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India's struggle for independence was arguably the most momentous ofthe twentieth century, and central to it was the generation of powerfulnationalist forces. In a series of detailed studies Anthony Low showshow the ambiguity of the British position conditioned the distinctivecharacter of this struggle: how the British determination to hold fast totheir Indian empire (unlike the Americans in the Philippines) prior to1942 was nonetheless complemented by a reluctance to resist theirnationalist opponents in the unyielding ways of the French in Vietnamand the Dutch in Indonesia. Much that Gandhi did, Professor Low con-cludes, would have been unnecessary in the Philippines and impossiblein Indonesia and Vietnam, but astutely fitted the peculiar conditions ofthe nationalist struggle against the British in India. Published on thefiftieth anniversary of Indian independence, Britain and Indian national-ism makes a major contribution to the historiography of modern India,to Britain's relations with its empire, and to the history of decolonisationin the twentieth century.

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Britain and Indian nationalism






Britain and Indian nationalism

The imprint of ambiguity 1929-1942

D.A. LOWEmeritus Smuts Professor of the History of the British Commonwealth in theUniversity of Cambridge and University Fellow, The Australian National University

Hj CAMBRIDGEUNIVERSITY PRESS






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Britain and Indian Nationalism: Th e imprint of ambiguity - /D.A. Low.

p. cm.isbn (hb). Nationalism–India–History. . India–History–British

occupation, –. . India–Politics andgovernment––.ds..l .´–dc - CIP

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ToThe Four Regiments of Sepoys






I have one ambition. I'm going to set these people free.Frank Murphy, Governor-General of the Philippines Islands [May 1933]

We have ruled here for 300 years with the whip and the club and we shallstill be doing it in another 300 years.

de Jonge, Governor-General of the Netherlands Indies, 1931-6

A government worthy of the name could not support a measure thatwould give over power in one bloc into the hands of a crowd that is inca-pable of using it rationally and which, from the very first attempt, wouldbreak the instrument that it was given, just as a clumsy child breaks a toy.

Albert Sarraut, twice Governor-General of Indochina [1923]

I don't believe that . . . it is impossible to present the problem in such aform as would make the shop window look respectable from an Indianpoint of view.. . while keeping your hand pretty firmly on the things thatmatter. Lord Irwin, Viceroy and Governor-General of India, 1926-31






Contents

Preface page xiList of abbreviations xiv

1 Introduction: contemporary encounters 1

2 Vortex debate: the puma swaraj decision 1929 41

3 Holds barred: anatomy of a satyagraha, Lucknow, May 1930 72

4 Peace with conflict: the Gandhi-Emerson talks,March-August 1931 119

5 Thrust and parry: the Mahatma at bay, 1932-1933 174

6 Which way ahead? Nehru and Congress strategy 1936-1937 239

7 The spider's web: Congress and provincial office 1937-1939 268

8 Working with the grain: Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru and theantecedents to the Cripps Declaration 1942 303

Biographical notes 345Index 349

IX






Maps

1 India before 1947 page xvi2 Lucknow 1928-30 743 Simon Commission demonstration, Lucknow, 30 November

1928 874 Satyagraha confrontation, Lucknow, 25 May 1930 1015 Attack on Aminabad police outpost, Lucknow, 26 May 1930 108






Preface

The unravelling of the former, seemingly impregnable, colonial empiresmust be accounted one of the principal sagas of the twentieth century.Aside from some residual episodes the generation of powerful indigenousnationalist forces was almost invariably central to this. Their growth hasfrequently been described. A good deal of attention has been given too tothe courses adopted by the imperial powers. The heart of the whole storylay, however, in the multiplicity of interactive struggles between the oneand the other. In many instances these have not had the close attentionwhich they warrant.

The character which these struggles displayed varied greatly. On theone hand they amounted to little more than robust and determined elitenegotiation. On the other they could relapse into bloody and implacablecolonial war. In each instance the form which the conflict took, so it isargued here, principally derived from a notably close and symbiotic rela-tionship between the nationalist thrust involved and the particular imper-ial posture which it then confronted.

This book is designed to cast a sharper beam of light on arguably themost momentous of all these struggles, in India against the British. Ingeneral its characteristics fell somewhere near the middle of the range ofalternatives which can be traced. Since in a way that has not been widelyappreciated it was contemporaneous with three other nationalist-imperialist struggles elsewhere in Asia which displayed some very differ-ent characteristics, not only does its consideration in this wider contextpose a number of comparative questions, but to an altogether new degreeserves to highlight its distinctive nature. Since, moreover, it broadly coin-cided with several other fundamentally similar struggles against theBritish that nature can be depicted rather more precisely.

