On 2 January 1942 the distinguished Indian ‘moderate’, Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, sent a letter to the Private Secretary to the Viceroy enclosing a copy of a telegram he had sent on behalf of himself and a dozen others of his kind – the veteran ‘moderate’ Sir Srinivasa Sastri, and the subsequent President of India, Radhakrishnan, amongst them – to Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister, in Washington to impress upon him the vital importance of making some major changes forthwith in the way Britain governed India. Following upon the Japanese attack on the American fleet in Pearl Harbor, and the consequential entry by the United States into the Second World War, Churchill had gone to Washington to consult with President Roosevelt. Sapru's telegram was thus despatched at a critical moment in world affairs. It made a careful, urgent appeal to Churchill for some ‘bold stroke far-sighted statesmanship … without delay’ so as to transform ‘entire spirit and outlook administration India’ (sic: telegraphese). It called for the immediate establishment of a wholly non-official National Government for India ‘subject only responsibility to Crown’.