QUIT INDIA MOVEMENT 13 how did Congress journalists, long accustomed to writing within the limits of official censorship, adapt to the freedom of expression which is the most distinctive feature of any underground press? Second, what issues, what themes and what symbols were selected to arouse politically the readers of the underground publications? While these queries only touch the surface of the Quit India movement, and have to be answered without full knowledge of the number of such publications and the extent of their circulation, the replies nonetheless shed some light on the process of political mobilization in India under repressive, late-colonial conditions. As might be guessed, a movement that was initiated by Mahatma Gandhi could not stray too far from the issues, themes and symbols which Gandhi himself had articulated; it is this straying, however, which gave the Quit India propaganda much of its distinctive character and internal tension. THE GOVERNMENT BEGINS THE INSURRECTION When the 250-odd members of the All-India Congress Committee (AICC) met in Bombay in the first week of August 1942, their leaders anticipated that the call for a mass movement to drive the British from power might well result in arrests. For this reason the 'high command' or All-India Working Committee (AIWC), which drafted the August 8 resolution, included the following passage: A time may come when it may not be possible to issue instructions to reach our people, and when no Congress committees can function. When this happens every man and woman who is participating in this movement must function for himself or herself within the four corners of the general instructions issued. Every Indian who desires freedom and strives for it must be his own guide....8 As the extent of arrests was greater than anyone in the Congress had anticipated, this adjuration was not without value: it ensured that the movement would continue despite the savaging of the organization. On the other hand, telling every man and woman to be his or her own guide was inherently faulty, since Congress cadres were not habituated to act so individually, and precise directives from above had been a key feature of past Congress satyagraha movements. The August 8 resolution, as quoted, had promised that 'general instructions' would follow, but in fact the AIWC had not time to prepare and issue them; Gandhi and the other had been taken by surprise at the swiftness of their detention. Gandhi is alleged to have scrawled or otherwise conveyed the laconic precept 'Do or Die' in the few minutes allowed him before being trundled off to two years