Three particular features warrant emphasis. As the struggle in India wasprincipally characterised neither by elite negotiation nor by violent con-flict, much turned on a spectrum of major propaganda battles between itsprincipals for the moral primacy. Periodically these could be fought out ona very public stage. They could be keenly followed, therefore, not merely






xii Preface

in India and Britain, but even further afield as well. Their conduct calledfor great political skill, and an adroit and taxing care for detail. It is thisrange of considerations which has largely determined the form that thisbook takes.

In the making of several chapters in it I have been greatly assisted byother people. I am particularly indebted to Robert Tombs, ChristopherAndrew, Anthony Reid, David Marr, Milton Osborne, John Legge, JamieMackie, Al McCoy, Freddie Madden, David Fieldhouse, John Charmley,Merle Ricklefs and Ray Ileto for most helpful advice upon a variety ofmatters in Chapter 1. Wang Gungwu provided the original impetus toChapter 2. Gyan Pandey, Peter Reeves and Gyanesh Kudaisya have allbeen especially generous with their time and assistance over Chapter 3,which they have each been good enough to read. Keith Mitchell, Head ofthe Cartography Unit in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studiesat the Australian National University, used his singular expertise to drawthe maps based upon the Survey of India's Lucknow Guide Map, 2nd(revised) 1933 edition, based on a survey in 1929-31, generously lent tome by Peter Reeves. Ralph Bultjens read Chapter 5 with a wonderfullysharp eye. Gyanesh Kudaisya very kindly lent me his extensive collectionof photostats of the Haig Papers, on which I have drawn so fully inChapter 7. He and Vinita Damodaran were good enough to let me seetheir M.Phil, theses from Jawaharlal Nehru University which each dealtin part with many of the same issues; while at a crucial stage Carl Bridgemade some most helpful comments on Chapter 8.

I am very indebted too to the organisers of and participants in seminarsat which I have sought to outline the arguments in this book, inMelbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane, Austin (Texas), Oxford,London, Cambridge, Norwich and Hull, and to a great many conversa-tions over the years with many friends in Delhi.

My greatest debts are, yet again, to Belle for all of her support.I am also immensely indebted to those who over so many years have

smoothed the paths into the uniquely important archives in Delhi. In theNational Archives of India I think of S. Roy and R.C. Gupta, and espe-cially of the very particular kindnesses of V.C. Joshi and Dhan Keswani.In the incomparable Nehru Memorial Museum and Library I owe somuch to the constant help and encouragement of B.R. Nanda andRavinder Kumar and their staffs both in the archives and in the library.While in Cambridge I have been greatly assisted in a variety of ways byLionel Carter, Gordon Johnson, Janet Hall and Richard Fisher, inLondon by Richard Bingle, in Oxford by Judith Brown, and in Canberraby Jan Bretherton and Norma Chin. I very sincerely thank them all.

Over the years it has been my special privilege to have supervised for






Preface xiii

their theses in three different universities a quite remarkable succession ofgraduate students. Many years ago a colleague in another field dubbed us'the Sepoys'. The 1st (Canberra) Regiment comprised Peter Reeves JohnBroomfield, Ravinder Kumar, Hugh Owen, Piet van den Dungen, andW.H.(Bill) Hale. The 2nd (Sussex) Regiment was composed of ChristineFuredy, David Arnold, Jim Manor, David Hardiman, Bonaventure Swai,Robin Jeffrey, Humaira Momen, Richard Butler, Anne Thompson andincluded Phares Mutibwa, Anne Sutton and Margaret Kiloh. The 3rd(Canberra) Regiment was made up of Brij Lai, Imran Ali, StephenHenningham, Andrew Major and Dipesh Chakrabarty; while the 4th(Cambridge) Regiment included Richard Aldrich, Michael Coleman,Vinita Damodaran, David Lowe, Tan Tai Yong, Gyanesh Kudaisya,Medha Malik Kudaisya, Emmanuel Pondi, John Deverall, Derek daCunha, Matthew Neuhaus, James Burns, Swarna Aiyar and PhilipCharrier. In very deep gratitude this book is dedicated to them for all theyhave given me. I am enormously grateful to the Australian NationalUniversity, the University of Sussex, and the University of Cambridgewho made all this possible, and much else besides.

