India again

Alexander was back in Birmingham in the latter half of August 1945, and for the next few months was preparing, rather fitfully perhaps, for his intended return to India. The political atmosphere there was tense, with the Muslim League staking its claim for the creation of a Muslim state, and Congress insisting that it found this claim totally unacceptable. To complicate matters further, there was a general disinclination to believe that the British had given up their imperial pretensions, even though their General Election in July had resulted in a Labour administration, far more sympathetic to India than its predecessor. As Dorothy Hogg pointed out in a letter to Agatha Harrison at this time, if she were one of the Indian leaders she would be concerned about the high-handedness of the India Office. ‘People here are continuing appointments to the civil service and planning this and that as if our sojourn in India as masters were assured for many years yet.’ Harrison herself was sufficiently uneasy about Labour's policy to seek an interview with her old friend Sir Stafford Cripps (now President of the Board of Trade) to make sure that all was well in that quarter. She and Alexander met him on 14 November 1945, and suggested that, as a gesture of good faith, Gandhi should be asked to meet the Viceroy, provided that the Cabinet were willing to advise Wavell that ‘extraordinary powers’ would not be used unless all other measures had failed.