A day ago we celebrated the 81st anniversary of the historic Quit India movement launched on August 9, 1942, by Mahatma Gandhi for India’s independence from British rule.Apart from this core goal, the Quit India movement had huge dimensions covering freedom of press and democracy which are in serious danger in our country today.Two days before the Quit India movement was launched, Mahatma Gandhi, while addressing a meeting of the All India Congress Committee on August 7, 1942, very presciently said that apart from helping India attain freedom, the historic movement would usher in democracy too.He said, “When I raised the slogan ‘Quit India’ the people in India who were then feeling despondent felt I had placed before them a new thing”.He asserted, “If you want real freedom you will have to come together and such coming together will create true democracy –democracy the likes of which has not been so far witnessed, nor have there been any attempts made for such type of true democracy”.Gandhi said that he had read a good deal about the French Revolution and went through Thomas Carlyle’s work in jail. He added that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had explained to him all about the Russian revolution as well. He held that though those were fights for the people, they were not fights for the kind of real democracy which he envisaged.“My democracy,” he had remarked, “means every man is his own master”.Also read: Remembering Those Who Opposed the Quit India Movement – And Who Didn’t“I have read sufficient history and I did not see such an experiment on so large a scale for the establishment of democracy by non-violence”.“Once you understand these things, ” he had said, “you will forget the differences between the Hindus and the Muslims”.Unity under attackIt is tragic that as we celebrate the anniversary of that epoch making Movement, India is getting polarised by the pronouncement of the top leaders of the ruling regime of our country. These leaders employ binary-based Hindu-Muslim narratives to divide people along religious lines.The distinctions between Hindus and Muslims which Gandhi hoped would be eliminated with the advent of democracy following the Quit India movement have been accentuated.The recent communal and sinister happenings in Nuh in Haryana manifested in the form of targeted attack on Muslims by Hindutva forces. The latter organised a religious procession predominantly through Muslim dominated areas and used provocative slogans against them. Hatred was carefully cultivated against Muslims, so that they could be subjected to spiralling violence and exclusion on account of their faith.The brutal employment of bulldozers by the Haryana government to demolish the homes and other establishments of Muslims rendered hundreds of them homeless. Their sources of livelihood were wiped out in a callous, merciless and unauthorised manner. The havoc wrought on Muslims was of such magnitude that it prompted the Punjab and Haryana high court to take suo motu cognisance of the crisis. It asked if the move was an exercise of “ethnic cleansing.”So, as we celebrate the 81st anniversary of Quit India Movement, a high court of our country is interrogating a political regime for its actions against Muslims.So Gandhi’s challenging vision of forgetting Hindu-Muslim differences is now reversed with adverse consequences for the might and majesty of our republic.Power and faithIn the same speech Gandhi firmly said that work would not finish with the attainment of freedom.He categorically stated, “There is no place for dictators in our scheme of things”. Such an articulation flowed from his conviction in democracy.He went on to add, “Our object is to achieve independence and whoever can take up the reins may do so”. He forcefully pleaded that the people decide to whom power would be given and it might be that Parsis or those whose names were never heard within Congress circles would be entrusted with the power to rule.He made it clear by saying, “You should not feel that the majority of those who fought for it were Hindus and the number of Muslims and Parsis in the fight was small.” Advocating for a change of mentality after getting freedom, he emphasised in no uncertain terms that, “If there is the slightest communal taint in your minds, keep off the struggle”.In other words, Gandhi’s earnest pleadings that elimination of Hindu-Muslim differences and removal of the slightest communal taint formed the backdrop against which Quit India was launched. Those defining attributes are now being annihilated by those wielding state apparatus in India and they, through their calibrated measures, are spelling ruin to those very founding ideals of the Quit India Movement.Outlining the core objective of the Quit India Movement as freedom of our country from British rule Gandhi had also said, “Communal unity must follow as day follows night when the night of foreign domination is gone”.Also read: Nuh Violence and RPF Constable’s Murder Spree Reveal a New Phase of Anti-Muslim HateOn divisivenessIn the aforementioned speech at the AICC on August 8, 1942, Gandhi, however, referred to “Those Hindus…like Dr. Moonje and Shri Savarkar,” and stated that they believed “in the doctrine of the sword…to keep the Mussalmans under Hindu domination”.He asserted by saying, “I do not represent that section” and affirmed that he represented the Congress.“If you distrust the Congress, you may rest assured that there is to be a perpetual war between the Hindus and the Mussalmans, and the country will be doomed to continue warfare and bloodshed.”Now India is being pushed to the fearsome scenario of war between Hindus and Muslims because of the spewing of communal hatred by the powers that be. The message of the Quit India movement centring around communal amity and unity is the categorical imperative which we can ignore at our own peril.S.N. Sahu served as Officer on Special Duty to President of India K.R. Narayan.Note: An earlier version of this article erroneously stated that this is the 86th anniversary of the Quit India movement. It is in fact the 81st anniversary.