Two interesting episodes related to Khilafat are mentioned in Vikram Sampath’s Savarkar: Echoes from a forgotten past. The person common in both episodes is Swami Shraddhanand, a disciple of Swami Dayanand Saraswati, the founder of Arya Samaj. Swami Dayanand Saraswati used a process called shuddi to reconvert Hindus back to the fold. After his passing away, this gained momentum under Swami Shraddhanand, who conducted shuddi ceremonies in Punjab and northern India. Vinayak Savarkar used the same shuddhi ceremony in the Andaman jail.
Savarkar by Vikram Sampath
Coming back to Khilafat, Bipin Chandra Pal and Annie Beasant had the foresight to see the trouble this would bring. Lala Lajpat Rai wrote, ‘Indian Muslims are more pan-Islamic and exclusive than the Muslims of any other country of the globe, and that fact alone makes the creation of a united India more difficult than would otherwise be. ‘ Even Jinnah opposed the Khilafat agitation initially.
Despite this, Gandhi would not change his mind. Seeing the energy around the Khilafat movement, Gandhi argued that if Hindus and Muslims united for satyagraha, there would be victory. So, in 1920, he promised Swaraj to the Ali brothers – Muhammad and Shaukat. These were people with a known track record of fomenting trouble.
In the Calcutta session in September 1920, Swami Shraddhanand was on the stage with Shaukat Ali. He heard Shaukat Ali tell a few others in his company the following. “Mahatma Gandhi is a shrewd bania. You do not understand his real object. By putting you under discipline, he is preparing you for guerilla warfare. He is not such an out and out non-violencist[sic] as you all suppose. “
Swami Shraddhanand tried to warn Gandhi that his motives were being misrepresented, but they were not taken seriously.
At the annual session of the Congress in Nagpur in 1920, Gandhi consolidated his position. Muslims stood by Gandhi. They turned up in such large numbers that it looked like a Muslim session. Maulanas recited verses referring to jihad and the killing of kafirs. Again when Swami Shraddhanand told this to Gandhi, he said they were referring to the British and not Hindus.
Swami Shraddhanand on a 1970 stamp of India
Sometime after May 1921, the British government intercepted a telegram sent to the Amir of Afghanistan urging him to invade India and not make peace with the British. This was allegedly written by Muhammad Ali, but Muhammad Ali claimed that he did not know Persian or Arabic. At Motilal Nehru’s house, Swami Shraddhanand met Muhammad Ali. Ali took him aside and handed over a piece of paper which was the draft of the telegram intercepted by the British. According to Swami Shraddhanand, the handwriting was Gandhi’s.
Gandhi reached Anand Bhavan the next day, and Swami Shraddhanand asked him about the letter. Gandhi said he does not remember sending such a telegram. What is suspicious about this statement is that Gandhi himself had made the following statement earlier, ‘I would in a sense, certainly assist the Amir of Afghanistan, if he waged war against the British Government.’
In January 1921, Gandhi said that Hindu sadhus have to sacrifice their all for the sake of Khilafat. According to him, every Hindu had a duty to save Islam from danger. Six months before this, he had warned that if Hindus did not help Muhammadans during their time of trouble, their own slavery was a certainty.
Look what happened later that year. The Amir of Afghanistan did not invade India. Also, India did not achieve Swaraj by Gandhi’s promised date to the Ali brothers. The Hindus of Malabar paid the price for that unholy alliance with their lives.
On March 15th, 1920, a Khilafat committee was formed in Malegaon to conduct lectures and religious sermons. Nine months later, one of the Khilafat leaders, Shaukat Ali, visited Malegaon and political activities got a religious boost. A month later, Khilafat proponents, who supported Gandhi’s non-violent, non-cooperation movement turned violent and the poor residents of Malegaon were the targets of their anger. This is an intriguing story of a Mahatma, who signed a pact with a bunch of pan-Islamists with disastrous consequences for the weavers of Malegaon and eventually the Hindus of Malabar.
