Keeping the Jewel in the Crown: The British Betrayal of India by Walter Reid

Author:Walter Reid [Reid, Walter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Birlinn
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Mission One (1939)

Linlithgow’s declaration of war on behalf of India had alienated Congress pretty comprehensively. Gandhi’s traditional supporters were pacifists in any case. Younger politicians would not have opposed participation in the war if they had been satisfied with the prospects for India. Cripps, like Attlee, thought that there was room for an imaginative approach. He was disappointed that Linlithgow had gone no further than confirming dominion status as a remote objective. In response, on 26 October 1939 Cripps spoke in the Commons, saying that the ‘test question’ was whether Britain would commit herself to democracy and Indian self-government immediately after the war, with an initial and immediate step in that direction. This contrasted with what Linlithgow told Gandhi: the war effort was ‘not a question of fighting for democracy’ which was not ‘in the slightest degree’ the government’s policy.

Cripps canvassed the idea of a wide-ranging excursion – to Russia, China and India. His plans were widely discussed – with Halifax, the former viceroy and now Foreign Secretary, and with Rab Butler. A lot of discussion took place on precisely where he should go. Plans finally focused on India alone. He also consulted on what he should say when he got there. He prepared a draft statement which proposed an offer of dominion status – with the right to secede from the Commonwealth, an important new departure – as an earnest of the British Government’s commitment to ‘the present war for freedom and democracy’. The extent to which Cripps worked with the Government is surprising. The Government was overwhelmingly Conservative, not yet a coalition, and Cripps had been and would again be Labour; he had been expelled from the party in 1939 and for the moment sat as an Independent. His role was quasi-official. He had interviews with Sir Findlater Stewart, the Permanent Under-Secretary at the India Office. But his send-off wasn’t a warm one and he had only lukewarm support from the Cabinet. He had the backing of Zetland, still Secretary of State at this point, and Amery, but most of the Cabinet, notably Churchill, was hostile, as, in Delhi, was Linlithgow.

So when he went off to India on his first mission in December 1939 Cripps’ trip was partly official and partly a frolic of his own. The official line was that his voyage was of an entirely personal character. Zetland made it a pretty official unofficial expedition. He told Cripps that it would not be misleading to tell Congress that the Government would be prepared to consider his scheme.162 On the other hand, Cripps certainly didn’t carry the whole-hearted backing of the Cabinet. Churchill, still First Lord of the Admiralty, said in Cabinet that he welcomed ‘the Hindu–Muslim feud as the bulwark of British rule’.163 Simon, unsurprisingly, also favoured ‘not going any faster than we’re obliged to’.

Cripps took with him as his secretary Geoffrey Wilson, a young man with a connection to the Indian Conciliation Group. Cripps did all he could to avoid Indian food, which would be

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