Khilafat movement

“ The habit of mind which religious injunctions have ingrained in us constitutes the age old fortress which holds our anti-Moslem feeling secure against penetration by outside ententes, whether on the basis of the Khilafat movement or of pecuniary pacts. ”

“ India is a continent. Its articulate thousands know what its inarticulate millions are doing or thinking. The Government and the educated Indians may think that the Khilafat movement is merely a passing phase. The millions of Mussalmans think otherwise. The flight of the Mussalmans is growing apace. The newspapers contain paragraphs in out of the way corners informing the readers that a special train containing a barrister with sixty women, forty children including twenty sucklings, all told 765, have left for Afghanistan. ”

“ Every Indian feels the insult to the Punjab as a personal wrong, every Mussalman resents the wrong done to the Khilafat. There is therefore a favourable atmosphere for expecting cohesive and restrained movement on the part of the masses. ”

“ Is freedom worth having if in the attainment of it you have to loot, murder and outrage your innocent neighbour who does not agree with you or approve of your methods and is Swaraj possible of achievement and the Khilafat likely to be righted by such means? Maulana's views make those who have absolutely no faith in violence to think over these facts deeply and anxiously.
The Indian Non-Mahomedans, did not trouble themselves about the Khilafat claims. Mr. Gandhi and his followers took it up as an anti-British movement to secure Mahomedan support {50} to his non-co-operation movement. ”

“ The real truth of course is that in the case of the Khilafat agitation Mr. Gandhi and some of its most active and prominent leaders want to use the agitation to destroy the Government and not to effect a real settlement of the question. The most energetic of the promoters of the movement were Mohomed Ali and Shaukat Ali. They were active members of the Muslim League advocating Mahomedan interests in opposition to the Hindus in the old days of the Bengal Partition agitation. ”

“ Thus closed the first phases of the Non - co - operation movement amidst scenes of great joy at the discovery of a means which the despairing people clasped with all their fervour as the only means of their delivery from the wrongs, oppression and humiliation to which they had been subjected for a series of years and which had culminated in the indescribable scene of the Punjab and the unspeakable betrayal of the Khilafat cause. ”

“ Co-operation is to be withdrawn because the people must not be party to a wrong--a broken pledge--a violation of deep religious sentiment. Naturally, the movement will receive a check, if there is any undue influence brought to bear upon any Government servant or if any violence is used or countenanced by any member of the Khilafat Committee. The second stage must be entirely successful, if the response is at all on an adequate scale. For no Government--much less the Indian Government--can subsist if the people cease to serve it. ”

“ It applies to all organisations, but with greater force to Khilafat for reasons arising out of Islam which will be shortly explained. There is no judicial description of this development in Malabar, the most notorious instance. I shall content myself, therefore, with giving a summary of the judgment convicting certain persons for a riot in Malegaon in April, 1920. So early had lawlessness in this form begun to show itself. It will also explain the methods adopted.
A political movement began in Malegaon on the 15th March 1920, when a "Khilafat Committee" and a body of "volunteers" were formed. ”

“ It is our firm conviction that any violence on the part of the people is highly detrimental to the sacred cause of the Khilafat. General repression so vigorously started by Government which has resulted in the arrests of even the most prominent and peace-loving leaders like Pandit Motilal Neheru, Lala Lajpat Rai, Mr. ”

“ This is a struggle for existence and let the Mussalmans give proof of their traditional strength, energy and self-sacrifice. Victory is ours only if our people stand firm. The Khilafat cause has awakened united India and let the Mussalmans champion the great cause and take the lead in gaining Swaraj by peacefully following the country's programme even under the gravest provocation, so that when Khilafat wrongs are redressed and Swaraj attained the good name of Mussalmans should ever shine on the horizon of history as saviour of the freedom of their faith and country. ”

“ And I say without fear of contradiction that if the Mussalmans of India had not exercised great self-restraint and if there was not the gospel of non-co-operation preached to them and if they had not accepted it, there would have been bloodshed in India by this time. I am free to confess that spilling of blood would not have availed their cause. But a man who is in a state of rage whose heart has become lacerated does not count the cost of his action. So much for the Khilafat wrong. ”

“ Their peoples—even those who do not go to British India for their education or for larger opportunities of livelihood—are being slowly influenced by the currents of thought which flow in from British India.
Political unrest cannot always or permanently be halted at their frontier, though His Exalted Highness the Nizam of Hyderabad, whose ways are still largely those of the Moghuls, has not hesitated, albeit himself a Mahomedan Prince, to proscribe all Khilafat agitation within his territory. ”

“ What does the sentiment demand? The preservation of the Khilafat with such guarantee as may be necessary for the protection of the interests of the non-Muslim races living under Turkish rule and the Khalif's control over Arabia and the Holy Places with such arrangement as may be required for guaranteeing Arab self-rule, should the Arabs desire it. It is hardly possible to state the claim more fairly than has been done. It is a claim backed by justice, by the declarations of British ministers and by the unanimous Hindu and Muslim opinion. ”

“ I repeat with all the emphasis I can command that every Congress and Khilafat worker must remain absolutely non-violent in thought, word and deed. I ask every citizen of Calcutta who has any sympathy for the work of the Congress and Khilafat to remember that the best and the surest way to destroy this work is to help violence in any shape or form. ”

“ The issue is clear. Both the Khilafat terms and the Punjab affairs show that Indian opinion counts for little in the Councils of the Empire. It is a humiliating position. We shall make nothing of the Reforms if we quietly swallow the humiliation. In my humble opinion, therefore, the first condition of real progress is the removal of these two difficulties in our path, and unless some better course of action is devised, Non-Co-operation must hold the field.
THE KHILAFAT QUESTION
We have referred more than once to Mr. Gandhi's connection with the Khilafat question. ”

