The Khilafat Movement (1918-24) had catapulted several forces and leaders onto the forefront of Muslim politics. Among them all, the ulama (as a group) and Gandhi proved to be more durable. The ulama, who had retired from politics in the calamitous aftermath of the 1857 cataclysm, returned with a good deal of enthusiasm and commitment, if only to guide the community on religious questions like the Khilafat, and give theological weight to the Khilafat Conference (f. 1919) decisions. Thus the Jamiat-ul-Ulama-i-Hind, founded by Maulana Mahmudul Hasan (1851-1920) in 1919, and led by Mufti Kifayatullah (1875-i952) after the his death, would play a crucial role in the Khilafat Movement, and a somewhat minor one thereafter.
No less crucial was henceforth the role of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948). He had already risen to a national leadership role; the disastrous aftermath of the Report of the Rowlatt Committee (1918) and the Rowlatt Bill (1919) having catapulted him to the forefront of nationalist politics. He had given an institutional shape to Indian resentment over the report, and had shrewdly exploited subsequent British repressions, especially in the Punjab, climaxing in the bloody Jallianwala Bagh tragedy on April 13, 1919, to establish his leadership in the Congress and among the Hindus. Fortunately for Muslims, he was sympathetic to the Khilafat cause. He attended the Khilafat Conference (November 1919) by special invitation, and manoeuvred to get himself accepted as a guide, and non-cooperation adopted as the supreme tactic to force the British to yield to the Khilafat demands.
Here, at the Khilafat Conference, Gandhi demonstrated how much of a born leader of men and a strategist he was, how shrewd was his approach, how irresistible his logic and leadership. None of the participants was a match for him. And his enthusiastic espousal of the Khilafat cause enthralled and mesmerized them. His leadership was accepted unreservedly.
For sure, Gandhi gave the impression that he was fully convinced of the justness of the Khilafat cause. He wrote a series of articles, defining and defending his stance. The Khilafat claim was not only “both just and reasonable”; it also derived “a greater force because it has behind it the religious sentiment of the Mussalman World”, he asserted.
On another occasion, he wrote, “... I refuse to be party to a broken pledge. Mr Lloyd George’s solemn declaration (of January 5, 1918) is practically the whole of the case for Indian Mohammedans and when that case is fortified by scriptural authority, it becomes unanswerable.”
But what perhaps clinched the issue for him was his supreme conviction that the Khilafat question could be readily exploited to build up Hindu-Muslim unity and a joint Hindu-Muslim movement for Indian freedom. “We have both now an opportunity of a lifetime”, he said. “If the Hindus wish to cultivate eternal friendship with the Mussalmans, they must perish with them in the attempt to vindicate the honour of Islam.”
Yet another motivating factor was Gandhi’s fervent hope to save the cow. He regarded cow-protection as the “dearest possession of the Hindu heart”, “the one concrete belief common to all Hindus”, and “an article of faith in Hinduism”. Although he refused to propose a quid pro quo formally and went in for a psychological approach, he knew, more than anyone else, that that was the only way to save the “Hindu cow” from the “Mussalman’s knife”.
This, in any case, is the only meaning one can read in his numerous exhortations to Hindus. For instance, consider the following: (i) “My advice to my Hindu brethren is, ‘simply help the Mussalmans in their sorrow in a generous and sell-sacrificing spirit without counting the cost and you will automatically save the cows’” (ii) “The only chance Hindus have of saving the cow in India from the butcher’s knife, is by trying to save Islam from the impending peril and trusting their Mussalman countrymen to return nobility, i.e., voluntarily protect the cow out of regard for their Hindu countrymen... the best and the only way to save the cow is to save the Khilafat.”
The Muslims voluntarily abstained from eating beef and slaughtering cows on the occasion of Eid-ul-Azha. In some places like Bombay, the Khilafat leaders also rescued “hundreds of cows from their co-religionists” and presented them to “the grateful Hindus”.
And, over time the Muslims came to believe that the Muslim acceptance of Gandhi’s leadership would induce and ensure Hindu cooperation. And he lived up to their expectations. In order to gain active Hindu collaboration, Gandhi added, in June 1920, the satisfaction of Hindu opinion in the matter of the Punjab to the satisfaction of the Muslims on the Khilafat question. He undertook countrywide tours in August, and got Swaraj included in the resolution on non-cooperation, which he presented for approval at the special Congress session at Calcutta on September 8-10. Three months later, a more spectacular success awaited him at the Nagpur Congress and his Calcutta resolution confirmed by an overwhelming majority. Few Congressites dared oppose Gandhi at this supreme hoot of his triumph. More important from the Khilafatists’ viewpoint, Nagpur showed beyond doubt that of all the Congress stalwarts, Gandhi alone could win Congress and Hindu adherence to their cause. And this, in itself, was no mean achievement on Gandhi’s part either.
After the Calcutta Congress, Swaraj became the short-term objective and the key to all other aims of the movement. The Muslims, except for some westernized leaders and constitutionalists like Jinnah, Mian Fazli Husain, Mian Muhammad Shafi, and Syed Raza Ali, endorsed the non-cooperation plank. It was also blessed by the Jamiat through a fatwa, signed by some 425 religious leaders. Mohammed Ali had also to endorse the non-cooperation programme upon his return from England in late 1920, although he did not really favour the boycott method and instead would have preferred the Sein Fein way. Upon his return from his European sojourn as leader of the Khilafat delegation, Mohammed Ali assumed the leadership among the Muslims — but without disturbing Gandhi as the supreme leader or “dictator” of the movement, to which the Congress mandate had given formal recognition.
From then on, Gandhi’s clout to influence and deflect Muslim politics in Congress’s favour could not be brushed aside altogether, not even during the 1940s when Jinnah was able to gather almost all the Muslims on the League’s platform. Indeed, the rapport Gandhi had come to establish with a large segment of Muslim leadership, especially the ulama group, would pay him huge dividends during the next 25 years.
