Photographer: Army Film and Production Unit, Number 9 unit.
Birla House, Delhi, India
Laughing over some private joke, Sir Stafford Cripps and Mahatma Gandhi descend stairs at Birla house surrounded by members of the Indian Congress party in this photo that has now come to be associated with the historic Cripps mission that took place between the 22nd of March and the 12th of April, 1942.
With the British Empire threatened on its far eastern borders with an imminent Japanese invasion of Burma and India looming on the horizon. Prime Minister Winston Churchill, in concurrence with Deputy Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, had sent Cripps to negotiate a cessation of conflicting interests with Indian Nationalist leaders and ensure wholehearted Indian cooperation for the Empire’s war against the Axis powers.
A barrister by profession and a member of the English Labour Party, Cripps having recently succeeded in enlisting Russian support had arrived and met Gandhi along with other Indian Nationalist leaders on the 22nd of March, 1942. His negotiations had centered on granting India self governance and Dominion status in return for the country’s full cooperation, immediately after the war.
Though the proposal at the time had been rejected by Gandhi in favour of a complete British withdrawal and diverging ideologies of Indian political leaders is believed to have further undermined its success with future Prime Minister of Independent India, Jawaharlal Nehru, criticizing Cripps in a broadcast on American Radio in July, 1942. The open proposal, however, had ultimately become a reality in 1947 – although not quite in the way Cripps had intended.
Shortly, after the end of World War II, with Winston Churchill’s Conservative Party replaced by the Labour Party in a 1945 general election and Deputy Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, ascending to the office of Prime Minister. Sympathetic attitude and prevailing strains led to the formation of the country of Pakistan and the independence of India.
The photo was taken by the 9th unit of the British Army’s Film and Production unit. A special division created in 1941 to document the proceedings of World War II involving Commonwealth armies, and disbanded in 1946. The 9th unit was tasked with the responsibility of documenting the action in the far east.