Khilafat 101
There were two Muslim schools in Malegaon — Beitujullum and Anjuman — which received grants from the Government. The Khilafat members, who at that point in time were supporters of Gandhi’s non-violence and non-cooperation decided not to take the aid in reaction to the events in Turkey following World War I
The Last Caliph Halife Abdülmecid Efendi
At the end of World War I, Turkey ended up on the losing side and was carved by the victors. Some Muslims considered the Turkish Sultan as their Caliph and were distressed at his future as well as the future of the Muslim holy sites. Muslims living in Britain petitioned their government to let Turkey have only Turkish majority regions, but let the others like Armenians and Arabs have their freedom. Indian Muslims had a bigger ask. Though Turkey lost, they wanted it to be restored to pre-war status. According to them, the Armenians and Arabs could live under Turkish rule.
The supporters of this movement were Muslim League members Mohammad Ali and Shaukat Ali who argued for Muslim interests over Hindu interests. They were people who found issues in common with Muslims of Algeria and Tripoli instead of their own countrymen. After the Balkan wars, they changed their stance and aligned with the Hindus due to the hatred of the British government. To compound that, the brothers were arrested and jailed and that aggravated their hatred.
Mohammad Ali and Shaukat Ali were quite clear and unapologetic about their strategy. They told a judge that as per their religion, they were compelled to do certain acts and any law which prohibits them from doing those acts had no validity. By this, the Ali brothers were claiming that they only be judged by the Koran and nothing else. The goal of the brothers was definitely Swaraj, similar to Gandhi. But the second step of their plan was Mohammedan domination of India.
Gandhi supported this Khilafat dream of pre-war Turkey being restored. He seemed to ignore the fact that even the Turks did not want dominion over Arabia. But someone had to be more Islamic than the Caliph and that was Gandhi and his Khilafat supporters. The argument was that it was not just a Turkish question, but a question concerning all Mohammedans. So who the heck was the Caliph to make such unilateral decisions. Either Gandhi did not know this and just went along to get Muslim support for himself or he used this for channeling Mohammedan anger against the government.
There was another dynamic at play as well. When Gandhi returned to India from South Africa, he quickly rose to prominence in the nation. Gandhi promised support for the Khilafat in exchange for the support of the Ali brothers and the Muslims of India for his non-cooperation movement. This Muslim support helped him be a national leader in just four years.
In 1921, the Khilafat Conference, with Ali brothers as the moving force, passed a resolution to declare Independence. In the speeches at the Conference it was declared that Islam was opposed to non-violence, but had to go along with it, so that they could get Swaraj. Gandhi had promised the Khilafat supporters Swaraj by 1921 and hence it was a temporary move just for a year.
Malegaon 1921
Coming back to Malegaon, the boycott of Government funds created a problem. If the schools had to survive without Government aid, then money had to be raised. The Khilafat committee proposed the idea of a “paisa” fund. Every person selling a sari — every weaver in Malegaon — was to pay quarter of an anna to the fund. Anyone who objected to this were persecuted.
The first step in persecution was commercial boycott. The paisa committee called a public meeting on 27th February, where this decision was announced. Matters did not end there; the commercial boycott was enforced by picketing their shops. Businesses which did not co-operate faced hostility and were halted. Seeing how this issue was going to get out of hand, the Sub-Divisional Officer called a meeting on March 13th to discuss the issue of enforced collection. One of the suggestions was to put collection boxes. The leaders of the fund collection were asked to issue statements supporting non-violence of Gandhi.
No agreement was reached and at the same time lectures and religious sermons, raised the feelings of hostility. This was aggravated by the fact that some of these Khilafat volunteers were roaming around carrying swords and cudgels. The District Magistrate, sensing a law and order disaster in the making banned the carrying of weapons on March 30th.
On April 1, the non-violence agreement was published. Just three days later, one of the signatories publicly apologized for having signed it and he was pardoned. The boycott of the shops continued as usual, but this time a case was registered against the violators. With the establishment cranking up the heat, more provocations started. On 24th April, a speech was given by a leading Mohammedan with the ominous words, “May god give the volunteers the strength to promote their religion”
The next day, the case came up before the magistrate. Six volunteers were fined Rs. 50 or 4 weeks in prison. Obviously the fines were not paid, but served as the the adhan for violence. The mob that had collected shouted “Allah-ho-Akbar”. They assaulted all the police found in Malegaon. They killed the Sub-Inspector of Police, burned a temple, and looted the houses of all the people who were opposed to the fund. The rest fled to save their lives. This was the non-violence of the Khilafat.
