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Wavell : Archibald Percival Wavell (1883-1950), 1st Earl Wavell, British field marshal, was Viceroy of India from 1943 to 1947. On October 1943, he succeeded Linlithgow (last Viceroy & first Crown Representative 1936-43) as 2nd Crown Representative. Soon thereafter the League established a Committee of Action to prevent an undivided India. Ignoring that threat Wavell proclaimed on 17th February 1944 that India was “a natural unit”, toured Bengal that had been ravaged by one of the most devastating famines of the century a few months before his watch & released Gandhi on medical grounds. But all Gandhi offered as thanks was an offer to withdraw civil disobedience & cooperate if Govt. declared full immediate independence

In January 1945 Wavell was offered a solution to keep India undivided by accepting the Pact between Bhulābhai Desai of the Swaraj Party & Liaquat Ali Khan of the Muslim League. The Pact suggested the Viceroy’s Executive Council be Indianised by giving Congress & League 40% each of its seats & the rest to minorities. Wavell & London welcomed the proposal, but it was scuttled by Jinnah claiming Liaquat had not consulted him, & Nehru & Patel fearing a) Desai would steal a lead over them & b) the Pact endorsed the two-nation theory

Wavell inadvertently compounded the problem on 14th June 1945: “It is proposed that the Executive Council should be reconstituted...the Viceroy should in future make his selection...from appointment...amongst leaders of Indian political life at the Centre & the provinces, in a proportion which would give a balanced representation of the main communities, including an equal proportion of Muslims & caste Hindus.” At this, Gandhi repudiated the Pact claiming he had not permitted Desai to equate Muslims & caste Hindus & Desai got kicked out of the Congress. At the Shimla Conference (25th June – 14th July) all Indian parties agreed on Wavell’s own proposal to keep India undivided: the Central Cabinet would comprise 14 Indian Councillors, Congress & League would each select five of their own & the Viceroy would nominate a Sikh, two Harijans & the leader of the Unionist Party of Punjab. But on 11th July, Wavell announced that Jinnah had rejected the agreement; on 14th it was revealed that Jinnah demanded all Muslim Councillors be nominated exclusively by the League & the Congress refused because it would be reduced to representing only Hindus & smaller minorities. Actually, a few minutes before he met Wavell, Jinnah had received a message from British Civil Servants in Shimla conveying London’s message that if he rejected the agreement he would be rewarded with Pakistan. It was a replay of 1942 when in order to maintain a foothold in the sub-continent behind Cripps’s back, Churchill & Co. had promised Pakistan to Jinnah if he rejected Cripps’s Proposals which Churchill had from the beginning announced were to be accepted or rejected as a whole. On 19th September, after consultation with London, Wavell announced plans for a fresh elections & a constitution-making body. In December 1945, Wavell confided to Durga Das that the separation of Burma from India [under the Govt. of India Act of 1935] was a mistake. Burma’s defence from external foes was in integral part of the defence of India & the Andamans. He said the countries on India’s periphery should have a common system of defence. If India was partitioned, Pakistan would have no elbow room to defend herself. He had tried to solve the deadlock between the Congress & the League, but politics was not his line. The Congress pulled in one direction & the League in the opposite & the Civil Servants were too partisan to help find an acceptable solution within the framework of an undivided India. He expected Labour to make a fresh effort at a solution. That was the Cabinet Mission sent by Prime Minister Atlee, which landed in Delhi towards the end of March 1946. [Bhattacharya; Durga Das, India-From Curzon to Nehru & After, 1969]

9 result/s found for Wavell

... 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 League for... 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 assisting Lord Wavell who became Viceroy after Lord Linlithgow. Menon's resourcefulness during this period caught the eye of Sardar Vallabhai Patel, who later became the Deputy Prime Minister of India in 1947. ... for discussion. This time too, the plan was not acceptable to the different parties. It became evident by the end of 1946 and early 1947 that the Partition of India was inevitable. Lord Wavell was replaced by Lord Mountbatten as Viceroy in March 1947. On Mountbatten's appointment in March 1947, he decided to take on some of the senior members of Wavell's staff. Quite expectedly ...

... Amarendra Chatterjee, now a member of the Bengal Legislative   Page 597 Assembly, who had written, asking him to play a more active role. On the Wavell Plan . On 14 June 1945, the Viceroy, Lord Wavell, offered Indian leaders a new plan intended "to ease the present political situation and to advance India towards her goal of full self-government". Sri Aurobindo expressed... The seriousness of 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 ...

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... 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 him thus in the Indian News Parade I was struck with the ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Evolving India
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... He writes: "With her economy in doldrums Great Britain was bound to find it difficult to hold on to her empire. This was further aggravated by a top secret signal sent by the Viceroy, Lord Wavell that Britain could no longer depend on the Indian Armed Forces to perpetuate her hold on India. He had come Page 131 to the conclusion after the Indian National Army trials ...

... in February 1946 was the writing on the wall to the 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 ...

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... Public Statements, Messages, Letters and Telegrams on Indian and World Events (1940-1950) Autobiographical Notes On the Wavell Plan [1] Sri Aurobindo Asram Pondicherry June 15, 1945 We heard the Viceroy's broadcast yesterday. 1 Sri Aurobindo says the proposals are decent enough and seem to be even better than Cripps' in certain respects. ...

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... succeeded. 3. Also about the Tunisian campaign. There was lot of swaying to and fro. But I persisted –  First time when the Allies attached they were only 30 thousand against 3 lakhs Italians. If Wavell had gone to Tripoli at that time he would have succeeded. But they went to help Greece and naturally they had to retreat. But I went on and at last they took Tunisia. If you depend upon reason ...

... 'Amrit Bazar' has pleaded for the reconstruction and revival of the Cripp's proposal !! Sri Aurobindo found it 'late' but C. R. had got back his clarity of mind. As to the actual revival when Wavell comes the difficulties are 1. I. C. S. and Congress on two sides and 2. Jhinna on the third. 2. Anil Baran's article about Bengal flood situation created a great stir in the Ashram. Sri Aurobindo ...

... 1944 and the prolonged exchange of letters failed to produce a satisfactory agreement. Jinnah wouldn't budge from his demand for Pakistan, and Gandhi couldn't agree to it. The new Viceroy, Lord Wavell, was well-meaning, but a solution eluded him. The results of the post-war elections, too, only confirmed the stalemate in Hindu-Muslim relations, there had meanwhile been a change of Government in ...