Give the significance of Quit India Movement.
On 8th August 1942, Mahatma Gandhi launched the Quit India Movement for freedom from British rule in Mumbai (then Bombay).
The movement was accompanied by a mass protest on non-violent lines, in which Gandhi called for “an orderly British withdrawal from India”. Through his passionate speeches, Gandhi moved people by proclaiming “every Indian who desires freedom and strives for it must be his own guide…”. “Let every Indian consider himself to be a free man”, Gandhi declared in his fiery “Do or Die” speech the day the Quit India Movement was declared.
Isolated incidents of violence broke out around the country, but the British acted quickly and arrested thousands of people and kept them in jail till 1945. Apart from filling up jails with rebellious leaders, the British also went ahead and abolished civil rights, freedom of speech and freedom of press.
Though despite of its flaws, the Quit India Movement remains significant because it was during this movement that the British realized that they would not be able to govern India successfully in the long run and began to think of ways they could exit the country in a peaceful and dignified manner.
One of the greatest achievements of the Quit India Movement was that it kept the Congress Party united all through these challenging times.**