Why Mahatma Gandhi Joined the Khilafat Movement

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09415777229, 094055338

E-mail- [e-mail];[e-mail]

 

 

 

Why Mahatma Gandhi Joined the Khilafat Movement

 

 

  An esteemed South African friend who is at present living in England has written to me a letter from which I take the following excerpts : You will doubtless remember having met me in South Africa at the time when the Rev. J. J. Doke was assisting you in your campaign there and I subsequently returned to England deeply impressed with the rightness of your attitude in that country. During the months before the War I wrote and lectured and spoke on your behalf in several places which I did not regret. Since returning from military service, however, I have noticed from the papers that you appear to be adopting a more militant attitude. I notice a report in The Times that you are assisting and countenancing a union between the Hindus and Moslems with a view of embarrassing England and the Allied Powers in the matter of the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire or the ejection of the Turkish Government from Constantinople. Knowing as I do your sense of justice and your humane instincts I feel that I am entitled, in view of the humble part that I have taken to promote your interests on this side, to ask you whether this latter report is correct.

I cannot believe that you have wrongly countenanced a movement to place the cruel and unjust despotism of the Stamboul Government above the interests of humanity, for if any country has crippled these interests in the East it has surely been Turkey. I am personally familiar with the conditions in Syria and Armenia and I can only suppose that if the report which The Times has published is correct, you have thrown to one side your moral responsibilities and allied yourself with one of the prevailing anarchies. However, until I hear that this is not your attitude I cannot prejudice my mind. Perhaps you will do me the favour of sending me a reply. I have sent a reply to the writer. But as the views expressed in the quotation are likely to be shared by many of my English friends, and as I do not wish, if I can possibly help it, to forfeit their friendship or their esteem I shall endeavour to state my position as clearly as I can on the Khilafat question. The letter shows what risk public men run through irresponsible journalism. I have not seen The Times report referred to by my friend. But it is evident that the report has made the writer to suspect my alliance with “the prevailing anarchies” and to think that I have “thrown to one side” my “moral responsibilities”. It is just my sense of moral responsibilities which has made me take up the Khilafat question and to identify myself entirely with the Mohammedans. It is perfectly true that I am assisting and countenancing the union between Hindus and Muslims, but certainly not with “a view of the embarrassing England and the Allied Powers in the matter of the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire”. It is contrary to my creed to embarrass governments or anybody else. This does not however mean that certain acts of mine may not result in embarrassment. But I should not hold myself responsible for having caused embarrassment when I resist the wrong of a wrongdoer by refusing assistance in his wrong-doing. On the Khilafat question I refuse to be a party to a broken pledge. Mr. Lloyd George’s solemn declaration is practically the whole of the case for Indian Mohammedans, and when that case is fortified by scriptural authority it becomes unanswerable.

Moreover, it is incorrect to say that I have “allied myself to one of the prevailing anarchies” or that I have “wrongly countenanced the movement to place the cruel and unjust despotism of the Stamboul Government above the interests of humanity”. In the whole of the Mohammedan demand there is no insistence on the retention of the so-called unjust despotism of the Stamboul Government; on the contrary the Mohammedans have accepted the principle of taking full guarantees from that Government for the protection of non-Muslim minorities. I do not know how far the condition of Armenia and Syria may be considered an “anarchy” and how far the Turkish Government may be held responsible for it. I much suspect that the reports from these quarters are much exaggerated and that the European powers are themselves in a measure responsible for what misrule there may be in Armenia and Syria. But I am in no way interested in supporting Turkish or any other anarchy. The Allied Powers can easily prevent it by means other than that of ending Turkish rule or dismembering and weakening the Ottoman Empire. The Allied Powers are not dealing with a new situation. If Turkey was to be partitioned, the position should have been made clear at the commencement of the War. There would then have been no question of a broken pledge. As it is, no Indian Mohammedan has any regard for the promises of British Ministers. In his opinion the cry against Turkey is that of Christianity versus Islam with England as the leader in the cry. The latest cablegram from Mr. Mohamed Ali strengthens the impression, for he says that unlike as in England his deputation is receiving much support from the French Government and the people. Thus, if it is true, as I hold it is true, that the Indian Mussulmans have a cause that is just and is supported by scriptural authority, then for the Hindus not to support them to the utmost would be a cowardly breach of brotherhood and they would forfeit all claim to consideration from their Mohammedan countrymen. As a public server, therefore, I would be unworthy of the position I claim, if I did not support Indian Mussulmans in their struggle to maintain the Khilafat in accordance with their religious belief. I believe that in supporting them I am rendering a service to the Empire, because by assisting my Mohammedan countrymen to give a disciplined expression to their sentiment it becomes possible to make the agitation thoroughly orderly and even successful.