G. D. Bakshi

"In 1956, Atlee had visited India and stayed in Kolkata as the guest of the then Governor of West Bengal, Justice P. B. Chakraborty. They had a most remarkable conversation on how India had won her freedom. Justice Chakraborty remarked that the Quit India movement launched by the Congress in 1942 had been completely crushed and had petered out entirely by 1944. Why then did the British leave India in such a tearing hurry after the war? Atlee replied that it was because of the INA of Subhash Bose and the mutinies it had triggered in the British Indian Armed Forces. Chakraborty then pointedly asked “What then was the role of Mahatma Gandhi’s Quit India Movement in the grant of India’s Independence?” He said and I quote ‘Atlee’s face twisted into a sarcastic smile as he spelt out the word “minimal”."