Cripps Mission

The Cripps Mission was a failed attempt in

late March 1942 by the British government
to secure full Indian cooperation and
support for their efforts in World War II.
The mission was headed by a senior
minister Sir Stafford Cripps. Cripps
belonged to the left-wing Labour Party,
traditionally sympathetic to Indian self-
rule, but was also a member of the
coalition War Cabinet led by the Prime
Minister Winston Churchill, who had long
been the leader of the movement to block
Indian independence.

Cripps was sent to negotiate an agreement

with the nationalist Congress leaders, who
spoke for the majority Indians and
Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the Muslim
League, who spoke for the minority Muslim
population comprising 35% of the total
population. Cripps worked to keep India
loyal to the British war effort in exchange
for a promise of elections and full self-
government (Dominion status) once the
war was over. Cripps discussed the
proposals, which he had drafted himself
with the Indian leaders, and published
them. Both the major parties rejected his
proposals, and they were also
unacceptable to Churchill; no middle way
was found and the mission failed.
Congress moved towards the Quit India
movement whereby it refused to cooperate
in the war effort; in response, the British
imprisoned practically the entire Congress
leadership for the duration of the war.
Jinnah and the Muslims, to whom Cripps
had offered the right to opt out of a future
Union, supported the war effort and gained
in status in British eyes.[1][2] He was
surprised to see that the right to opt out of
a Future Union was undertaken.[3]

Background
The Government of India Act 1935 -
building on the Round Table Conferences,
Simon Commission and the previous
Government of India Act of 1919 - required
the establishment of an All-India
Federation, which would allow Indians to
take a larger share of governance at the
highest level. However deep difference
between the princely states and the
Congress, as well as between the Muslim
League and Congress, had delayed
progress. Instead, only the provincial
portion of the Act was carried out.

Following Britain's declaration of war on

Germany in September 1939, the Viceroy,
Lord Linlithgow, responded by declaring
India a belligerent state on the side of
Britain without consulting Indian political
leaders or the elected provincial
representatives, sharply underlining the
failure of progress to self-rule.[4] This
caused considerable resentment in the
Congress Party, producing demands for an
immediate transfer of power. The resulting
standoff led to the en masse resignation
of Congress Provincial Governments,
giving rise to the prospect of public revolt
and political disorder in India. The All India
Muslim League, the Hindu Mahasabha as
well as regional parties, gave their support
to Britain and the war effort in exchange
for various concessions. Negotiations
continued between the Viceroy, Congress
and Muslim League but their failure led to
a political stalemate.

The Japanese declaration of war on the

Dutch and British empires as well as the
United States in December 1941 altered
the political situation. Confidence in Britain
was particularly low after the fall of
Singapore on 15 February 1942, Britain's
greatest single defeat in the war, as fell as
the retreat from Rangoon, with large
numbers of Indian Army troops captured.
The threat of an invasion of India was real,
and there was anxiety about 'fifth
columnists,' particularly Congress radicals
working with Japan.

The British war cabinet, a coalition

government of national unity, was divided
on the question of compromise with the
Congress. The Labour Party ministers and
moderate Conservatives were keen to
advance Indian progress to self-
government in a way that would not
endanger the war effort. Churchill was
deeply opposed to any dismantling of the
British Empire, regarding its non-white
subjects as incapable of self-rule; in fact
the stridency of his views, and his
opposition to Prime Minister Stanley
Baldwin's agreement to work with parties
such as the Indian National Congress
towards self-rule had contributed to his
isolation within the Conservative Party for
a decade. He was supported in his views
by the Conservative Secretary of State for
India, Leo Amery.

However, the United States, as Britain's

principal ally saw things in even more
urgent terms. The chief American strategic
objective was aiding Chiang Kai Shek's
physically isolated Nationalist China
against the expanding Japanese Empire.
The Japanese conquest of China's coastal
areas meant that the US needed India to
serve as a major logistical hub to funnel
aid to China, and needed Indian military
manpower to secure routes for supplies
through Burma. American as well as
Chinese leadership was convinced that
this would not be possible without the full
support of a mobilised Indian population,
requiring a breakthrough with the Indian
National Congress. In addition the
Roosevelt administration which was busy
formulating its vision for the post-war
world order saw the decolonisation of
Asia as a matter of US national interest for
both ideological as well as commercial
reasons.