“ Lloyd George, Thrace and Shayrna, along with the city of Smyrna, should remain purely under Turkish control, so that the political status of the Khilafat Musalman, which is essential for the Khilafat should suffer no diminution, (2) all non-Turkish control should be removed from Constantinople, the shores of Marmora and the Dardanelles in order that the Khilafat at Constantinople may not be under non-Muslim control, which is essential for the Khilafat ”

“ It should be noted that in the fourth demand we wish the English to give up their mandate of Mesopotamia and Palestine and remove their influence from the Hedjaz. As to the question whether the Arabs will acknowledge the Sheriff of Mecca or the Sultan of Turkey as their Khilafat, or whether the Arab Government of Hedjaz, Mesopotamia and Palestine will be independant or under the suzerainty of the Khilafat, they will be decided by the Musalmans. We do not want non-Muslim advice and assistance. ”

“ There the Congress committees were formed; the Khilafat committees also were formed; Gandhi and Shaukat Ali visited Malabar, preached their sermons and the usual result followed. With Mahomedans Swaraj was only their secondary aim, their principal object being the redress of the Khalif's wrongs and {100} the establishment of a Khilafat kingdom in the country. When, therefore, the British Government interfered with the activities of some of the Khilafat leaders the Mohomedan population as a whole rose in rebellion and invited the Hindus to join them. The Hindus as a body remained loyal ”

“ Numerous arrests are made, and a few of the local firebrands are ultimately prosecuted and convicted. But at "Non-co-operation" headquarters the Khilafat propaganda goes on undisturbed, and all the appearances of Hindu-Mahomedan unity are ostentatiously kept up. Mr. Mahomed Ali preaches to Hindus as well as to Mahomedans that it will be their duty to give the Ameer of Afghanistan every assistance in their power when he descends with his armies to rescue India from her foreign oppressors. ”

“ It is not that my heart does not bleed for the attainment of Swaraj and the redress of the Khilafat and Punjab wrongs; perhaps it does more than many other's. But I did not join in this great struggle for Swaraj, the Khilafat, and the Punjab only. The path society has trudged on so long everywhere is not the right one. Man himself will have to bring back man from this path full of sorrow and misery. For this has the Man within me aspired to become a real man and for this have I joined the great struggle. ”

“ The development from an apparently peaceful to a revolutionary attitude is strikingly illustrated in the Khilafat agitation not only by revolutionary activities but by open declaration. The resolution of the Karachi Conference {43} showed the Mahomedan intention to declare independence and proclaim an Indian Republic at the following Congress at Ahmedabad in December 1921. A resolution for absolute independence was actually passed in the Subjects Committee of the Khilafat Conference at Ahmedabad, but was not passed at the Conference itself only because the President ruled it out of order. ”

“ By the magic of suffering, each has truly touched and captured the other's heart, and the Nation now is strong and united.
Not internal strength and unity alone has the Khilafat brought to India. The great block in the way of Indian aspiration for full freedom was the problem of external defence. ”

“ We wish this great country of ours to be greater and self-governing. [4] We have enough sorrows to share and to-day seeing that the Mahomedans are deeply touched on the question of Khilafat and their case is just, nothing can be so powerful for winning Mahomedans friendship for the Hindu as to give his whole-hearted support to the Mahomedan claim. ”

“ Whatever the fate of non-co-operation, I wish that not a single Indian will offer his services for Mesopotamia whether for the civil or the military department. We must learn to think for ourselves and before entering upon any employment find out whether thereby we may not make ourselves instruments of injustice. Apart from the question of Khilafat and from the point of abstract justice the English have no right to hold Mesopotamia. It is no part of our loyalty to help the Imperial Government in what is in plain language daylight robbery. ”

“ So far I personally see no reason whatsoever for non-co-operation with the Indian Government, and till it fails to voice the needs and demands of India as a whole there can be no reason. The Indian Government does some times make mistakes, but in the Khilafat matter it is sound and therefore deserves or ought to have the sympathetic and whole-hearted co-operation of every one in India. ”

“ The Khilafat associations throughout the country were intended to carry on the "non-violent non-co-operation" campaign against Government. The process of evolution from ostensible non-violence at first to violence is {38} so well described by Mr. ”

“ On the Khilafat question, a sacred cause dear to the hearts of several million Mahomedans is in danger of being wounded. I would therefore invite the English friend, and every Englishman in India, and every Hindu, be he moderate or extremist, to make common cause with the Mahomedans and thereby compel the Government of India to do its duty, and thereby compel His Majesty's Ministers to do theirs. ”

“ The Khilafat has solved the problem of distrust of Asiatic neighbours out of our future. The Indian struggle for the freedom of Islam has brought about a more lasting entente, and a more binding treaty between the people of India and the people of the Mussalman states around it than all the ententies and treaties among the Governments of Europe. No wars of aggression are possible where the common people on the two sides have become grateful friends. ”

“ If we are to gain freedom and vindicate the honour of the Khilafat and the Punjab we must pay a much higher price and not lose equanimity in the midst of the greatest possible irritation. Let us prepare for the worst and give credit to the Government for decency by expecting the least. ”

“ But the calamity that has at the present moment overtaken India touches the religious honour of a fourth of her children and the self-respect of the whole nation. The Khilafat wrong affects the Mussalmans of India, and the Punjab calamity very nearly overwhelms the manhood of India. Shall we in the face of this danger be weak or rise to our full height. The remedy for both the wrongs is the spiritual solvent of non-co-operation. I call it a spiritual weapon, because it demands discipline and sacrifice from us. It demands sacrifice from every individual irrespective of the rest. ”