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Congress—Raj Conflict and the Rise of the Muslim League in the Ministry Period, 1937–39

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Sunil Chander
Sunil Chander
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Extract

The Government of India Act of 1935 was a constitutional device meant to extend the Raj's political alliances in Indian society. The Congress Party, on the other hand, construed the Act as a new challenge to the demand for independence. The authorities discovered that the Congress ministers’ primary loyalties lay with the imperatives of the party and not with the constitutional arrangement. Concern on this account was heightened by the resurgence of ground-level Congress activism. The Congress strengthened and expanded its volunteer organization while it governed the provinces. If the formal party institutions were weakened by corruption and factionalism during the ministry period, its grass-roots cadres were revitalized and mobilized opinion against compromises with the Raj, strengthening the ministers’ hands in any major clashes with the authorities. The latter were disturbed by links between the Congress ministers and party activity hostile to the Raj, even though a certain convergence of Congress and British interests kept the experiment of provincial autonomy going. The official response to this situation consisted, at one level, of making expedient concessions.But the authorities explored an alternative possibility as well. The Muslim League, which emerged as a mass party after 1937, was not exactly an ally, but it offered the most powerful resistance to the possibility of total mobilization under the Congress.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , April 1987 , pp. 303 - 328
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

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References

1 For a detailed discussion of the relationships between the Congress ministries and the British executive, as well as of the Congress party's activist cadres in the ministry period: Chander, S., ‘The Congress Ministries and the British Authorities in the Working of Provincial Autonomy, 1936–39: Aspects of Conflict between the Congress and the Raj’ (Oxford Univ. M.Litt. thesis), pp. 1–83.Google Scholar

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31 Ibid., Note on Volunteer Movement, Dec. 1939; Bihar Chief Secretary's Report, Aug. 1939.

32 Ibid., Note, Oct. 1938; Maharashtra State Archives (MSA) Home Dept. (HD), 1017/40, Note on Volunteer Movement, 1940; also IOLR op. cit., Viceroy to Home Member, Govt. of India, 3 April 1940; Note on Volunteer Movement, V, Aug. 1940.

33 Ibid., Note, Oct. 1938; Note, June 1939; Note, Dec. 1939; Note, March 1940; Zetland to Linlithgow, 24 Jan. 1939; MSA HD, 1017/40, Note, 1940.

34 Ibid., Note, Dec. 1938; Notes, Oct, 1938, June, Dec. 1939.

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66 Ibid., FRs, 8, 24 June 1938; D670/3, Diary Entry, 24 Feb. 1938.

67 Ibid., FR, 23 Aug. 1938.

68 Ibid.

69 Ibid., 23 Feb. 1938.

70 IOLR, 670/3, Diary Entry, 24 Feb. 1938.

71 Ibid., Diary Entry, 28 Feb. 1938; D670/14, FRs, 23 Feb., 10 March 1938.

72 Ibid., and FR, 10 April 1939; Mss Eur F125/72, Linlithgow, to Cunningham, , 31 Jan. 1938Google Scholar; Caroe, O., The Pathans, 550 BC to AD 1957 (London, 1958), pp. 431–5.Google Scholar

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77 Ibid., Parsons' Memorandum, Oct. 1938.

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79 Ibid.; Spain, J. W., ‘Political Problems of a Borderland’, in Embree, A. T. (ed.), Pakistan's Western Borderlands (Delhi, 1977), pp. 18–21Google Scholar; Tendulkar, , Abdul Ghaffar Khan, pp. 63, 73–4, 85–6, 92, 101–2, 104, 219Google Scholar; IOLR, Mss Eur F97/61, Brabourne Coll., Brabourne, to Zetland, , 26 Aug. 1936.Google Scholar

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81 Ibid.; D670/3, Diary Entry, 5 Aug. 1938.

82 IOLR, D670/14, FRs, 8 Aug., 3 Sept. 1938.

83 Ibid., FR, 3 Sept. 1938; D670/3, Diary Entry, 5 Aug. 1938. Some British officials, too, appear to have remained inactive over the intelligence of the Bannu raid when it was imminent. Instances of such cynical action were few, but their consequences were quite serious when they happened. Most importantly perhaps, ‘communal’ parties received a shot in the arm. See D670/3, Diary Entries, 21 Feb., 10 May 1939; D670/14, FR, 3 Sept. 1938.

84 IOLR, F125/73, Brabourne, to Cunningham, , 30 Aug. 1938.Google Scholar

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87 Ibid., FRs, 8 Aug. 1938, 9 Feb., 20 April 1939.

88 Ibid., FR, 9 May 1939.

89 Ibid., FR, 26 May 1938; F125/74, 9 May, 23 June, 25 July 1939.

90 Ibid.

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