NON-COOPERATION MOVEMENT  AND KHILAFAT AANDOLAN 

During 1919-22, the British were opposed through two mass movements-the Khilafat & Non-Cooperation. Though the two movements emerged from separate issues, they adopted a common programme of action, that of non-violent non-cooperation. The Khilafat issue was not directly linked to Indian politics, but it provided the immediate background to the movement & gave an added advantage of cementing Hindu-Muslim unity against the British.

1. Background

The background to the two movements was provided by a series of events after the First World War, which belied all hopes of the government’s generosity towards the Indian subjects. The year 1919, in particular, saw a strong feeling of discontent among all sections of Indians for various reasons:

• The economic situation of the country in the post-war years had become alarming, with a rise in prices of commodities, a decrease in the production of Indian industries, increase in the burden of taxes & rents. Almost all sections of society suffered economic hardship due to the war & this strengthened the anti-British attitude.
• The Rowlatt Act, the imposition of martial law in Punjab & the Jallianwala Bagh massacre exposed the brutal & uncivilized face of foreign rule.
• The Hunter Committee on the Punjab atrocities proved to be an eyewash. The House of Lords endorsed General Dyer’s action & the British Public showed solidarity with General Dyer by helping ‘The Morning Post’ collect 30,000 pounds for him.
• The Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms with their ill-conceived scheme of Dyarchy failed to satisfy the rising demand of the Indians for self-government.
• The post-First World War period saw the preparation of the ground for common political action by Hindus & Muslims-the Lucknow Pact (1916) stimulated Congress-Muslim League cooperation.
• The Rowlatt Act agitation brought Hindus & Muslims, as well as other sections of the society, together.
• Radical nationalist Muslims like Muhammad Ali, Abdul Kalam Azad, and Hakim Ajmal Khan & Hasan Imam had now become more influential than the conservative Aligarh school elements who dominated the League earlier.
• The younger elements advocated militant nationalism & active participation in the nationalist movement. They had strong anti-imperialist sentiments.
• In this atmosphere, the Khilafat issue emerged, around which developed the historic Non-Cooperation Movement.

2. The Khilafat Issue

• The Khilafat issue paved the way for the consolidation of the emergence of a radical nationalist trend among the younger generation of Muslims & the section of traditional Muslim scholars who were becoming increasingly critical of British rule.
• This time, they were angered by the treatment meted out to Turkey as their spiritual leader, Khalifa, so naturally their sympathies were with Turkey. During the war, Turkey had allied with Germany & Austria against the British.
• When the war ended, the British took a stern attitude towards Turkey which was dismembered & the Khalifa was removed from power. This incensed Muslims all over the world.
• In India, the Muslims demanded from the British that the Khalifa’s control over Muslim sacred places should be retained & the Khalifa should be left with sufficient territories after territorial arrangements.
• In early 1919, a Khilafat Committee was formed under the leadership of the Ali brothers, Maulana Azad, Ajmal Khan & Hasrat Mohani, to force the British government to change its attitude towards Turkey. Thus, the ground for a country-wide agitation was prepared.

Development of the Khalifat-Non-Cooperation Programme

• For some time, the Khilafat leaders limited their actions to meetings, petitions & deputations in favour of the Khilafat.
• Later, a militant trend emerged, demanding an active agitation like stopping all cooperation with the British.
• Thus, at the All India Khilafat Conference held in Delhi in November 1919, a call was made for the boycott of British goods.
• The Khilafat leaders also clearly spelt out that unless peace terms after the war were favourable to Turkey, they would stop all cooperation with the Government.
• Gandhi, who was the president of the All India Khilafat Committee, saw in the issue a platform from which mass & united non-cooperation could be declared against the government.