Despite these conflicts of interests,

Britain's reliance on the United States for
Lend-Lease supplies for the war effort
meant that President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt's pressure had to at least
appear to be taken seriously, especially in
light of the military disasters in South East
Asia. As a result, the British cabinet by 9
March 1942 agreed to despatch a mission
to India to discuss its offer, and Cripps'
plane landed in Delhi on 22 March. By that
time the British were willing to grant Indian
independence at the conclusion of the
war.[5] Incidentally the next day was the
second anniversary of the Lahore
Resolution of 1940, so Cripps saw
Muslims marching in the streets with green
flags.[6] Cripps stated that while he had
been closer to the Congress he was open
to other perspectives. Jinnah waited to
find out what the proposals were and
stated that the League would reject them if
they were not in the interests of
Muslims.[7]

Debate over cooperation or

protest
The Congress was divided upon its
response to India's entry into World War II.
Angry over the decision made by the
Viceroy, some Congress leaders favoured
launching a revolt against the British
despite the gravity of the war in Europe,
which threatened Britain's own freedom.
Others, such as Chakravarti
Rajagopalachari, advocated offering an
olive branch to the British, supporting them
in this crucial time in the hope that the
gesture would be reciprocated with
independence after the war. The major
leader, Mahatma Gandhi, was opposed to
Indian involvement in the war as he would
not morally endorse a war and also
suspected British intentions, believing that
the British were not sincere about Indian
aspirations for independence. But
Rajagopalachari, backed by Sardar
Vallabhbhai Patel, Maulana Azad and
Jawaharlal Nehru held talks with Cripps
and offered full support in return for
immediate self-government, and eventual
independence.

The British anxiously tried to gain Muslim

support during the war and for this
purpose they included a clause that no
province would be compelled to join the
post war India.[8] Jinnah, the leader of the
Muslim League, supported the war effort
and condemned the Congress policy.
Insisting on a Pakistan, a separate Muslim
state, he resisted Congress's calls for pan-
Indian cooperation and immediate
independence.

Cripps in India

Cripps meeting Mahatma Gandhi during the Second

World War

Upon his arrival in India, Cripps held talks

with Indian leaders. Cripps attempted to
satisfy all communities through his
proposals.[9] He was a friend of Nehru and
did his utmost to arrange an agreement.
However, the distrust was too high and
many people of influence did not want a
settlement to be reached.[10] There is
some confusion over what Cripps had
been authorised to offer India's nationalist
politicians by Churchill and Leo Amery (His
Majesty's Secretary of State for India), 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, insisting only that the Indian
Defence Ministry be reserved 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.

There was 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 Gandhi, the
national leadership demanded immediate
self-government in return for war support.
Gandhi said that Cripps' offer of Dominion
Status after the war was a "post-dated
cheque drawn on a failing bank".

Muslim League reception

The Muslim League rejected the Cripps
proposal. Jinnah argued that the
proposals were merely a draft declaration
and did not meet the demand for Pakistan
sufficiently and preferred a scheme of
United India. At a press conference on
April he argued that there was no clear
concession for Pakistan in the proposals
and he further expressed concern that the
Muslim right to self-determination had
been ignored. He also expressed criticism
for the exclusion of the Muslim League
from the later stage of
negotiations.[11][12][13]
Quit India Movement
When the British remained unresponsive,
Gandhi and the Indian National 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. The
invasion force contained elements of the
Indian National Army, founded and led by
Subhas Chandra Bose to end British
control of India. It was composed of
Indians, most being prisoners captured
with the fall of Singapore in early 1942.
The British response to the Quit India
movement was to jail most of the
Congress leadership.

Jinnah's Muslim League condemned the

Quit India movement and participated in
provincial governments as well as the
legislative councils of the Raj. It
encouraged Muslims to participate in the
war. With this cooperation, 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.

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[14] 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.[15]

Long-term impact
The long-term significance of the Cripps
Mission really became apparent only 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, but by the end of
the war, Churchill was out of power and
could do nothing but watch as the new
Labour 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–
1946 and formed provincial
governments.[16]