The disaster called Khilafat movement is downplayed in our history books. It did not turn out well for Gandhi. The Ali brothers, whom he supported, publicly humiliated him. Mohamed Ali even said that a Muslim thief was better than Gandhi, simply because of the thief’s faith in Islam. Originally intended to be a show case of Hindu Muslim unity, it turned out to be something else. It resulted in the massacre of Hindus all over India, especially in Kerala.
References
Fazal, D. Abul. “THE LEADERSHIP CRISIS IN THE CONGRESS:
MUSLIMS AND THE RISE OF GANDHI.” Proceedings of the Indian History
Congress, vol. 62, 2001, pp. 456–462., www.jstor.org/stable/44155789.
History of the Freedom movement in India, R. C. Majumdar
In January 1915, a 46-year-old Mohandas Gandhi relocated to India after spending 20 years in South Africa. He wanted to be the leader of the Independence movement, but it was challenging, as Indians knew him as a foreigner. known for his unconventional social activism in South Africa. But in four years, he became a national leader of the Congress, surpassing leaders like Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Lokmanya Tilak, Lala Lajpat Rai, Aurobindo Ghose, Abdul Kalam Azad, and Annie Besant, who had earned battle scars in India. What were Gandhi’s tactics? How did he win against constant opposition to his each and every move? How did he overcome his blunders? At the end who held the ladder so that he could ascend the throne?
The Initial Activities
Though Gandhi had fame from his activities in South Africa to the Indian leaders of that time, Gandhi looked “queer and quixotic, an eccentric specimen of England returned educated Indian.” He was not liked by many people. At that time there were two camps in Congress — the moderates and extremists. The moderates were an earlier generation of leaders like Gopalkrishna Gokhale and his followers who believed in a constitutional approach like appealing to the British Government. The extremists — Aurobindo, Tilak — believed in radical approached, like violent rebellion. Both of these groups did not like Gandhi.
A series of unfortunate events happened to some of the key players. Gokhale and Pherozha Mehta passed away in 1915. Tilak, who was released from prison was lying low. Lala Lajpat Rai was in exile. Aurobindo Ghose had moved to Pondicherry. The Khilafat supporters, Mohammad Ali and Shaukat Ali were imprisoned.
The disappearance of these leaders did not give Gandhi an automatic path to leadership. Annie Besant and C. R. Das were still there. Also, Indians had not seen Gandhi’s skills in action in India. Naturally, Gandhi’s first course of action was to build on what he knew well – satyagrahas. He launched satyagrahas in Champaran, Ahmadabad, and Kaira — small scale ones at local level — to show his agitational capabilities. He was able to mobilize people who were considered politically irrelevant and enhance both his following and reputation. These were good activities but did not have enough importance to catapult him to the national level.
Then an opportunity came in 1917. Gandhi’s competitor Annie Beasant was interned and he wanted to launch an all India agitation to release her. This was scuttled by Gokhale’s protege, Srinivasa Sastri and Gandhi lost another chance.
In the next year, 1918, which marked the end of World War I, the Montague Chemsfold report was published. This was a package for the gradual development of self-governing institutions. These institutions would be part of the British Empire though. To get some support for this report, Annie Besant was released, but that did not help. The nationalists felt that the report was inadequate and unsatisfactory. Annie Besant thought it was unworthy of India to accept it. Tilak called it sunless dawn. But Gandhi felt this was perfectly acceptable. Gandhi was ignored.
Next came the Rowlatt Act bearing the gifts of summary trial and detention. Even Gandhi flipped and thought this was perfect for launching a national agitation. On 24th February 1919, he announced that he was going to launch a nationwide satyagraha. Annie Besant warned that any such act would release forces that cannot be controlled. Gandhi still went ahead and on April 6th, the whole country observed a hartal — a testimony to Gandhi’s leadership.
