For Global Peace with Social Justice in a Sustainable Environment

Khilafat Workers and Mahatma Gandhi

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

Gandhi International Study and Research Institute, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

E-mail- dr.yadav.yogendra@gandhifoundation.net;

dr.yogendragandhi@gmail.com

Mailing Address- C- 29, Swaraj Nagar, Panki, Kanpur- 208020, Uttar Pradesh, India

Khilafat Workers and Mahatma Gandhi

It is not enough for khilafat workers to be satisfied with public condemnations (necessary as they are) or for the sake of decorum to join them. It is necessary for us to preach privately, publicly and incessantly the necessity of refraining from violence especially when an active campaign of non-cooperation full of promise is going on. We must feel in every fiber of our own being that every murder; every deed of violence must retard the progress of the movement. 1 Khilafat workers in particular and all other workers in general, cannot be too strongly to urge avoid all exaggeration. Facts are always stronger than fiction. The latter hurts a cause in the long run and discredits the speaker. The case against the Government based on proved facts is invulnerably strong. And public movements will gain greatly when no charge of exaggeration can be sustained against workers. 2

I suggest to all Khilafat workers that they should set apart the last ten days as special Congress days to be solely devoted by them to finishing the Bezwada programme. No speeches are required, no meetings are necessary. Quiet house to house visits and personal canvassing are more effective than meetings for the class of work before us. 3 I understand that the Government is placing every obstacle in the way of the Congress and the Khilafat workers taking relief to those desolate homes and I am told that at the same time the Government itself is taking no pains to provide relief to these poor people who are supposed to be starving. Whether they give us permission or do not, I have no doubt that it is our clear duty to collect as much funds as we can for the relief of these sufferers and see to it that they get what they require. The Congress Committee has already voted a certain sum of money and I know that the Khilafat Committee also is endeavouring to vote a certain sum of money for the relief of these sufferers. But I suggest to the Mussulman countrymen in the Madras Presidency that it will be a graceful act on their part if they were to collect even pies from every home for the relief of their Hindu brethren. 4

However the duty of the Congress and Khilafat workers is clear. We ask for no quarter; we expect none from the Government. We did not solicit the promise of immunity from prison so long as we remained non-violent. We may not now complain, if we are imprisoned for sedition. Therefore our self-respect and our pledge require us to remain calm, unperturbed and non-violent. We have our appointed course to follow. We must reiterate from a thousand platforms the formula of the Ali Brothers regarding the sepoys, and we must spread disaffection openly and systematically till it please the Government to arrest us. And this we do, not by way of angry retaliation, but because it is our dharma. We must wear khadi even as the Brothers have worn it, and spread the gospel of swadeshi. The Mussulmans must collect for Smyrna relief and the Angora Government. We must spread like the Ali Brothers the gospel of Hindu-Muslim unity and of non-violence for the purpose of attaining swaraj and the redress of the Khilafat and the Punjab wrongs. 5

We need not suspect any evil befalling India under swaraj for it is tolerably certain, that had the Congress and the Khilafat workers been permitted to penetrate the Moplahs territories, they would have been able to nip the evil in the bud. As it was, it is a matter capable of proof that the Khilafat workers, wherever they could go, were able to exercise great restraining influence. To me the Moplahs madness is proof of the Hindu Muslim solidarity, because we kept calm. As members of a family, we shall sometimes fight, but we shall always have leaders who will compose our differences and keep us under check. 6 It is not correct to say that the appeal of the Khilafat associations against cow-killing leaves the Mussulmans cold and unresponsive. In the first place, is it not a cheering phenomenon that the Khilafat workers themselves are Mussulmans working to prevent cow-killing? In the second place, I venture to that the appeal has had wonderful success in almost all the parts of India. Is it a small matter that the burden of cow-protection has been taken over almost entirely by the Mussulman workers? Was it not a soul-stirring thing for Hindus to witness Messrs Chhotani and Khatri of Bombay rescuing hundreds of cows from their co-religionists and presenting them to the grateful Hindus? 7

I hope, therefore, that the Khilafat workers will strain every nerve and show that all the fears entertained by the Government and their supporters were totally wrong. I promise that such act of self-restraint will take us many a mile towards our triple goal. 8 Such a Bulletin cannot become a success unless there is cooperation from all Khilafat workers. I invite therefore all who are interested in the Bulletin to send their suggestions and news addressed to the Editor, Congress Bulletin, C/o Young India. Correspondents will please take care to mark all such correspondence for the Congress Bulletin in order to save the Young India staff from having to handle correspondence intended for the Bulletin. To start with, I would ask every Provincial Congress Committee to send the number of members on its provincial register, the number of village and district organizations, the names and addresses of nationalist newspapers, the number of national educational institutions with the average attendance during the past 6 months, the number of Panchayats and all other information regarding non-co-operation activities. 9

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