The Cabinet Mission : constituted by the ministry of Atlee arrived in India on 23rd 1946: it proposed a Union of India embracing both British India & the princely states dealing with foreign affairs, defence & communications & having the power to raise the finances required for these subjects. Any question raising a major communal issue in the legislatures was to require for its decision a majority of the representatives of each of the two major communities as well as a majority of all the members voting. All the subjects other than the Union subjects & all the residuary powers were to vest in the provinces & the states. Provinces were to be free to form groups. The Constitution, to be drawn up by a constituent assembly, was to provide each province, with the right to call for a consideration of the constitution at ten-yearly intervals. Briefly, the scheme was rooted in the unity & indivisibility of the country. The Mission had Pethick-Lawrence as Chairman, & Stafford Cripps & A.V. Alexander as members. Arriving in India in April, it first tried to effect a compromise between Gandhi & Jinnah over the constitutional problem. Wavell called a seven-day conference in May. On 16th May, the Mission declared their plan for transfer of power, rejecting Jinnah’s demand for creation of Pakistan but making Muslims the de facto rulers of Bengal-Assam & Punjab-NW Frontier-Baluchistan-Sind areas but within one undivided sovereign State of India with a federal Government at Delhi controlling Defence, Foreign Affairs & Communications; this arrangement was to last ten years after which India could change its Constitution in any way it liked. Jinnah accepted the plan fairly quickly but it took the Congress Party 40 days to examine it in detail, for Jinnah had demanded that all the Muslim members of the Govt. must be nominees of the Muslim League; even the President of the Congress, Azad, could not be a member of the Govt.... And the Cabinet Mission had acquiesced in this demand. Naturally, the Congress repudiated the proposal. The Mission then made its own proposals: (1) Formation of a Federal Union of the British Indian provinces with powers to control defence, foreign affairs & communications; (2) inclusion of the princely states with the Federal Union after negotiations; (3) formation of subordinate unions of their own by the individual provinces at their option with rights to decide for themselves the powers that they would exercise outside the range of federal subjects; (4) the convention, on the basis of these three of a Constituent Assembly representing all the parties for drawing up an agreed constitution for India; & (5) the formation, in the meanwhile of an Interim National Govt. to run the administration. But the hostility between the Congress & the League proved insurmountable, putting paid to Atlee’s noblest intentions. That August (1946), the League under Jinnah gave the non-Muslims, especially the Hindus, a foretaste of what awaited them: a blood-bath & a grievous partition. [Vide Durga Das’s From Curzon to Nehru....; Sudhir Ghosh’s Gandhi’s Emissary, 19671; S. Bhattacharya]
... and the rest of the committee. On the Cabinet Mission Proposals . On 24 March 1946, three members of the British Cabinet came to India in order to find a solution to the constitutional deadlock brought about by the unwillingness of the Muslim League to work with the Congress and other Indian parties. After surveying the situation, the Cabinet Mission offered a new proposal on 16 May. Its most... the situation during World War II caused him to speak out in favour of the Cripps Proposal of 1942. Later, on request, he issued messages on two other British initiatives: the Wavell Plan and the Cabinet Mission Proposals. On the Cripps Proposal. In March 1942 , Sir Stafford Cripps (1889 - 1952), a Labour member of the War Cabinet, came to India with a proposal from the British government. Indian... Aurobindo wrote several letters to him about political matters. Two are published in the subsection containing material dealing with the integration of the French Settlements; another, on the Cabinet Mission Proposals, appears in the subsection containing material dealing with Indian independence. The letter in the present subsection was written on 6 June 1948, after Surendra Mohan informed Sri ...
... Public Statements, Messages, Letters and Telegrams on Indian and World Events (1940-1950) Autobiographical Notes On the Cabinet Mission Proposals [1] Sri Aurobindo thinks it unnecessary to volunteer a personal pronouncement, though he would give his views if officially approached for them. 1 His position is known. He has always stood for India's... Surendramohan Ghosh, a Bengal Congress leader who was then serving as a member of the Constituent Assembly in Delhi. Surendramohan had written to Nolini explaining some of the provisions of the Cabinet Mission proposals. Sri Aurobindo's dictated reply was written down by his amanuensis, Nirodbaran. In transcribing this, Nolini made some necessary changes to the opening, putting for instance "what do ...
