routes and modes of transport reserved for whites, leaving Indians of all
classes to fend for themselves. An impending sense of collapse of British
rule was in the air. In February 1942 Chiang Kai-shek had visited India
along with his wife, Song Meiling (whose sister Song Qingling, Sun Yat-
Sen’s widow, Nehru had met at Brussels in 1927). Having met Congress
leaders, Chiang told his British and American allies that their lack of
clear commitment to Indian independence was tantamount to presenting
India to the Japanese – an ironic comment coming from him, given that
it was widely felt that Chiang’s own anti-Japanese campaign was quite
feeble, and that the struggle against Japan in China was largely being
carried out by the communists.
Towards the end of March 1942, Sir Stafford Cripps was sent to India
on a mission to find a formula that Indians could agree upon in order
to support the war effort. Once again, Nehru was the major source of hope
for negotiations to succeed, and Nehru was with a clear conscience able
to seek agreement with Britain in what was now a genuine anti-fascist
war. Within the Congress’ internal structure, he was by now anointed
as leader-in-waiting: in January 1942, Gandhi had confirmed that he
thought Jawaharlal should be his ‘successor’ (this was not a formal handing
over of power, because Gandhi himself had no formal leadership role). But
Nehru was by no means the only person to consider (Nehru and the
Congress president, Maulana Azad, were the appointed negotiators on the
Congress’s behalf). With a Japanese invasion impending, more pragmatic
solutions seemed to dictate that a settlement would need to be made with
the Japanese rather than the British. Cripps travelled around meeting
Indian ‘leaders’ of various kinds and making copious notes as to their
demands. (Towards the end of March, Nehru was absent from a number
of crucial meetings due to the necessity of being in Allahabad for the
wedding of his daughter on 26 March to Feroze Gandhi, a young Congress
worker of Zoroastrian origin who presented his wife with a name that
became a huge political asset.)
On the British side, there was also little unity of purpose, given that
Labour and the Conservatives were uneasy co-partners in the wartime
coalition. Cripps was sent to India with a brief that he could offer Indians
a share in government immediately in exchange for the right to decide
their future after the war. American pressures also had a role to play: the
grandiose declaration in the Atlantic Charter of August 1941 that the
‘United Nations’ were engaged in a war for freedom for the world had
THE END OF THE RAJ 113