Who among the following historians have described the it India movement as a ‘spontaneous revolution’?

The Quit India Movement of 1942 is famously described as a 'spontaneous revolution' by the historian Francis G. Hutchins. In his seminal work titled 'Spontaneous Revolution: The Quit India Movement' (1971), Hutchins argues that the movement was a unique event where the masses took the lead following the immediate arrest of the top Congress leadership on August 9, 1942 [4]. While the movement was technically launched by Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress Working Committee at the Gowalia Tank Maidan, the subsequent lack of central coordination led to a decentralized and widespread uprising [5]. Hutchins emphasizes that this lack of formal structure allowed for a genuine, spontaneous mass outburst against British rule, characterized by underground resistance and the formation of parallel governments in regions like Satara and Medinipur [5]. Other historians like David Arnold and Peter Robb have analyzed the movement but are not associated with this specific 'spontaneous revolution' terminology.

Sources

1. [1] https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/108903/1/The_Second_World_War_and_the_Prospect_of_Quit_India_in_Bengal_Accepted_version.pdf
2. [3] https://ia801406.us.archive.org/26/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.125905/2015.125905.Spontaneous-Revolution.pdf
3. [4] India and the Contemporary World – II. History-Class X . NCERT(Revised ed 2025) > Chapter 2: Nationalism in India > Quit India Movement > p. 49
4. [2] THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY PART III, History CLASS XII (NCERT 2025 ed.) > Chapter 11: MAHATMA GANDHI AND THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT > 4. Quit India > p. 303
5. [5] Rajiv Ahir. A Brief History of Modern India (2019 ed.). SPECTRUM. > Chapter 39: After Nehru... > Quit India Movement > p. 814