... to throw his full weight behind the effort of the Allies to check Hitler, never put any hindrance in their way as Gandhian politicians did when Cripps came with his enlightened proposals and the Cabinet Mission brought similar plans for full support by India to the Allied Cause and for a post-war declaration of India's complete freedom either within the British Commonwealth or outside it. With a living ...
... has been working out this event will not be denied, the final result, India's liberation, is sure." We know the aftermath of the rejection of the Cripps' Proposals as well as the failure of the Cabinet Mission: confusion, calamity, partition, blood-bath, etc., and the belated recognition of the colossal blunder. Then when the partition had been accepted as a settled fact, Sri Aurobindo's "bardic" voice ...
... The significance of Jawaharlal Nehru A Vision of his "Actual" and his "Potential" PANDIT Jawaharlal Nehru rode on horseback to meet the Cabinet Mission. He had gone in the same way to confer with Lord Wavell a year or so earlier. Gandhi came in a rickshaw; so too did Maulana Abu! Kalam Azad. But Nehru was astride a dappled horse. When I saw ...
... Indra Sen's Correspondence Indra Sen's Correspondence with The Mother 16 May 1946 (Regarding the Cabinet Mission Plan of the British Government to grant independence to India) After listening to today's broadcast, I was filled with gratitude towards the English people and then I thought of you and Sri Aurobindo, who have long worked for India's freedom ...
... the second time, but in the intervening years the Muslim League position had hardened considerably and they were now adamant in their demand for a separate Muslim state. After the departure of the Cabinet Mission the negotiations were carried on by Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy, and eventually resulted in the freedom of India from British rule on August 15, 1947. But a bitter price had to be paid ...
... "Why did you then send Duraiswami at all?" "For a bit of niṣkāma karma" was his calm reply .... We know the aftermath of the rejection of the Cripps' Proposals as well as the failure of the Cabinet Mission: confusion, calamity, partition, blood-bath, etc. 14 Certainly, after the rejection of the Cripps offer, the situation in India was grim enough, whichever way one looked at it. In their ...
... leaders of the Congress Party. In 1942, Lord Linlithgow was the viceroy in India. He was replaced by Lord Wavell. After the end of the War, the Congress leaders were released from jail and in 1946 a Cabinet Mission was sent to India to work out the modalities of granting independence to India. During that time a plan known as the Wavell Plan was prepared and given to the leaders of the Congress and the Muslim... by mutual agreement, to a moment when it would not be interpreted as marking a rift between the Viceroy and his constitutional adviser on policy, especially towards the Congress, after the Cripps Mission and the Quit India campaign. In the interval I was able to put in a strong word on behalf of VP Menon, whom Lord Linlithgow was already thinking of appointing as my successor.' He continued... free to negotiate relationships with the new states of India and Pakistan 'on a basis of complete freedom'. Early British plans for the transfer of power, such as the offer produced by the Cripps Mission, recognised the possibility that some princely states might choose to stand out of Independent India. This was unacceptable to the Congress, which regarded the independence of princely states as a ...
... alien bureaucracy, and there was some rethinking in the right quarters. Earlier, Attlee had succeeded Churchill as the British Prime Minister, and Wavell had become the new Viceroy of India. A Cabinet Mission consisting of Cripps, Pethick-Lawrence and Alexander came to India with the offer of a three-tier Constitution for Free India. In a message dated 24 March 1946, Sri Aurobindo explained how he had... as early as January 1910 he had prophesied that in the coming era the whole world would see "sudden upheavals and revolutionary changes", and how India would be free. The coming of the British Cabinet Mission was the latest sign that India was on her way to freedom. And Sri Aurobindo concluded, hopefully: It remains for the nation's leaders to make a right and full use of the opportunity. In any ...