References
1. Paul Addison, The Road to 1945
(1975) p 201
2. William Roger Louis (2006). Ends of
British Imperialism: The Scramble for
Empire, Suez, and Decolonization .
I.B.Tauris. pp. 387–400.
ISBN 9781845113476.
3. Ian Talbot; Gurharpal Singh (23 July
2009). The Partition of India .
Cambridge University Press. p. 35.
ISBN 978-0-521-85661-4. "Cripps'
proposals also included a proviso that
no part of India would be forced to join
the post-war arrangements, and
though the mission ended in failure,
the Muslim League emerged with its
prestige and standing further
enhanced. Indeed, Jinnah at the time
of his interview with Cripps had been
'rather surprised' to see how far his
declaration went 'to meeting the
Pakistan case'."
4. Ayesha Jalal (1994). The Sole
Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim
League and the Demand for Pakistan .
Cambridge U.P. p. 47.
ISBN 9780521458504.
5. Barbara D. Metcalf; Thomas R. Metcalf
(2002). A Concise History of India .
Cambridge University Press. pp. 202–.
ISBN 978-0-521-63974-3. "By the time
of the flying visit of Sir Stafford Cripps
to Delhi in April 1942, the British were
willing to offer India independence, by
the convening of a constituent
assembly, at the end of the war, but
with the important proviso that no
unwilling portion of the country should
be forced to join the new state."
. Wolpert, Stanley (2006). Shameful
Flight (The last years of British Empire
in India). Karachi, Pakistan: Oxford
University Press. pp. 17–18.
ISBN 978-0-19-906606-3.
7. Sandhu, Akhtar Hussain. "Cripps
Mission Proposals And Muslim-Sikh
Relations on the British Punjab".
Journal of the Resarch Society of
Pakistan. 48 (1): 12. "Sir Stafford
arrived in India on 23 March 1942 and
gave a statement saying that he had
been more associated with his friends
in the Congress party but also
indicating that he was opened to all
other points of view. In the meantime,
the Muslim League was celebrating its
Pakistan day celebrations. Jinnah in
his speech, referred to the Cripps
mission advising Muslims to be
patient until his proposals were put
forward officially. He indicated that the
League will not accept his proposals if
it were detrimental to Muslim interest;
he also mentioned that he will resist
and if needed, the Muslims would die
fighting for the creation of Pakistan."
. Barbara D. Metcalf; Thomas R. Metcalf
(24 September 2012). A Concise
History of Modern India . Cambridge
University Press. pp. 209–. ISBN 978-
1-139-53705-6. "The British, in their
anxiety to secure Muslim support
during the war, helped it along by such
acts as the provision in the Cripps
proposals that allowed provinces to
'opt out' of any independent India."
9. Sandhu, Akhtar Hussain. "Cripps
Mission Proposals And Muslim-Sikh
Relations on the British Punjab".
Journal of the Resarch Society of
Pakistan. 48 (1): 12. "Cripps tried to
accommodate all the communities in
his proposals."
10. Barbara D. Metcalf; Thomas R. Metcalf
(2002). A Concise History of India .
Cambridge University Press. pp. 202–.
ISBN 978-0-521-63974-3. "A leftist
member of the Labour Party and a
friend of Nehru, Cripps did his best to
contrive an agreement. But the level of
suspicion was simply too high, and too
many influential figures did not want
the negotiations to succeed."
11. Sandhu, Akhtar Hussain. "Cripps
Mission Proposals And Muslim-Sikh
Relations on the British Punjab".
Journal of the Resarch Society of
Pakistan. 48 (1): 12. "The Congress on
2 April 1942 signalled its opposition to
the Cripps Proposals. The Congress
and Sikhs rejected these proposals
due to the possibility of the India's
partition with the provision that
provinces could opt out of a future
Indian Constituent Assembly while the
League rejected it finding no clear-cut
acceptance of Pakistan. Quaid-i-Azam
expressed his dismay at the refusal to
recognise the right of Muslim self
determination while addressing the
annual session of the All India Muslim
League at Allahabad: '...the
Musalmans feel deeply disappointed
that the entity ad integrity of the
Muslim nation has not been expressly
recognised...Muslim India will not be
satisfied unless the right of national
self determination is unequivocally
recognised. It must be realised that
India was never a country or a
nation....It has roused our deepest
anxieties and grave apprehensions,
especially with reference to the
Pakistan scheme, which is a matter of
life and death for Muslim India...'"
12. Abid, Massarrat (31 December 2010).
"Partition Demand: From Cripps
Mission to Gandhi-Jinnah Talks".
Journal of Pakistan Vision. 11 (2). "On
29 March, Cripps released his
documents and held a press
conference. On 4 April, in his
presidential address to the Muslim
League, Jinnah pointed out that Cripps
proposals were only a draft
declaration. He also said that creation
of Pakistan was a remote possibility
and there was a definite preference for
a new Indian Union which was the
main objective and suggestion and the
draft declaration interviews and
explanations of Sir Stafford were
going against Muslim interests and the
League was called upon to play the
game with a loaded dice. He asked
Cripps to make adjustments in order
to give real effect to the Pakistan
demand. On 13 April 1942, at a press
conference, he pointed out that
Pakistan demand was not conceded
clearly and the right of Muslims to self
determination was also denied. These
proposals were therefore rejected by
the Muslim League. Jinnah criticized
the British Government and Congress
party for another round of
negotiations, ignoring the Muslim
League at a later stage."
13. Ayesha Jalal (28 April 1994). The Sole
Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim
League and the Demand for Pakistan .
Cambridge University Press. pp. 81–.
ISBN 978-1-139-93570-8. "Provincial
option, he argued, was clearly an
insufficient security. An explicit
acceptance of the principle of
Pakistan offered the only safeguard
for Muslim interests throughout India
and had to be the precondition for any
advance at the centre. So he exhorted
all Indian Muslims to unite under his
leadership to force the British and the
Congress to concede 'Pakistan'. If the
 real reasons for Jinnah's rejection of
the offer were rather different, it was
not Jinnah but his rivals who had failed
to make the point publicly."
14. Shyam Ratna Gupta, "New Light on the
Cripps Mission," India Quarterly, (Jan
1972), 28#1 pp 69-74
15. Shyam Ratna Gupta, "New Light on the
Cripps Mission," India Quarterly, (Jan
1972), 28#1 pp 69-74.
1 . Judith Brown Modern India. The
making of an Asian Democracy (2nd
ed. 1999) pp. 328–30.