Congress Stand on Khilafat Question

It was quite clear that the support of the Congress was essential for the Khilafat movement to succeed. Although Gandhi was in favour of launching Satyagraha & non-cooperation against the government on the Khilafat issue, Congress was not united on this form of political action. Tilak was opposed to having an alliance with Muslim leaders over a religious issue & he was sceptical of Satyagraha as an instrument of politics. According to Professor Ravinder Kumar, Gandhi made a concerted bid to convince Tilak of the virtues of Satyagraha & the expediency of an alliance with the Muslim community over the Khilafat issue. There was opposition to some of the other provisions of Gandhi’s non-cooperation program like the boycott of councils. Gandhi was able to get the approval of the Congress for his program of political action & the Congress felt inclined to support a non-cooperation programme on the Khilafat question because

• It was felt that this was a golden opportunity to cement Hindu-Muslim unity & to bring Muslim masses into the national movement; now different sections of society, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, peasants, artisans, capitalists, tribals, women, students could come into the national movement by fighting for their rights & realizing that the colonial rule was opposed to them.
• The congress was aware that the masses were eager to give expression to their discontent.
• The Congress was losing faith in the constitutional struggle, especially after the Punjab incidents & the blatantly partisan Hunter Committee Report.

3. Non-Cooperation Khilafat Movement

February 1920: In early 1920, a joint Hindu-Muslim deputation was sent to the viceroy to seek redress of grievances on the issue of Khilafat, but the mission proved abortive. In February 1920, Gandhi announced that the issues of Punjab's wrongs & constitutional advance had been overshadowed by the Khilafat question & that he would soon lead a movement of non-cooperation if the terms of the peace treaty failed to satisfy the Indian Muslims.

May 1920: The treaty of Sevres with Turkey, signed in May 1920, completely dismembered Turkey.

June 1920: An all-party conference at Allahabad approved a program of boycott of schools, colleges & law courts & asked Gandhi to lead it.

August 31, 1920: The Khilafat Committee started a campaign of non-cooperation & the movement was formally launched.

September 1920: At a special session in Calcutta, the Congress approved a non-cooperation program till the Punjab & Khilafat wrongs were removed and Swaraj was established. The program was to include:

• Boycott of government schools & colleges
• Boycott of law courts & dispensation of justice through panchayats instead
• Boycott of legislative councils-there were some differences over this as some leaders like CR Das were not willing to include a boycott of councils, but bowed to Congress discipline; these leaders boycotted elections held in November 1920 & the majority of the voters too stayed away.
• Boycott of foreign cloth & use of khadi instead; also practice of hand-spinning to be done.
• Renunciation of government honours & titles; the second phase could include mass civil disobedience including resignation from government service & non-payment of taxes.

During the movement, the participants were supposed to work for Hindu-Muslim unity & removal of untouchability, all the time remaining non-violent.

December 1920: At the Nagpur session of the Indian National Congress:

• The program of non-cooperation was endorsed
• An important change was made in the Congress creed, instead of having the attainment of self-government through constitutional means as its goal, the Congress decided to have the attainment of swaraj through peaceful & legitimate means, thus committing itself to an extra-constitutional mass struggle.
• Some important organizational changes were made, a congress working committee (CWC) of 15 members was set up to lead the congress from now onwards, provincial congress committees on a linguistic basis were organized; ward committees were organized & entry fee was reduced to 4 annas.
• Gandhi declared that if the non-cooperation program was implemented completely, swaraj would be ushered in within a year.
• Many groups of revolutionary terrorists, especially those from Bengal, pledged support to the Congress programme.
• At this stage, some leaders like Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Annie Besant, GS Kharpade & BC Pal left the Congress as they believed in a constitutional & lawful struggle, while some others like Surendranath Banerjee founded the Indian National Liberal Federation & played a minor role in national politics henceforward.
• The adoption by the Congress of the non-cooperation movement initiated earlier by the Khilafat committee gave it new energy & the years 1921 & 1922 saw an unprecedented popular upsurge.

