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The Khilafat Movement in India: The First Phase

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Gopal Krishna
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When the european war ended in November 1918 the fate of the defeated Turkish Empire was no longer in doubt. The other fallen empire, Austria-Hungary, had been dismembered, and the Ottoman Turks could not hope to escape the consequences of allying themselves with Germany. For Indian Muslims this raised grave issues of the political power of Islam. They had provided a large number of recruits in the war and had contributed materially towards the defeat of Turkey. Their political leaders had regretted Turkey's entry into the war on the side of Britain's enemies; their sympathies, however, were with the Turks, for the Turkish Sultan was looked upon as the Khalifa, the temporal and spiritual leader of the Islamic community, and—still more important for Indian Muslims—the Khalifa stood for the unity of the Islamic people, and the Turkish Empire, by then the only surviving Islamic Empire, was the symbol of Islam's worldly power. Muslims in India fervently believed in the ideal of Islamic brotherhood. This had always been an integral part of the religious outlook of Islam, but Pan-Islamism appealed especially to Muslims in India because of their minority status. Their interest in the Khalifate was largely due to the fact that it was the one centre of authority to which they could look for protection. The spread of nationalism threatened to submerge them and made them anxious to preserve and strengthen the Khalifate as an institution which might provide them with a rallying point and mobilize in their defence the united forces of the Islamic world.

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Articles
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Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 100 , Issue 1 , January 1968 , pp. 37 - 53
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Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1968

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References

1 See Maulana Abdul Bari's telegram to the Sultan of Turkey dated 31st August, 1914, urging upon him “either to support Britain or to keep neutral in this war”, quoted in Khaliquzzaman, Choudhry, Pathway to Pakistan, Lahore, 1961, 28.Google Scholar

2 Sir Hamilton Gibb has very rightly pointed out that “Among all the Muslims in the world, those in India alone insisted on the international aspect of Islam, but in this their motive force was a defensive attitude in the face of Hindu nationalism”. (Whither Islam? A survey of the modern movements in the Muslim world, 1932, 73).

3 It is interesting to note that on the Khalifate question both Sunnis and Shias—the latter who had nothing to do with the Sunni Khilafate—were united and Shias played a great part in the Khalifate movement. This demonstrates that in the development of the Khilafat movement more than theocratic considerations were involved. See Toynbee, Arnold, in Survey of international affairs 1925, 1927, Vol I, 39Google Scholar. Toynbee points out that a similar movement was developing among the Muslims of Russia at this time. See also Zenkovasky, Serge A., Pan-Turkism and Islam in Russia, Cambridge, Mass., 1960.Google Scholar

4 For the various secret treaties see Hurewitz, J. C. (ed.), Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East, Princeton, 1956, Vol. II: 1914–1956, 11–12, 18–22 for the London Agreement between the Entente Powers and Italy, and the Tripartite (Sykes–Picot) Agreement between Britain, France, and Russia, respectivelyGoogle Scholar. See also Temperley, H. W. V. (ed.), A history of the Peace Conference of Paris, 1924, Vol. VI., 1–22.Google Scholar

5 A. J. Balfour's note to President Wilson, dated 18th December, 1916, quoted in Temperley, p. 23. This continued to be the object of British policy throughout the negotiations on the Turkish peace. See Balfour's note to Lloyd George, dated 26th June, 1919, in Woodward, E. L. and Butler, R. (ed.), Documents on British foreign policy, 1919–1939, First Series, 1952, Vol. IV, 301–303.Google Scholar

6 Temperley, loc. cit.

7 See M. A. Ansari's speech as a Chairman of the Reception Committee of the annual session of the All-India Muslim League held in Delhi in December 1918.

8 Amrita Bazar Patrika, 6th January, 1919.

9 Sir Syed wrote some articles in the Aligarh Institute Gazette in 1897 challenging the Turkish claims to the Khalifate. He took the view that the true Khalifate existed only for about 30 years after the death of the Prophet. The Turkish Sultan, according to Sir Syed, could be Khalifa only for those Muslims over whom he ruled and among whom he had the power of enforcing the Islamic Law (The truth about the Khilafat, Lahore, 1916)Google Scholar. See also Smith, W. C., Modern Islam in India, revised ed., 1946, 30.Google Scholar

10 It required the Khalifa, according to Mohamed Ali, to have adequate territories and adequate power for the defence of the Faith. See Ali, Mohamed, Khilafat in Islam, Lahore, 1920Google Scholar; see also Select writings, ed. Iqbal, Afral, Lahore, 1944, 158.Google Scholar

11 The Jazirat-ul-Arab included, according to Islamic tradition, not only the Arabian Peninsula, but also Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine: Mohamed Ali, Select writings, 158–9.