... intention of giving herself a constitution. This Constituent Assembly was neither elected by the people of India nor set up at their own initiative. It was set up under the terms of the British Cabinet Mission proposals. Its members were indirectly elected by the provincial assemblies that were themselves elected under the Government of India Act, 1935, on a highly restricted franchise covering hardly... Commissions were to be headed by a provincial minister and were to have Hindu and Muslim members among its ranks. India and Pakistan also agreed to include representatives of the minority community in the cabinet of the two Bengals, and decided to depute two central ministers, one from each government, to remain in the affected areas for such period as might be necessary. Both the leaders emphasized that the... to the improvement of relations between India and Pakistan. However, the Hindus in West Bengal were not satisfied with the pact; they seethed with anger. Two ministers in the Nehru Cabinet, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and K.C.Neogy, resigned. Sri Aurobindo's view of the pact Let us now see the position taken by Sri Aurobindo on this issue. Page 81 ...
... could prevent it. He has always foreseen that eventually Britain would approach India for an amicable agreement, conceding her freedom. What he had foreseen is now coming to pass and the British Cabinet Mission is the sign. It remains for the nation's leaders to make a right and full use of the opportunity. In any case, whatever the immediate outcome, the Power that has been working out this event will... that freedom for which Indian Nationalism has so long struggled. 2 This statement was given in reply to a request from Amrita Bazar Patrika for Sri Aurobindo's views on the British Cabinet Mission, 1946. Page 29 THE FIFTEENTH OF AUGUST 1947 I 1 August 15th is the birthday of free India. It marks for her the end of an old... beginning of new things in that direction: she is moving in idea towards a world-union of some kind in which aggression is to be made impossible; her new generation has no longer the old firm belief in mission and empire; she has offered India Dominion independence-or even sheer isolated independence, if she wants that,-after the war, with an agreed free constitution to be chosen by Indians themselves .… ...
... Wotan 410-1 menace of Hitlerism 414 sadhaks desiring Nazi victory 414-5 missing the bus 415 fascination for 15 August 415, 441 the Japanese threat of 1942 424 discipline in Golconde 444 Cabinet Mission of 1946 447 Hindu-Muslim problem 448 prevailing cynicism and the coming Light 450 partition of India 452, 809-10 Gandhi's tragic end 458 sports in the Ashram 460, 466-7 supreme perfection... to pro-Nazi sadhaks 414, 423 avowal of the Allied cause 415-7 wartime prayers arid messages 422-41 Page 906 vision of its extension 424 as Mona Lisa 420 supports Cripps' Mission 425-6, 571 calls on her time 460-1, 489 self-portrait and portrait of Sri Aurobindo 465, 700, 734 paints 'Emerging Godhead' or Golden Purusha 694 decline in Sri Aurobindo's health 490-1 supramental... find her in this life 377 Suicide: sheer stupidity 377, 642, 713 Page 913 jealousy and vanity 378, 652 justice and evil-doers 401 Ahimsa 401 hypnotism 402 Churchill 416 Cripps' mission 425-6 War and her disciples 428 need for malleability 432 women's care of their body 438-9 New Woman's ideal of Beauty 440 Atomic bomb 442 sports and yoga 469 'modern' art 473 yogic discipline ...
... results of the post-war elections, too, only confirmed the stalemate in Hindu-Muslim relations, there had meanwhile been a change of Government in Britain, Attlee replacing Churchill; and a Cabinet Mission (comprising Pethick-Lawrence, Cripps and Alexander) came to India with proposals for a three-tier Constitution, and there hovered some hope that the unity of India would be somehow preserved... Cripps had come "on the wave of a great inspiration" and it was incumbent on the Congress to make the right response. But his mission failed, and Cripp's mission failed: There is such a thing as fate. When this Mission failed we told Him; "You see, your mission has failed." He said, "I knew it would!" And we pounced on this pronouncement: "If you knew, why did you send your emissary?"... defeatism, listen to the Voice of Sri Aurobindo, who is the living embodiment of the creative flow of India's soul.... Almost a year later, his pupil of Baroda days, K.M. Munshi - now a Cabinet Minister at the Centre - paid a visit to the Ashram on 9 July 1950, and met Sri Aurobindo after a lapse of more than forty years, and reminisced about it later: I saw before me a being completely ...
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