4. Spread of the Movement

• Gandhi accompanied by the Ali brothers undertook a nationwide tour. Thousands of students left government schools, and colleges & joined around 800 national schools, and colleges which cropped up during this time.
• These educational institutions were organized under the leadership of Acharya Narendra Dev, CR Das, Lala Lajpat Rai, Zakir Hussain, and Subhash Bose & included Jamia Millia at Aligarh, Kashi Vidyapeeth, Gujarat Vidyapeeth & Bihar Vidyapeeth.
• Many lawyers gave up their practice, some of whom were Motilal Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru, CR Das, C Rajagopalachari, Saifuddin Kitchlew, Vallabhbhai Patel, Asaf Ali, T Prakasham & Rajendra Prasad.
• Heaps of foreign cloth were burnt publicly & their imports fell by half. Picketing of shops selling foreign liquor and of toddy shops was undertaken at many places.
• The Tilak Swaraj Fund was oversubscribed & one crore rupees were collected.
• Congress volunteer corps emerged as the parallel police.
• In July 1921, the Ali brothers gave a call to the Muslims to resign from the army as it was unreligious. The Ali brothers were arrested for this in September. Gandhi echoed their call & asked local Congress committees to pass similar resolutions to that effect.
• Now, the Congress gave a call to local Congress bodies to start civil disobedience if it was thought that the people were ready for it. Already, a no-tax movement against union board taxes in Midnapore, Bengal & Guntur, Andhra was going on.
• In Assam, strikes in tea plantations, steamer services & Assam-Bengal Railways had been organized JM Sengupta was a prominent leader in those strikes.
• In November 1921, the visit of the Prince of Wales to India invited strikes & demonstrations.
• The spirit of defiance & unrest gave rise to many local struggles like the Awadh Kisan Movement (UP), Eka Movement (UP), Mappila Revolt (Malabar) & the Sikh Agitation for the removal of mahants in Punjab.

5. People’s Response

The participation in the movement was from a wide range of society but to a varying extent.

Middle class: People from the middle classes led the movement at the beginning, but later they showed a lot of reservations about Gandhi’s programme. In places like Calcutta, Bombay & Madras which were centres of elite politicians, the response to Gandhi’s call was very limited. The response to the call for resignation from the government service, surrendering of titles etc., was not taken seriously. The comparative newcomers in Indian politics found expression of their interests & aspirations in the movement. Rajendra Prasad in Bihar & Vallabhbhai Patel in Gujarat provided solid support & leaders like them found non-cooperation to be a viable political alternative to terrorism to fight against a colonial government.

Business Class: The economic boycott received support from the Indian business group because they had benefitted from the nationalists’ emphasis on the use of swadeshi. But a section of the big business remained sceptical towards the movement. They seemed to be afraid of labour unrest in their factories.

Peasants: Peasants’ participation was massive. Although the Congress was against class war, the masses broke this restraint. In Bihar, the confrontation between the lower & upper castes on the issue of the former taking the sacred thread got merged with the non-cooperation movement. In general, the peasants turned against the landlords & the traders. The movement allowed the toiling masses to express their real feelings against the British as well as against their Indian masters & oppressors.

Students: Students became active volunteers of the movement & thousands of them left government schools & colleges and joined national schools and colleges. The newly opened national institutions like the Kashi Vidyapeeth, the Gujarat Vidyapeeth & the Jamila Milia Islamia & others accommodated many students.

Women: Women gave up “purdah” & offered their ornaments for the Tilak Fund. They joined the movement in large numbers & took an active part in picketing before the shops selling foreign cloth & liquor.

Hindu-Muslim Unity: The massive participation of Muslims & the maintenance of communal unity, despite the events like Moppila Uprisings, were great achievements. In many places, two-thirds of those arrested were Muslims & such type of participation had neither been seen in the past nor would be seen in the future. Gandhi & other leaders addressed the Muslim masses from mosques & Gandhi was even allowed to address meetings of Muslim women in which he was the only male who was not blindfolded.

