The final five years
From 1942 to 1947, everything moved at once — a mass movement inside India, an army fighting for freedom from outside it, and a race of negotiations that ended in freedom and division on the same day.
This page covers the last phase of the struggle: the Quit India Movement, the Indian National Army under Subhas Chandra Bose, and the final political moves — Cabinet Mission, Direct Action Day, and the Mountbatten Plan — that ended British rule.
Quit India — 1942
In March 1942, with Japan advancing toward India's border, Britain sent Sir Stafford Cripps to offer India dominion status after the war, in exchange for support during it. The Congress rejected the offer — Gandhi famously called it “a post-dated cheque on a crashing bank.”
With the Cripps Mission failed, the Congress resolved on 8 August 1942 in Bombay to launch a final movement. Gandhi's instruction to the nation was simple: “Do or Die.” The movement is remembered as the August Kranti — the August Revolution.
The demand was total and immediate: the British must leave India now, not after the war. The British response was immediate too — Gandhi and the entire Congress leadership were arrested within hours, on the night of 8-9 August. With no leaders left to guide it, the movement turned into scattered, spontaneous, sometimes violent local uprisings — students, workers and villagers cutting telegraph lines, attacking police stations, and in a few areas, running parallel governments, such as at Satara in Maharashtra and Tamluk in Bengal.
The government crushed Quit India within months using massive force — but the movement proved something the British could not ignore: after 1942, there was no going back to the old relationship between Britain and India.
The Indian National Army — fighting from outside
While Quit India raged inside India, a very different kind of struggle was building outside it — an army of Indians fighting the British with weapons, not satyagraha.
The Indian National Army (INA), also called the Azad Hind Fauj, was first raised in 1942 from Indian prisoners of war captured by Japan in Southeast Asia, under the Indian officer Mohan Singh. This first INA soon collapsed. It was Subhas Chandra Bose, arriving in Southeast Asia in 1943 after a dramatic escape from house arrest in India and a submarine journey, who rebuilt it into a real fighting force.
Bose, once a senior Congress leader who broke with Gandhi over methods, believed freedom would come only through armed struggle, with foreign help if needed. In October 1943 he formed the Provisional Government of Free India (Azad Hind Government) at Singapore, and took command of the INA, giving it the slogan “Jai Hind” and the call “Tum mujhe khoon do, main tumhe azadi doonga” — “Give me blood, and I shall give you freedom.”
The INA included the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, an all-women combat unit led by Captain Lakshmi Sahgal — one of the first all-women fighting units in modern military history.
The INA fought alongside Japan and briefly entered Indian soil at Imphal and Kohima in 1944, but the campaign failed as Japan's war effort collapsed. Bose died in an air crash near Formosa (Taiwan) in August 1945 — a death some have long questioned, but which remains the accepted historical account.
The INA trials and the Naval Mutiny
Militarily the INA had failed. Politically, it did something far more powerful.
In late 1945, the British put captured INA officers — Shah Nawaz Khan, Prem Sahgal and Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon, one Muslim, one Hindu, one Sikh — on public trial for treason at the Red Fort in Delhi. It backfired completely: the trials made the INA men national heroes, and even the Congress, which had never supported Bose's methods, joined their legal defence. Public anger forced the British to release all three.
The trials showed the British something alarming: Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs — three officers of three faiths — were being defended together as Indians first. The wave of sympathy for the INA spread into the British Indian armed forces themselves, and in February 1946, sailors of the Royal Indian Navy mutinied in Bombay. Britain now feared that its own army could no longer be trusted to hold India down — a fear that pushed London toward a fast exit.
Cabinet Mission and the road to Partition
With the army's loyalty in doubt and the war over, Britain sent a Cabinet Mission in 1946 to work out how to transfer power.
| Event | Year | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| Cabinet Mission | 1946 | Proposed a loose all-India federation with grouped provinces, and a Constituent Assembly to write India's constitution. Rejected the demand for a separate Pakistan, but the plan collapsed when the Muslim League withdrew |
| Direct Action Day | 16 August 1946 | The Muslim League's call for a Pakistan, which triggered severe communal violence, especially in Calcutta |
| Interim Government | September 1946 | Nehru formed an interim government; the League joined in October but worked to obstruct it |
| Attlee's announcement | February 1947 | British Prime Minister Attlee announced Britain would leave India by June 1948 |
| Mountbatten Plan (3 June Plan) | 1947 | Lord Mountbatten's plan for Partition, accepted by the Congress and the League |
| Indian Independence Act | 18 July 1947 | Created the two dominions of India and Pakistan, effective 15 August 1947 |
The Constituent Assembly, formed under the Cabinet Mission plan, first met on 9 December 1946 — before independence — and it is this same Assembly, chaired from August 1947 by Dr. Rajendra Prasad, that later wrote the Constitution of India.