12 Amrita Bazar Patrika, 2nd January, 1919.

13 Hourani, , Arabic thought in the Liberal age, 1789–1939, Oxford, 1962, Ch. XI, “Arab nationalism”.Google Scholar

14 Lewis, Bernard, The emergence of modern Turkey, 1961, 346–8, 351–2.Google Scholar

15 Kabir, Humayun, Muslim politics 1906—1942, Calcutta, 1943, 8.Google Scholar

16 An account of the Khilafat movement is given by Bamford, P. C., Deputy Director, Intelligence Bureau, in his Histories of the non-cooperation and Khilafat movements, Government of India, Delhi, 1925Google Scholar. See also “Histories of the Non-cooperation and Khilafat Movements”, 185/1925 (these numbers refer to confidential and secret political proceedings of the Home Department of the Government of India).

17 A 524–532/May 1919.

18 Telegram P., 553, 18th May, 1919 (ibid.).

19 See two memoranda circulated by the Indian Delegation in Paris over the question of Constantinople and dismemberment of Turkey, dated 5th February, 1919, and 1st April, 1919, respectively (ibid.).

20 The British Government through the secret treaties and through its commitments to Arab nationalists had tied British policy in advance to the destruction of the Turkish Empire. The India Office under Montagu, however, was anxious to keep on the right side of Muslim sentiment in India. In the resulting clash between the India Office and the Foreign Office together with Lloyd George, the India Office had no chance of carrying its views. Sir A. T. Wilson, an official of the India Office who had served in India, went so far as to propose the restoration of the Turkish Empire; see Kedourie, Elie, England and the Middle East: The destruction of the Ottoman Empire 1914–1921, 1956, 196–7Google Scholar. Lloyd George had no understanding of the Indian problem and no sympathy with the Muslims. All the warnings of the Government of India, therefore, produced no effect on British policy in relation to Turkey.

21 Temperley, op. cit., 25–6.

22 ibid., 44.

23 A1 and K. W./July 1919.

24 An example of the kind of interference the Ali brothers had in mind was provided by Sir Henry McMahon, the British High Commissioner in Egypt, who offered the Khalifate to Hussain, the Sherif of Mecca, in a letter dated 30th August, 1915: “…His Majesty's Government would welcome the resumption of the Khalifate by an Arab of true race”, he wrote: see Kedourie, op. cit., 52.

25 The Ali brothers' memorandum addressed to the Viceroy, A1 and K. W./July 1919. In his address to the annual session of the Muslim League held in Delhi in December 1918 Dr. Ansari had given expression to similar demands, with an important variation regarding right to self-determination to the non-Turkish subjects of the Ottoman Empire.

26 Gandhiji's comment on the Ali brothers' demands is extremely interesting. On 23rd May, 1919, he wrote to them: “Your statement of the Mahomedan claim instead of representing an irreducible minimum was an exaggeration. I am sure you do not propose to raise questions affecting issues that were rightly or wrongly settled long before the war. [The reference is to the demand for restoration of Egypt to Turkey.] You have a right to claim the restoration of the temporal status of Islam as it existed at the time of the outbreak of the war. I would like you even now to redraft your memorial. Make a reasoned and logical statement that must arrest and command the attention of the world. The success of any cause naturally and necessarily depends finally upon the will of God. But that will is almost conditioned by the manner in which we who approach the throne of the Almighty, conduct ourselves; and nothing avails there but cold reason sanctified by truth, humility and strictest moderation.…If you adopt my proposal I would love to revise your draft”: Gandhiji's papers, 1919.

27 Mahatma Gandhi's letter to the Viceroy, April 1918: Speeches and writings, fourth ed., Madras, 1934, 440Google Scholar. See also his letter to Hignell, the Secretary of the Viceroy, Bombay, 27th July, 1919: Gandhiji's papers, 1919.

