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 proclaimed its intention to resist and then resisted, and if a Congress prisoner were to escape, it would only be to commit a further immediate act of civil disobedience and be put back in jail again.

Nehru was now in complete agreement with Gandhi about the coming campaign. He had hesitated to follow Gandhi because he had hoped that President Roosevelt or Chiang Kai-shek or some body else would intervene in the Indian situation, break the Anglo-Indian deadlock, and make organized opposition to the British unnecessary. Nehru had been anti-Axis long before many high officials in democratic countries. He had opposed the appeasement policies of democratic governments and was on record as being actively anti-Japanese, anti-Mussolini, and anti-Hitler. He did not wish to embarrass the British in their war against the Axis. But he felt that the British had to be forced to take the steps which would save them from reverses in India similar to those they had suffered in the Far East. He did not feel that the British could successfully defend India with the military strength available to them. They should therefore have the wisdom, he said, to adopt measures which would enlist the support of the Indian people in the defense of their country.