The historian who described the Quit India Movement as a 'spontaneous revolution' in his book 'Spontaneous Revolution: The Quit India Movement' was:

• Hutchins. The American historian Francis G. Hutchins described the Quit India Movement as a "spontaneous revolution" in his book "Spontaneous Revolution: The Quit India Movement" (1971), later also published as "India's Revolution: Gandhi and the Quit India Movement" (1973).

His argument:

• Hutchins argued that the Quit India Movement of 1942 was a spontaneous, mass revolutionary upsurge against British rule.
• After the arrest of all the top Congress leaders on 9 August 1942, there was no central leadership or detailed plan.
• Yet people in many parts of India rose on their own, attacking symbols of British authority, setting up parallel governments, and paralysing the administration in some areas.
• He saw this as evidence that the people had absorbed the message of freedom and were ready to act on their own initiative.

Other views:

• Some historians emphasised the role of the Congress, the socialists and local leaders in organising the movement, even though the top leaders were in jail.
• The British government claimed that the Congress had planned the violence, which Gandhi denied.

The Quit India Movement:

• The Quit India resolution was passed by the All-India Congress Committee in Bombay on 8 August 1942.
• The leaders were arrested early the next morning.
• The movement saw strikes, demonstrations, attacks on railway lines, telegraph wires, police stations and government buildings.
• Parallel governments were set up in some districts.
• Socialist leaders such as Jayaprakash Narayan, Ram Manohar Lohia and Aruna Asaf Ali led underground activities.
• The government suppressed the movement with great force; thousands were killed and about 1,00,000 were arrested.

NCERT on Quit India:

NCERT notes that the Quit India Movement was genuinely a mass movement, bringing into its ambit hundreds of thousands of ordinary Indians.

Why not the other options?

Bipan Chandra and Sumit Sarkar wrote major histories of modern India; R. C. Majumdar wrote on 1857 and other periods.