28 Young India, 1919–1922, 408.

29 Khaliquzzaman, op. cit., 47–9.

30 Speeches and writings, 483.

31 See Haq's, Fazlulspeech proposing Gandhiji for the Presidentship of the first Khilafat Conference,Amrita Bazar Patrika,26th November, 1919.Google Scholar

32 Young India, 28th April, 1920.

33 We have already seen that Muslims did not take up the Khilafat question solely for religious reasons. Asaf Ali underlined this in a letter to Mahatma Gandhi, dated Delhi, 19th January, 1920; he wrote, “…as far as I am concerned the present day Khilafat question has no more than a political significance to me. I do not like to see a civilising force such as Islam has proved to be, so effectively crippled as to lose its essential function—that's all”: Gandhiji's papers, 1920.

34 Report of the Thirty-Fourth Session of the Indian National Congress, Amritsar, 1919, 158–9Google Scholar. See also the manifesto issued by Bengal leaders, all Hindus, on the Khilafat question: Amrita Bazar Patrika, 17th March, 1920.

35 Amrita Bazar Patrika, 6th December, 1919.

36 The conditions involved were that Muslims should stop cow-slaughter and should make common cause with the Hindus in their struggle for freedom. The Khilafatists tried to meet the first condition and solemn resolutions were passed asking Muslims to substitute some other animal in place of the sacred cow. But this attempt encountered considerable difficulties; see Asaf Ali's letter to Mahatma Gandhi, dated Delhi, 19th January, 1920, in which he told him that the Muslim League's resolution at Amritsar did not mean that cow-slaughter had been abandoned by Muslims, that some of the Ulama were sitting on the fence, and that Hindus should not take anything for granted on this question. He added, “I suggest that too high hopes should not be raised among Hindu masses lest they should become the seeds of undesirable complications”. Gandhiji agreed that nothing should be done that might cause misunderstanding, but maintained that “when two great communities live side by side the religious sense of the one demands a scrupulous regard for the practices of the other so long as they are not immoral from a universal standpoint” (letter to Asaf Ali, dated Lahore, 23rd January, 1920: Gandhiji's papers, 1920). But he warned Hindus not to press the matter: Young India, 16th March, 1920.

As for the second condition, it did not take long for the Khilafatists to realise that the liberation of India was a precondition for the independence of the Muslim peoples of Western Asia. See speeches delivered by Mohamed Ali and Shaukat Ali; 11/1921–22.

37 Young India, 3rd December, 1919.

38 Report of the Thirty-Fourth Session of the Indian National Congress, 43.

39 ibid., 157.

40 Jinnah refused to have anything to do with the Khilafat agitation, apparently on the ground that under the Muslim League's constitution it had no right to interfere in the Government's external actions: Khaliquzzaman, op. cit., 43.

41 A Government agent reported on the 12th session of the League: “… the loyalists were at a great disadvantage. They were abused very freely … throughout the session. On the first day Sir Zulfikar Ali Khan, Shah-al Uddin and Mirza Jalal Uddin with Dr. Iqbal visited the Muslim League. They were greeted with the shouts of ‘Welcome O renegades from the Khilafat Committee’; ‘Welcome! O Supporters of the Rowlatt Act and Proclamation of Martial Law in Punjab’; ‘Welcome, O! lickers of boots of Englishmen’; ‘Welcome O! sellers of religion’.” (Report by K. S. Tsadduq Hussain, Deputy Superintendent of Police, on the All-India Muslim League, Twelfth Session, 1919: Deposit 59/March 1920.)

42 See Smith, W. C., “The Ulama' in Indian politics”, in Philips, C. H. (ed.), Politics and society in India, 1962, 39–51.Google Scholar

43 For an account of the Deoband Seminary, see Faruqi, Zia-ul-Hasan, The Deoband School and the demand for Pakistan, Bombay, 1963, Ch. IIGoogle Scholar; W. C. Smith, Modern Islam in India, 295–6; Titus, Murray, Islam in India and Pakistan, revised reprint, Calcutta, 1959, 78Google Scholar. The Deoband Ulama had a tradition of implacable hostility to Britain and of cooperation with Hindus provided it did not involve deviation from the Islamic precepts; see Fatwa issued in 1889 by Maulana Rashid Ahmad Gangohi, head of the Deoband Seminary from 1880–1905, opposing Sir Syed Ahamad Khan's advice to Muslims to keep away from the Hindus and their political organisations; cited in Faruqi, op. cit., 43–6, also Malik, Hafeez, Moslem nationalism in India and Pakistan, Washington, 1964, 196.Google Scholar