Soon violence erupted in Delhi, Bombay and Ahmadabad and the worst of all happened at Jalianwala Bagh. Gandhi realized the importance of Annie Besant’s warning. Calling it a Himalayan blunder, Gandhi suspended the satyagraha on 18th April 1919. It was yet another failure as a leader. Thus from his arrival in January 1915 to the events of 1919, he had no major national success to show. But Gandhi was not a person who would melt away like ice cream on a hot day.
Soon a cause arrived that helped him. He could promise an unattainable goal to a set of people, who overwhelmingly supported him. That was the Khilafat movement, triggered by the events following World War I.
The Khilafat Movement
The Last Caliph Halife Abdülmecid Efendi
During World War I, the countries of the world were all aligned with one Asuric force or the other. Turkey was a German Ally and fought against the British. Indian Muslim soldiers in the British Army were tasked against fighting the Germans and their allies. The problem was not fighting Germany, but Turkey, whose sultan was the Caliph. This was a problem for Indian Muslims who looked up at the Turkish Sultan as their Caliph (Tipu Sultan had appealed to the Turkish Sultan for recognition of his Mysore sovereignty).
Knowing the sensitivity of Indian Muslims, the British administration promised them that the Caliphate would be respected in the peace treaty at the end of the war. But this promise turned out to be like a line drawn in the sands of Arabia. Not only was Ottoman Turkey broken up, but as per the Treaty of Sèvres, Islamic holy places were ceded to the Arabs. Upset by this, Indian Muslims returned medals, declined appointments and boycotted government institutions. They also formed committees to petition and pressure the British Government.
Soon, the Khilafat issue was going out of control. Muslims decided to boycott peace celebrations, British goods and refuse cooperation with the British unless the issue of Caliphate was resolved. They even warned of boycotting the British Amy. At the same time, Gandhi persuaded Congress to support a program of a boycott. He was channeling the widespread anger over Jalianwala Bagh and now the Congress was willing to go with him.
Seeing the energy around the Khilafat movement, Gandhi argued that if Hindus and Muslims united and did satyagraha, then there would be a victory. Gandhi entered into a pact with one Abul Bari that Hindu politicians would support the Khilafat issue if Muslims stopped slaughtering the cow. Mohammad Ali , a Khilafat proponent, agreed to support Gandhi in return for Gandhi’s promise of Swaraj in a year. This was the same Mohammad Ali, who said that if the Amir of Afghanistan invaded India, it was the duty of Indian Muslims to join him and fight the Hindus if they refused to co-operate.
Gandhi’s promise to deliver the Khilafat was equivalent to saying that he had a bridge to sell. The Arabs or Egyptians did not want to be ruled by a Turkish Caliph. Come to think of it, even the Turks did not want a caliph. They were the ones who got rid of him and converted to a secular democracy. The Ottoman Empire was broken up and some of the lands were under French control. There was no way a few petitions would cause France and Britain to sit and undo the damage they did. None of this mattered to Gandhi. He went so far as to suggest that Indian swaraj activity could be postponed if Khilafat ask could be advanced. Thus from a Swaraj which meant self-rule for India, it got converted overnight to support for an imaginary Caliphate in faraway Turkey.
This got Gandhi massive Muslim support — much more than the Hindu followers. Gandhi was invited to preside over the Khilafat Conference in Delhi in November 1919 and the annual session of the Muslim League in Amritsar in December 1919. He was able to get the Muslims to pass a resolution expressing gratitude to the King-Emperor and offering a hearty welcome to the Prince of Wales. The Khilafat committee also adopted his Non-Cooperation program. At the same time, Congress decided to postpone the adoption of the Non-Cooperation program. The resolution related to the emperor and prince of Wales also was met with considerable opposition.
Based on the resolution passed by the Muslim leaders, an ultimatum was sent to the Viceroy and the non-cooperation movement was started on August 1, 1920. Life came to a standstill on August 1 and it confirmed a mass approval for Gandhi. In the special session of the Congress that met on September 1920 in Calcutta, Muslims gave him the required majority to consolidate his leadership. Saifuddin Kitchlew, the Ali brothers, and the entire Muslim bloc supported Gandhi. Annie Besant, C. R. Das, Lala Lajpat Rai, and Madan Mohan Malavya opposed Gandhi. The resolution was passed by 1886 to 884 votes. Muslims seconded and defended the motion and voted for it en masse. 161 delegates from Madras voted for the resolution; 125 were Muslims.