An earlier version of Chapter 2 appeared as Chapter 7 in WangGungwu, ed., Self and Biography. Essays on the Individual and Society inAsia, Sydney 1975.1 thank the Australian Academy of the Humanities forpermission to rework it here. Parts of Chapter 6 appeared in a differentcontext in Chapter 7 in R. Sisson and S. Wolpert, eds., Congress andIndian Nationalism. The Pre-Independence Phase, Berkeley 1988 and I amgrateful to the Regents of the University of California for the opportunityto draw upon it here. Likewise I am indebted to the editors ofthe Journalof Imperial and Commonwealth History for the use I have made in Chapter8 of my article in its Volume 12, no. 2, of 1984. I am grateful too toDeryck Schreuder who published a precis of my argument as Chapter 6in "Imperialisms". Explorations in European Expansion and Empire which heedited for the History Department at the University of Sydney in 1991,and to Mushirul Hasan and Narayani Gupta who included it as Chapter16 in India ys Colonial Encounter. Essays in Memory of Eric Stokes which theyedited for Manohar, Delhi, in 1993.

The references in the opening pages of Chapter 1 and the footnotes,particularly in that chapter, indicate the sources which have been used,while the primary material that has been drawn upon, and its where-abouts, is indicated in the List of Abbreviations below.

Anthony Low






Abbreviations

AICC

APAssamB&OBDEEP

BombayCIDComm.CP

cscwcCWMG

DCCDep.enc.FR

GGolGovtHDHgPHPH.Pol.H.Poll.H.ReformsIARIOL

All India Congress Committee, and their archives,NMML.Andrews Papers, Visha Bharati, Santiniketan.Government of Assam.Government of Bihar and Orissa.British Documents on the End of Empire Project, Series A,B,C, London 1992- .Government of Bombay.Criminal Investigation Department.Commissioner.Government of the Central Provinces.Chief Secretary.Congress Working Committee.The Collected Works ofMahatma Gandhi, 90 vols.,Ahmedabad 1958-84.District Congress Committee.Deputy.enclosure i n . . .Fortnightly Reports of the Gol or provincialgovernments.Governor.Government of India.Government.Home Department of the Gol.Haig Papers, IOL.Hailey Papers, IOL.HD Police files, NAI.HD Political files, NAI.HD Reforms Branch files, NAI.Indian Annual Register.Oriental and India Office Collections, The BritishLibrary, London.

XIV






List of abbreviations xv

IP Irwin (Halifax) Papers, IOL.JNP Jawaharlal Nehru Papers, NMML.JP Jayakar Papers, NAI.KW 'Keep With', i.e. papers retained with others.LGs Local Governments (i.e. Presidency and Provincial

Governments).LP Linlithgow Papers, IOL.MN-JNC Motilal Nehru-Jawaharlal Nehru Correspondence,

NMML.MNP Motilal Nehru Papers, NMML.Mss. Eur. Manuscripts, European, IOL.NAI National Archives of India, Delhi,nd no date.NLI National Library of India, Calcutta.NMML Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Delhi.NWFP Government of the North West Frontier Province.PCC Provincial Congress Committee.PSV Private Secretary to the Viceroy of India.RPCSD V. Choudhary, Dr Rajendra Prasad: Correspondence and

Select Documents, 4 vols., Delhi 1984- .RPP Rajendra Prasad Papers, NAI.SmP Smuts Papers, South African Archives.SoS Secretary of State for India.SP Sapru Papers, NLI.StP Sastri Papers, NAI.Supt Superintendent.SWJN S. Gopal, ed., Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru,

Vols. I- , Delhi 1972- .tel. telegram.TF P.N. Chopra, Towards Freedom, Vol. I, Experiment with

Provincial Autonomy. 1 January-31 December 1937, NewDelhi 1985.

ThP Thakurdas Papers, NMML.TOP Nicholas Mansergh, Constitutional Relations between

Britain and India. The Transfer of Power 1942-47, Vol. I,The Cripps Mission, January-April 1942, London 1972.

TwP Templewood (Hoare) Papers, IOL.UP Government of the United Provinces.V Viceroy of India.WP Willingdon Papers, IOL.






Mapl India before 1947