44 Jamiat-ul-Ulama-I-Hind, a brief history, Meerut, 1963, 4.Google Scholar

45 For an account of the Firangi Mahal, see W. C. Smith, Modern Islam in India, 296.

46 Deposit 30/March 1920.

47 The Indian Annual Register, ed. Mitra, H. N., 1920, Part I, 252.Google Scholar

48 Gandhiji wrote: “We do not believe in boycott because it breeds ill-will and it is mostly ineffective. Boycott of goods is a subterfuge for boycott of the Government. We hate all subterfuge.“ (Young India 1919–1922, 136.) And again, “Boycott is a punishment and is conceived in a vindictive spirit … I hold that boycott under such circumstances is a form of violence” (ibid., 147).

49 Among the signatories were Hakim Ajmal Khan, Shaukat Ali, Mohamed Ali, Maulvi Abdul Bari, Abul Kalam Azad, Hasrat Mohani, Mahatma Gandhi, Swami Shradhanand, Pandit Malaviya, Motilal Nehru, M. A. Jinnah, and Fazlul Haq.

50 For the full text of the Khilafatists' address to the Viceroy see Indian Annual Register, 1921, Part I, 149–154.

51 ibid., 154–7.

52 A 110/July 1920.

53 ibid.

54 Aziz, K. K., Britain and Muslim India, 1963, 99–113.Google Scholar

55 Speaking at a meeting in London on 22nd April, 1920, Mohamed Ali poured scorn on the British pretence: “We never knew that that large mouthful of a word, self-determination, could be spelt with three letters: O-I-L”: Select Writings, 190.

56 The Minutes of the Eastern Committee of the British Cabinet, one volume of which covering its discussions during March 1918–January 1919 is preserved among the Milner papers in New College, Oxford, leave no doubt about the purposes of British policy in the Middle East at this time. It aimed at establishing European domination in that region through puppet regimes to be set up after the end of the 1914–18 war.

57 Azad, Abul Kalam, India wins freedom, Bombay, 1959, 9Google Scholar. Maulana Azad is, however, mistaken with regard to the programme proposed by Mahatma Gandhi in January 1920. The four stages he lists came later—in July 1920.

58 Deposit 4/April 1920.

59 According to Islamic tradition the believers, when faced with a choice between living under a regime hostile to the Faith or emigrating to some other land where they can practise their religion without hindrance, are enjoined to follow the latter course, as did the Prophet himself in the 7th century. A large number of Indian Muslims apparently believed that India under Britain was no longer safe for Islam and therefore migrated to Afghanistan. Their number is estimated variously between 20,000–30,000. The Amir of Afghanistan at first welcomed the Muhajirins, but when their number increased he felt compelled to close the frontier. Large numbers of the prospective emigrants suffered a great deal, and the Hijrat came to an inglorious end. Shaukat Ali made it clear in July 1920 that the Central Khilafat Committee would not undertake Hijrat. See The Hindu (Weekly), 8th July, 1920.

60 For the debate between Maulana Abdul Bari and Maulana Azad, see Deposit 4/April 1920.

61 Shaukat Ali, for instance, in a speech at Shajahanpur on 5th May, 1920, declared that the Muslims had accepted satyagraha as a matter of convenience. “I tell you that to kill and be killed in the way of God are both Satyagraha. To lay down our lives in the way of God for righteousness and to destroy the life of the tyrant who stands in the way of righteousness are both very great services to God. But we have promised to cooperate with Mahatma Gandhi who is with us and requests that no excesses may be indulged in …” (Deposit 78/June 1920).

62 Gandhiji's papers, 1920.

63 ibid.

64 For the text of Hakim Ajmal Khan's letter to the Deputy Commissioner, Delhi, surrendering his title and returning the medals, see Young India, 7th April, 1920.

65 See reports on the Khilafat Conferences held in the United Provinces in the Political reports from the Director Central Intelligence, Deposit 103/April 1920 and Deposit 78/June 1920.

