Gandhi's "Quit India" Speech

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“Ours is not a drive for power, but purely a non-violent fight for India’s independence.” These were the words of Mahatma Gandhi, given as part of his “Quit India” speech on August 8, 1942 in Bombay to the All-India Congress Committee. He explained that “A non-violent soldier of freedom will covet nothing for himself, he fights only for the freedom of his country.”

--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: August 8, 1942--

Humans are shitty. It happens over and over that there are shitty leaders, and people look at them and say, “Those leaders are shitty. Let’s fuck them up.” And so, they violently overthrow those shitty leaders. And then once the overthrowers assume power, they start to behave in the same shitty way toward those they now rule as a method of maintaining their newfound power.

Gandhi knew that. He added in his speech that, “The power, when it comes, will belong to the people of India.” Too bad the caste system still exists.

India had been subject to the whims of Europeans since not long after Portuguese sailor Vasco da Gama first reached it in 1498 by sailing around the southern tip of Africa. Various European powers fought over the subcontinent for centuries, with Britain gaining dominance in the middle of the 19th century. It was referred to as “the jewel in the British crown.”

Gandhi’s speech initiated a mass protest demanding what he called an orderly withdrawal of the British. He extolled that people should not hate the British, but only hate their imperialism. It’s important to note that this was during the height of World War II. With its proximity to Japan, which was currently running rampant across the region, Gandhi feared India could end up exchanging one form of imperialism for another.

The British reaction was to imprison almost the entire Indian National Congress within hours of Gandhi’s speech. There were many Indians who profited from British rule and were willing to help them maintain it. But there was support from the U.S.; President Roosevelt pressured Prime Minister Churchill to give in to some of the Indian demands.

The British weren’t interested. They crushed the Quit India Movement, basically saying, “Do fuck off. We’re fighting a war.” Two years after the war ended, in 1947, independence finally came to the region, but the process was not non-violent, as the country was partitioned along religious lines between India and Pakistan. Millions were displaced, and several hundred thousand died. It is also estimated that 100,000 women were kidnapped and raped during this time.

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