Gandhi now began to press for an immediate withdrawal of the British from India and the transfer of power to Congress without a prior settlement with any other party.
These ideas were formally adopted by the All India Congress Committee meeting held at Bombay, on August, 8, 1942, in the famous ‘Quit India’ resolution, which demanded the ‘withdrawal of the British power from India’ and authorized ‘the starting of a mass struggle on non-violent lines on the widest possible scale’.
It started that ‘such widespread struggle would inevitably be under the leadership of Gandhi jee’. This, what Mahatma himself called an ‘open rebellion’ could not be tolerated by any government. All Congress leaders were arrested on 9 August and the Congress was declared an unlawful body throughout India.