66 Telegram P.320, 25th April, 1920. A 310–13 and K. W./May 1920.

67 Young India, 5th May, 1920.

68 A 310–13 and K. W./May 1920.

69 The Peace Treaty incorporating the terms was signed at Sevres on 10th August, 1920. For its political clauses see Hurewitz, op. cit., Vol. II, 81–7. The signing of the Treaty was accompanied by a Tripartite Agreement between Britain, France, and Italy giving the signatories spheres of influence in Anatolia: ibid., pp. 87–9. In Lloyd George's phrase, the Treaty of Sèvres “lopped off as, it were, certain limbs from the old Turkish Empire” (Butler, R. and Bury, J. P. T. (ed.), Documents on British foreign policy, 1919–1939, 1958, First Series, Vol. VIII, 350).Google Scholar

70 Montagu had obviously tried to press on Lloyd George the consideration of Indian Muslim sentiment, but to no purpose. Girija Shankar Bajpai, reporting to Sapru on Srinivas Sastri's conversation with Montagu, wrote that Montagu “warned the Cabinet that the dismemberment of Turkey would be deeply resented by Moslem opinion in India. This letter of protest to the Prime Minister had only evoked a sharp reply that the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres were irrevocable and that Mr. M[ontagu] would do well to drop the matter” (G. S. Bajpai's letter to T. B. Sapru dated London, 5th May, 1921, Sapru papers preserved in the National Library, Calcutta).

71 For the full text of the Viceroy's message to the Indian Muslims, see the Indian Annual Register, 1921, Part I, 185–192.

72 The Pioneer, 15th May, 1920. For comments in other European-owned papers see The Hindu (Weekly), 20th May, 1920.

73 The Hindu (Weekly), 20th May, 1920.

74 ibid.

75 ibid.

76 Indian Annual Register, 1921, Part I, 114.

77 For the text of the manifesto see A 19–31/November 1920, 24–6.

78 Indian National Congress 1920–1923, Allahabad, 1924, ix–x.Google Scholar

79 B 109/July 1920.

80 ibid. Serious doubt regarding the workability of the programme was expressed by Yakub Hasan, Khilafat leader from Madras. On 2nd July he wrote to Shaukat Ali that the programme was unworkable and that not a single parent would be prepared to keep his child away from Government or private schools. “It is all very well to say that we will take the education in our own hands and start schools. That is so stupendous a work that if you seriously believe in your capacity to undertake and organise it, it is time that you take it up and give up everything else, even the agitation about Turkey and Khilafat. To think that any body of men can carry on both great works simultaneously is Kabil Mahal wa Janoon [imaginary idea, impossible, and madness]” (A 19–31/November 1920).

81 B 109/July 1920. The Khilafat leaders believed in the formula and gave visible expression to it in the emblem of two intersecting circles which appeared on the Khilafat flag.

82 Among the sceptics was Tilak. He and his friend Khaparde attended the meetings of Hindu and Muslim leaders in Delhi in March 1920 but took no part in the discussion. In a letter to Vithalbhai Patel, dated Poona City, 26th June, 1920, Tilak lamented that Gandhiji was engaged in his “supposed work of non-cooperation”. It was indicative of the pre-eminent position that Gandhiji had come to acquire by this time that even Tilak felt unable to do much without his help: Archives of the All-India Congress Committee, 1920. Joseph Baptista, a prominent leader of the Bombay followers of Tilak, wrote to Chhotani: “I do not believe in Gandhism. He may be a saint. A saint will make a good guide for the Kingdom of Heaven, but not for the Empire of India. His influence on the Khilafat Committee is too great. I anticipate nothing but Himalayan miscalculations from Gandhi. But he has immense influence in India and I will not venture to put myself in opposition to him”: letter dated Makharpakhady, 27th May, 1920 (A 19–31/November 1920). Motilal Nehru expected that the Congress would not bind itself to non-cooperation; see his letter to Jawaharlal Nehru from Arrah, 16th June, 1920, in A bunch of old letters, 17. Also among the sceptics, apparently, was Patel, Vallabhbhai: Yagnik, Indulal, Mahatma Gandhi as I knew him, Bombay, 1933, 105–6.Google Scholar

83 Young India 1919–1922, 202–5.

84 ibid., 197–200.

85 Indian Annual Register, 1921, Part I, 124–6.

86 Young India 1919–1922, 219–220.

87 Speeches by Lord Chelmsford, Simla, 1921, Vol. II, 448.