Government Response: Talks between Gandhi & Reading, the viceroy, broke down in May 1921 as the government wanted Gandhi to urge the Ali brothers to remove those portions from speeches which suggested violence. Gandhi realized that the government was trying to drive a wedge between him & the Khilafat leaders & refused to fall into the trap. In December, the government came down heavily on the protestors. Volunteer corps were declared illegal, public meetings were banned, the press was gagged & most of the leaders barring Gandhi were arrested.

6. The Last Phase of the Movement

Gandhi was now under increasing pressure from the Congress rank & file to start the civil disobedience programme. The Ahmedabad session in 1921 was presided over incidentally by CR Das while still in jail; Hakim Ajmal Khan was the acting president and appointed Gandhi the sole authority on the issue.

On February 1, 1922, Gandhi threatened to launch civil disobedience from Bardoli, Gujarat if

The movement had hardly begun before it was brought to an abrupt end.

7. Chauri Chaura Incident

• A small sleepy village named Chauri-Chaura, Gorakhpur district in United Province has found a place in history books due to an incident of violence on February 5, 1922, which was to prompt Gandhi to withdraw the movement.
• The police here had beaten up the leader of a group of volunteers campaigning against liquor sales & high food prices & then opened fire on the crowd which had come to protest before the police station.
• The agitated crowd torched the police station with the policemen inside who had taken shelter there; those who tried to flee were hacked to death & thrown back into the fire.
• Twenty-two policemen were killed in the violence. Gandhi, not happy with the increasingly violent trend of the movement, immediately announced the withdrawal of the movement.
• The congress working committee met at Bardoli in February 1922 & resolved to stop all activity that led to breaking of the law & to get down to constructive work, instead, which was to include popularization of khadi, national schools & campaigning for temperance, for Hindu-Muslim unity & against untouchability.
• Most of the nationalist leaders including CR Das, Motilal Nehru, Subhash Bose, and Jawaharlal Nehru expressed their bewilderment at Gandhi’s decision to withdraw the movement.
• In March 1922, Gandhi was arrested & sentenced to 6years in Jail. He made the occasion memorable with a magnificent court speech: “I am here, therefore to invite & submit cheerfully to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is a deliberate crime & what appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen.”

8. Reasons for Gandhi’s Withdrawal

• Gandhi felt that people had not learnt or fully understood the method of non-violence.
• Incidents like Chauri-Chaura could lead to the kind of excitement & fervour that would turn the movement to become generally violent.
• A violent movement could be easily suppressed by the colonial regime who would make the incidents of violence an excuse for using the armed might of the state against the protestors.
• The movement was also showing signs of fatigue. This was natural as it is not possible to sustain any movement at a high pitch for very long.
• The government seemed to be in no mood for negotiations.
• The central theme of the agitation Khilafat questions also dissipated soon.
• In November 1922, the people of Turkey rose under Mustafa Kamal Pasha & deprived the sultan of political power.
• Turkey was made a secular state. Thus, the Khilafat question lost its relevance.
• A European style of the legal system was established in Turkey & extensive rights were granted to women.
• Education was nationalized & modern agriculture & industries developed, in 1924, the caliphate was abolished.

9. Evaluation of the Khilafat Non-Cooperation Movement

• The movement brought urban Muslims into the national movement, but at the same time it communalized national politics, to an extent.
• Although Muslim sentiments were a manifestation of the spread of a wider anti-imperialist feeling, the national leaders failed to raise the religious political consciousness of the Muslims to a level of secular political consciousness.
• With the Non-Cooperation Movement, nationalist sentiments reached every nook & corner of the country & politicized every strata of the population artisans, peasants, students, urban poor, women, traders etc.
• It was this politicization & activisation of millions of men & women which imparted a revolutionary character to the national movement.
• Colonial rule was based on two myths-that such a rule was in the interest of Indians-that it was invincible.
• The first myth had been exploded by the economic critique by Moderate nationalists.
• The second myth had been challenged by Satyagraha through mass struggle.
• Now, the masses lost the hitherto all-pervasive fear of colonial rule & its mighty repressive organs.