THE CONGRESS RESPONSE, 1939–41
But the Muslim League was not Congress’s main concern as yet. After
the ministries’ resignations, the question of how next to respond remained
to be settled. There were genuine moral and political dilemmas to
consider. Nehru and the left were committed anti-fascists; but they
would not support a war on the basis of continued subjection to British
rule, especially as they did not take British claims to anti-fascism at all
seriously. The CPI, still outlawed but still in the CSP – until 1941 –
characterised the war as another imperialist war (1939–41 was the period
of the Nazi–Soviet Pact). Nehru himself accepted the CPI line: ‘the war
is a purely imperialist venture on both sides. Fine phrases are being used
by politicians as they were used in 1914. It seems to me highly important
and vital that we should not be taken in by these phrases and pious
protestations.’^7 Nehru undertook the task of explaining the apparent
anomaly of the Nazi–Soviet Pact to Gandhi: unable to find an ally in
Europe, the USSR had been forced into an illogical and temporary alliance
that held off the immediate threat of war and gave them the breathing
space to prepare for the inevitable later war to come. Nehru fully expected
the imperialist and fascist powers to collectively turn against the Soviet
Union and proclaim ‘a holy war against communism... That would be a
calamity from every point of view, quite apart from our agreement with
Russian policy or not.’^8
The Congress right hadn’t a clue about how to respond. Gandhi was
perhaps more helpful, given that he could at least have a moral, pacifist,
position. For those trained in and around the Marxist tradition, the
equation of fascism in Europe with imperialism in India and elsewhere
had been a useful one in sustaining the Popular Front policy. But things
were beginning to lose that clarity now that the imperialists were at war
with the fascists: how long would the equation last? Would it not be
necessary to choose between the two? This question worried not a few
people in leadership positions. Rank and file communists and socialists,
distinctions among whom were often far less clear than among the parties
who led them, were understandably rather confused by the situation.
In Nehru’s view, the dilemma could be solved. Congress was seeking
a guarantee from the government that support during the war would
this time lead to independence. With such a guarantee, the logical next
step would be for Congress to fully support an anti-fascist war (thereby
THE END OF THE RAJ 107