At the annual session of the Congress in Nagpur in 1920, Gandhi consolidated his position. Muslims stood by Gandhi. They turned up in such large numbers that it looked like a Muslim session. The resolution passed at Calcutta was now ratified in Nagpur, making Gandhi an undisputed leader. While World War I removed the Turkish Sultan, it helped Gandhi become the Sultan of Congress.
Swaraj came back to the Congress agenda only in 1929. But in 1921, the Hindus of Malabar paid a price for this capitulation by Gandhi. Exactly, one year to the date — Aug 1, 1921 — at which Gandhi had promised Swaraj to the Ali brothers, the Muslim uprising started in Malabar.
References
Fazal, D. Abul. “THE LEADERSHIP CRISIS IN THE CONGRESS: MUSLIMS AND THE RISE OF GANDHI.” Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, vol. 62, 2001, pp. 456–462., www.jstor.org/stable/44155789.
History of the Freedom movement in India, R. C. Majumdar
What do our ancient texts say about disaster management? Sriram writes about a talk he attended which quotes Kautilya and Kalhana.
In Tamil, the speaker gave details of how in Tiruvizhimizhalai the saints Sambandar and Appar sang songs during a famine for which the Lord gave them one gold coin for every verse and they used this to feed the people. Was this not similar to the conducting of rock concerts today for collecting funds for natural disasters in Ethiopia and other places asked Prabha.She gave an enthralling account of the Pittukku Mann Sumanda Kathai from the Tiruvilaiyadal wherein a flood is contained by the building of a bund. There are references in Tamil classics of when a flood occurred at a particular town or village as well. Some examples of this were given.
Why are there depictions of Buddha in the Tanjore Big Temple? Vijay has the answer
Its interesting to note that there was a conscious effort even during the Pallava period to show Buddha as an avatar of Vishnu. However, is this Buddha the same as the Sakyamuni is a difficult question to comprehend. But the point to dwell on is the portrayal in both stone and paint – the size and the dignified manner in which he is portrayed. The reverence is very visible.
According to William P. Harman, a professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at the University of Tennessee, LTTE suicide bombers were motivated by Hindu devotionalism. Aravindan Neelakantan takes this argument apart.
The female suicide bombers of LTTE is part of this legacy of Western Indology. But Prof.Harmann wants to throw the blame at the doorsteps of Hindu folk tradition of women worship. Coming to the specifics we may ask: Is Hindu worship of folk women deities a honoring of martyrs? The answer is ‘No’. Hinduism has always been a life-affirming religion.
A book that has generated controversy in India is Joseph Lelyveld’s Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India. At Center Right India, Dilip Rao has a review
Coming to the most controversial aspect of the book dealing with Gandhi’s sexuality, a lot has already been written about it. With regard to his relationship to Hermann Kallenbach, columnists such as Tridip Suhrud and Lelyveld himself have made much of the fact that the word ‘bisexual’ has not been used. Quite so. He concludes only that it can reasonably be said that it was “the most intimate, also ambiguous, relationship of his lifetime”. He quotes Tridip Suhrud saying they were a couple and a “respected Gandhi scholar” characterizing it as homoerotic rather than homosexual “intending through that choice of words a strong attraction, nothing more”.
On the same book, Anne has a post after listening to three podcasts.
As Lelyveld points out in all three interviews, (the other two are at Roundtable (feed) and the NYT Book Review (feed) to this background, the relationship with Hermann Kallenbach is not very likely to be sexual and much more a case of two close friends being engaged in a spiritual search. And he goes on to emphasize the complexity of the political relationship between Gandhi and the untouchable activist Ambedkar. They politically find each other on the issue of social justice for untouchables but fall out on the finer details of this politics.
If you find interesting blog posts on India history, please send it to varnam.blog @gmail or as a tweet to @varnam_blog. The next carnival will be up on May 15th.
