Gandhi’s Khilafat Compact: The Political Exchange of 1920
In 1920, Gandhi connected the Indian National Congress with the Khilafat movement as part of the wider Non-Cooperation Movement. The two movements had different immediate objectives. Congress was engaged in India's political struggle against colonial rule, while the Khilafat movement sought restoration of the Ottoman Caliphate.
The Khilafat leadership in India included Mohammad Ali,
Shaukat Ali and the Khilafat Committee. For these leaders, the Caliphate had
religious importance. Its restoration was presented as a religious obligation.
The cause was therefore not limited to India's constitutional politics. It
concerned an institution that combined religious authority with political
sovereignty within the Ottoman system.
Gandhi supported this cause and brought Congress's
organisational strength into the wider mobilisation. Congress had accumulated
political influence and organisational capacity through decades of political
activity. Gandhi's strategy was to connect this national political
infrastructure with Muslim religious mass mobilisation.
The arrangement also affected the priority given to Swaraj.
Swaraj was a principal Congress objective, but Gandhi stated, "I would
postpone the issue of Swaraj for Khilafat." This statement shows the
importance he gave to the Khilafat cause at that stage.
The political approach of Jinnah was different. Jinnah
represented Muslims as a political community and emphasised constitutional
safeguards and political rights. The Khilafat leadership mobilised Muslims
around the religious significance of the Caliphate. The distinction between
political representation and religious mobilisation is therefore important when
examining the alliance.
The immediate political result was substantial mobilisation.
Congress provided national organisation and political capital, while the
Khilafat movement brought significant Muslim participation into
Non-Cooperation. Gandhi hoped that this cooperation would strengthen opposition
to colonial rule and promote Hindu-Muslim unity.
The central cause of the Khilafat movement, however,
depended on the Ottoman Caliphate. That institution did not survive the
political transformation taking place in Turkey.
On March 3, 1924, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk abolished the
Caliphate. The principal institution that the Khilafat movement sought to
restore no longer existed. The Khilafat Committee subsequently dissolved, and
the movement lost its central objective.
Congress's political investment could not simply be
recovered. Organisational effort had already been committed, political goodwill
had already been used, and Swaraj had already been postponed within the
strategy.
The following historical record included the Moplah
rebellion of 1921 and a documented sequence of communal riots from 1921 to
1931. Jinnah's political trajectory increasingly developed separately from
Congress. Later developments included the Lahore Resolution of 1940, the Great
Calcutta Killings of 1946 and Partition in 1947.
These later events had multiple causes and cannot be
attributed mechanically to the Khilafat alliance. They nevertheless form part
of the historical record relevant to assessing the longer consequences of the
period.
The Khilafat experience therefore presents a question of
political strategy. Gandhi sought to combine Congress's national political
organisation with Muslim religious mobilisation to strengthen the struggle
against colonial rule. The strategy generated substantial immediate
mobilisation, but its central cause disappeared when the Caliphate was
abolished in Turkey.
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