NAME : LEENA SHAKOOR 

SECTION: A 
ASSIGNMENT:PAKISTAN MOVEMENT 
SUBMITTED TO :SIR NAJIB

Cripps' mission
The Cripps mission was an attempt in late March of 1942 by the British government
to
secure Indian cooperation and support for their efforts in World war II. The mission
was
headed by Sir Stafford Cripps ,a senior left-wing politician and government minister
in
the War Cabinet of Prime Minister Winston Churchill
Background
With the Battle of Britain and the entry of the
U.S. World war II was becoming increasingly grave and critical for the future survival
of Britain and European nations. The British government desired to enlist the full
cooperation and support of Indian  political leaders in order to recruit more Indians
into the
British Indian army which fought Imperial japan
in South East Asia  and Fascist Italy and Nazi German in Europe and North Africa
alongside the British army and its Australian, New Zealander, and American allies. In
1939 the Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow , had declared India a belligerent state on the side
of the allies without consulting Indian political leaders or the elected provincial
representatives. This caused considerable resentment in India and provoked the
resignation en masse of elected
Congress party Provincial Governments, giving rise to the prospect of public revolt
and political disorder in India. The British feared a
destabilising revolt in India which could be fatal to their campaign against the
Japanese,
as well as detrimental to obtaining much-needed resources and manpower to fight the
war in Europe as well.

PROPOSALS OF CRIPPS MISSION:

 Setting up an Indian dominion.This dominion would have the freedom to

remain with the British Commonwealth or to secede from it. It would also be at
the liberty to take part in international organisations.
 A Constituent Assembly would be formed to frame a new constitution for the
country. This Assembly would have members elected by the provincial
assemblies and also nominated by the princes.
 Any province unwilling to join the Indian dominion could form a separate
union and have a separate constitution.
  The transfer of power and the rights of minorities would be safeguarded by
negotiations between the Constituent Assembly and the British government.
 In the meantime until this new constitution came into force India’s defence
would be controlled by the British and the power  of the governor general
would remain  unaltered.
Cripps In India :
Upon his arrival in India Cripps held talks with Indian leaders.There is some
confusion over what Cripps had been authorised to offer India's nationalist politicians
by Churchill and
Leo Amery , and he also faced hostility from the Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow. He began
by offering India full Dominion status at the end of the war, with the chance to secede
from the Commonwealth and go for total independence. Privately, Cripps also
promised to get rid of Linlithgow and grant India Dominion Status with immediate
effect, reserving only the Defence Ministry for the British. However, in public he
failed to present any concrete proposals for greater self-government in the short-term,
other than a vague commitment to increase the number of Indian members of the
Viceroy's Executive Council. Cripps spent much of his time in encouraging Congress
leaders and Jinnah to come to a common, public arrangement in support of the war
and government; however ,the Congress leaders felt that whatever Cripps might say,
his political masters were not interested in granting the complete Indianisation of the
Viceroys Executive Council, its conversion into a Cabinet with collective
responsibility, or Indian control over Defence in wartime. They were also suspicious
of an opt-out clause which Amery was rumoured to have offered the Muslim League
in any putative Dominion arrangement. There was too little trust between the British
and Congress by this stage, and both sides felt that the other was concealing its true
plans.
The Congress stopped talks with Cripps and, guided by Mohandas Gandhi, the
national
leadership demanded immediate self-government in return for war support. When the
British remained unresponsive, Gandhi and the Congress began planning a major
public
revolt, the Quit India movement, which demanded immediate British withdrawal from
India. As the Imperial Japanese army advanced closer to India with the conquest of 
Burma , Indians perceived an inability upon the part of the British to defend Indian
soil.
This period concurred with the rise of the
Indian National army ,led by Subhas Chandra
Bose. The British response to the Quit India movement was to throw most of the
Congress leadership in jail. Jinnah's Muslim League condemned the Quit India
movement, participating in provincial governments as well as the legislative councils
of the British Raj
, and encouraging Muslims to participate in the war. With this limited cooperation
from the Muslim League ,the British were able to continue administering India for the
duration of the war using officials and military personnel where Indian politicians
could not be found. This would not prove to be feasible in the long-term, however.The
long-term significance of the Cripps Mission only really became apparent in the
aftermath of the war, as troops were demobilised and sent back home. Even Churchill
recognised that there could be no retraction of the offer of Independence which Cripps
had made, although by the end of the war Churchill was out of power and could only
watch as the new Labor government gave India independence. This confidence that
the
British would soon leave was reflected in the readiness with which Congress
politicians
stood in the elections of 1945 and formed provincial governments.In retrospect, this
unsuccessful and badly-planned attempt to placate the Congress in return for
temporary wartime support was the point at which the British departure from India
became inevitable at the war's end

CAUSES OF FAILURE

There are three main reasons behind the causes of the failure of the Cripps’ mission.
They are listed as follows:

 Gandhi’s opposition led the Indian National Congress to reject the British offer.
 Cripps’ modification of the original British offer, which provided for no real
transfer of power.
 The behind-the-scenes efforts of the Viceroy and Secretary of State for India to
sabotage the mission.

Gupta concludes that documents released in 1970 support the third interpretation.
Messages between Viceroy Lord Linlithgow and Secretary of State L. S. S. Amery
reveal that both opposed the Cripps Mission and that they deliberately undercut
Cripps. While the British government used the Cripps Mission as evidence of its
liberal colonial policy, personal and private correspondence reveals contempt for the
mission and elation over its failure.