The last phase of the Indian National Movement began when Britain involved India in the Second World War without consulting the Congress ministries in the provinces; the Congress ministers resigned in protest. The phase ended with independence and the partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan.
1. Individual Satyagraha and the August Offer (1940)
August Offer
On August 8, 1940, the Viceroy Lord Linlithgow made the August Offer:
- Dominion status at some unspecified future;
- expansion of the Viceroy's Council (Executive Council) to accommodate more Indians;
- setting up a War Advisory Council with Indians in it;
- recognition of the rights of the minority;
- a promise to recognise the Indian peoples' right to draft a constitution at some future date after the war.
The offer came too late for the Congress even to negotiate a settlement. Individual Satyagraha was the Congress response to the August Offer.