Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Maps
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: contemporary encounters
- 2 Vortex debate: the purna swaraj decision 1929
- 3 Holds barred: anatomy of a satyagraha, Lucknow, May 1930
- 4 Peace with conflict: the Gandhi–Emerson talks, March–August 1931
- 5 Thrust and parry: the Mahatma at bay, 1932–1933
- 6 Which way ahead? Nehru and Congress strategy 1936–1937
- 7 The spider's web: Congress and provincial office 1937–1939
- 8 Working with the grain: Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru and the antecedents to the Cripps Declaration 1942
- Biographical notes
- Index
8 - Working with the grain: Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru and the antecedents to the Cripps Declaration 1942
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Maps
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: contemporary encounters
- 2 Vortex debate: the purna swaraj decision 1929
- 3 Holds barred: anatomy of a satyagraha, Lucknow, May 1930
- 4 Peace with conflict: the Gandhi–Emerson talks, March–August 1931
- 5 Thrust and parry: the Mahatma at bay, 1932–1933
- 6 Which way ahead? Nehru and Congress strategy 1936–1937
- 7 The spider's web: Congress and provincial office 1937–1939
- 8 Working with the grain: Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru and the antecedents to the Cripps Declaration 1942
- Biographical notes
- Index
Summary
If you are in a place where you are not wanted, and where you have not the force, or perhaps the will, to squash those who don't want you, the only thing to do is to come out.
Hugh Dalton, British Labour Cabinet MinisterOn 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’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Britain and Indian NationalismThe Imprint of Amibiguity 1929–1942, pp. 303 - 344Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1997