1942 Quit India, 1943 Azad Hind government, 1945 INA trials, 1946 Naval Mutiny and Cabinet Mission, 1947 Independence and Partition. Five years, five turning points, one straight line to freedom.
Who formed the Provisional Government of Free India, and where?
Subhas Chandra Bose, at Singapore in October 1943. He took command of the INA and gave it the slogan Jai Hind and the call Give me blood, and I shall give you freedom.
Read in detail
The two chapters of the final phase, each on its own page.
Everything on one look
The movement, the army, and the final negotiations.
- Quit India launched 8 August 1942, Bombay — Do or Die
- Called the August Kranti
- Gandhi called the Cripps offer a post-dated cheque
- INA first formed 1942 under Mohan Singh
- Bose rebuilt the INA from 1943, Azad Hind Government, Singapore
- Rani of Jhansi Regiment led by Captain Lakshmi Sahgal
- Bose died in an air crash near Formosa, August 1945
- INA trials, 1945 — Shah Nawaz, Sahgal, Dhillon at the Red Fort
- Royal Indian Navy Mutiny, February 1946
- Cabinet Mission, 1946 — federation plan, Constituent Assembly
- Direct Action Day, 16 August 1946
- Constituent Assembly first met 9 December 1946
- Mountbatten Plan (3 June Plan), 1947
- Indian Independence Act, 18 July 1947 — freedom on 15 August
- Quit India began 8 August 1942, not with the Cripps Mission itself
- Gandhi called the Cripps offer a post-dated cheque on a crashing bank
- The INA was first raised in 1942 under Mohan Singh, not Bose — Bose rebuilt it from 1943
- Bose formed the Provisional Government of Free India at Singapore, October 1943
- The Rani of Jhansi Regiment was led by Captain Lakshmi Sahgal, an all-women unit
- Bose died near Formosa (Taiwan) in August 1945
- The INA trials were held at the Red Fort in Delhi, late 1945
- The Royal Indian Navy Mutiny took place in February 1946, in Bombay
- The Cabinet Mission (1946) rejected a separate Pakistan but its plan still collapsed
- The Constituent Assembly first met on 9 December 1946, before independence
- Quit India Movement was launched on 8 August 1942 at Bombay
- Gandhi's call for Quit India was Do or Die
- Quit India is remembered as the August Kranti
- Gandhi called the Cripps Mission offer a post-dated cheque on a crashing bank
- The entire Congress leadership was arrested within hours of the Quit India call
- Parallel governments ran during Quit India at Satara and Tamluk
- The Indian National Army was first raised in 1942 under Mohan Singh
- Subhas Chandra Bose rebuilt the INA from 1943
- Bose formed the Provisional Government of Free India (Azad Hind) at Singapore in October 1943
- The Indian National Army marched and fought under the slogan Jai Hind
- Bose's famous call was Give me blood, and I shall give you freedom
- The Rani of Jhansi Regiment was an all-women INA unit led by Captain Lakshmi Sahgal
- The INA briefly entered Indian territory at Imphal and Kohima in 1944
- Subhas Chandra Bose died in an air crash near Formosa in August 1945
- INA officers Shah Nawaz Khan, Prem Sahgal and Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon were tried at the Red Fort
- The trials made the INA officers national heroes and the Congress joined their defence
- The Royal Indian Navy mutinied at Bombay in February 1946
- The Cabinet Mission of 1946 proposed a Constituent Assembly
- The Constituent Assembly first met on 9 December 1946
- Direct Action Day was called by the Muslim League on 16 August 1946
- The Mountbatten Plan of 1947 is also called the 3 June Plan
- The Indian Independence Act was passed on 18 July 1947
- India and Pakistan became independent on 15 August 1947