75th `Quit India` movement |
Today is the 75th anniversary of the Quit India movement. The NDA government would commemorate August 8, 1942 - the day on which the Quit India movement was launched - by sending over 75 ministers to destinations across the nation to "rekindle the spirit of patriotism" among Indians, and remind the nation`s youth of the sacrifices made by freedom fighters. On August 8, 1942 - exactly 75 years ago to the day - Mahatma Gandhi told a crowd at the Gowalia Tank Maidan in Bombay, "Let every Indian consider himself to be a free man." It was the famous `Do or Die` speech that launched the Quit India movement, or the Bharat Chhodo Andolan. After Gandhi`s and other leaders` arrests, there were protests across India for several months, and many of them were violent. The Quit India movement was the last major civil disobedience movement organized before India became a sovereign nation in 1947. Freedom fighters burnt foreign-made goods in protest against the Raj. In the early 1940s, the Raj was becoming increasingly unpopular in the Indian sub-continent, especially because India had been forced to participate in the Second World War. Moreover, the Cripps Mission - sent to India in March 1942 to promise the Congress that India would be given Dominion Status after the Second World War ended - had failed. Gandhi had famously called the offer "a post-dated check on a crashing bank.
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