CHAPTER FROM HISTORY: Khilafatists and Turkey’s rebirth
By Prof Sharif al-Mujahid
In Turkey’s hour of trial during 1918-22, which eventuated in Turkey’s rebirth, no people stood as steadfast by her and contributed so significantly to her recovery as did the Indian Muslims.
They launched the Khilafat Conference in November 1919, soon after the Greek invasion of Turkey in May, and called for justice for Turkey. In building up their case, they invoked British promises made during the war and more specifically Prime Minister Lloyd George’s pledge of January 5, 1918, wherein he assured that they were not “fighting...to deprive Turkey of its capital, or of the rich and renowned lands of Asia Minor and Thrace which are predominantly Turkish in race.” Yet, the “unrelentingly severe” Treaty of Serves, published on May 14, 1920, sought do exactly the reverse. In a word, the Turkish fortunes had reached their nadir.
Briefly stated, the treaty sought to parcel out among the Allies, even the traditional Turkish homelands mentioned in Lloyd’s pledge and President Woodrow Wilson’s (1856-1924) 12th point in his message to the Congress on January 8, 1918.
At the time the treaty was published, a Khilafat delegation under Mohammed Ali was in England, pleading the Turkish cause. In the meantime and shortly afterwards, Khilafat committees sprang up across the country, a day of national mourning was observed on March 19, and an All-Parties Conference at Allahabad on June 2 with Gandhi as the chief “advisor” decided upon and delineated the four progressive stages of the non-cooperation (NCO) campaign, in support of the Khilafatists’ demand. The movement itself came to be formally inaugurated by Muslims on August 1, to synchronize with the signing of the Treaty of Sevres in Paris, on August 10. Gandhi later added Swaraj and the righting of the Punjab wrongs to the Khilafatists’ demands, which inducted and ensured Congress/Hindu support to the NCO movement.
The Khilafat programme included renunciation of titles and honours, quitting government jobs, boycotting the government educational institutions, courts and the reformed councils and dumping British textiles in favour of Swadeshi goods. During the next 18 months, the progressive execution of the programme began to mount pressure on the government. Lord Reading, the Viceroy, held a series of meetings with Gandhi, the chief spokesman and leader, through Malaviya and the convening of a Round Table Conference was mooted in January 1922 — but to no avail. Meanwhile, except for Gandhi, all the top leaders had been gaoled. However, on February 4, 1919, barely a week before Gandhi himself was to formally start the campaign from Bardoli, the ghastly Chauri Chaura incident occurred in remote UP, in which several policemen were burnt to death by an enraged mob. This led Gandhi to heed his “inner voice” and call off the movement sine die.
Despite this call-off; the government feared that the Muslims, though dismayed, were still capable of carrying on the movement on their own. On the other hand, even moderate and “friendly” Muslim leaders continued to press the Viceroy for his intercession with HMG in favour of the Turks. Hence, Lord Reading’s telegram of February 20, 1922, to Edwin S. Montagu, Secretary of State for India, sent on the eve of the Greco-Turkish conference in Paris. The telegram spoke “of the intensity of Indian opinion on the revision of the Treaty of Sevres”, and took up the Khilafatists’ stance for the Allied troops’ evacuation from Constantinople, “unreserved restoration” of Thrace and Smyrna to Turkey, and the Turkish Sultan’s suzerainty over the holy places. Montagu’s authorization of its publication embarrassed Lord Curzon (1859-1925), the foreign secretary, then engaged in delicate negotiations in Paris, resulting in Montagu’s resignation. Undeterred, however, the Viceroy repeated his request and demands to his successor, Viscount Peel.
Thus, the Indian Khilafat Movement gave Turkey a tremendous diplomatic leverage with the British who constituted the dominant party in the Allied camp. Under the impact of events in India and the Khilafat demands and threats, the Indian delegates to the War and Peace conferences were constantly instructed to plead the Turkish cause, and it was partly at the Indian Government’s urging that the Sultan was left in Constantinople.
It is also obvious that but for the Indian Khilafat agitation in India, the British attitude would not have softened towards Turkey. Indeed, to quote Valentine Chirol (who represents the authentic imperial British viewpoint) “...it was the violence of the pro-Turkish agitation in India that, more than anything else, led the Government of India and the Imperial Government to recede rapidly from all the positions they had taken up in the Treaty of Sevres, and finally induced them to acquiesce in the humiliating surrender of Lausanne.”
And by November 1922, when the Lausanne talks opened, the Treaty of Sevres was a dead letter, and the Turks were masters in their historic homelands. This position was confirmed when the Lausanne Treaty was concluded in July 1923. And Lausanne, to quote the Aga Khan, “was the first treaty to be signed by a Muslim nation on a footing of complete equality with the Great Powers of the West....”
True: the Khilafatists’ India-specific demands were not met; the Hijra edict, a zealotist off-shoot of the Khilafat Movement, uprooted thousands of Muslim families, causing untold miseries, and the ground realities prevented the Caliph’s suzerainty over the holy places. But, at the same time, the Khilafatists were supremely successful in their core demand — to prevent the dismantling of the Khilafat and the crippling of the Caliph’s authority at the hands of the Western powers. Ironically though, the institution was abolished and the last incumbent sent into exile on March 3, 1924, under the supreme leadership of Kemal Ataturk, who since 1919 had been hailed as Saiful Islam and Mujahid-i-Khilafat.
