When Britain declared war on Nazi Germany on September 3, 1939, the British Raj suddenly found itself immersed in yet another foreign conflict. Without bothering to talk to any Indian leaders, “the Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, abruptly announced that war had broken out between the [British Raj] and Germany." Upon hearing of this news, many Indians, especially those within the Congress Party, were outraged that they were never consulted about whether to join the war or not. This stemmed from the fact that in 1935, a new Government of India Act was passed. Named the Government of India Act of 1935, it not only replaced the Government of India Act of 1919, but also introduced the system of dyarchy into the central government along with giving full
For the Muslim League, the fact that the British would not explicitly promise the Muslim minority in India a separate homeland caused Ali Jinnah and the Muslim League to reject the offer as “Muslim India [would] not be satisfied unless it's right of national self-determination [was] recognized.” The issue regarding a separate Muslim state would also be the cause for the Congress Party to reject the Cripps Proposal as well. Since one of the terms in the Cripps Proposal permitted “provinces to opt out of the constituent assembly, and hence the Indian Union, if they disliked the constitution it produced, the Cripps Offer admitted the possibility… the partition of India” which went against the Congress Party's vision for a single, unified Indian state. With Cripp’s failure to get both the Congress Party and Muslim League to agree to a single set of terms, talks eventually broke down by the start of early