History was evolving very fast during those days. France fell before Hitler in the war front. Britain was shaken badly. There was no assurance that they would safeguard India towards which the Japanese were moving from the east, supported by Subhash Chandra Bose who had by this time moved to the German Alliance with Japan. 

A compromise with Indian leaders was what the British wanted at this juncture. Gandhi declared that Jawaharlal Nehru would be his successor as the leader of India. 

The British Government led by Winston Churchill decided to send Stafford Cripps, a senior member of his cabinet, to India with the special mission of finding the means for a compromise with the Congress party and independence for India. Cripps visited India and told the Indian leaders about what the government intended to do for India. 

India would be declared an independent nation after the war was over once and for all, and so long as the war continued, the viceroy and governors in provinces would exercise their authority only on the advice of the ministers, he explained. 

The free India would be free to continue in the Commonwealth or not. After the war was over, a committee would be set up for drafting a constitution for India and the committee would consist of the representatives of British India and the princely states.