Khilafat movement

History glossary

Topic: The National Movement: Gandhian Era · NCERT: Class 10, Ch 2 "Nationalism in India"; Class 12, Ch 3 "Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement"

Meaning

The Khilafat movement (1919–24) was a movement of Indian Muslims, led by the brothers Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali. It demanded that the defeated Ottoman Sultan keep his place as Khalifa (the religious head of Muslims worldwide), keep control of the Muslim holy places, and keep enough land to defend the faith.

It matters because Gandhi joined it to Non-Cooperation (1920–22). Together they made the high point of Hindu-Muslim joint action in the national movement, and India's first truly all-India mass struggle.

Explanation

Background: why Indian Muslims were worried

  • Turkey lost the First World War.
  • Turkey was then the centre of the Ottoman Empire, and it had fought on the losing side.

  • The winning powers began to break up its empire.

  • The Sultan was also the Khalifa.

  • The Ottoman Sultan was the Khalifa (Caliph), the head of the world Muslim community in religious matters.

  • Indian Muslims feared that his position would be destroyed.

  • So, for many Indian Muslims, a war settlement made far away in Europe became a question of faith at home.

The Khilafat Committee and its demands

  • The Khilafat Committee was formed at Bombay in March 1919. Its leaders were Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali.
  • Its three demands:
  • The Khalifa must keep control over the Muslim sacred places.
  • The Khalifa must keep enough land to defend the faith.

  • Jazirat-ul-Arab (Arabia, Syria, Iraq and Palestine) must stay under Muslim sovereignty (Muslim rule).

  • Britannica treats the Khilafat movement as a movement in its own right, with its own non-cooperation programme running beside the Congress programme. [3]

How Khilafat joined Non-Cooperation

  • Gandhi's view:
  • He saw a real chance to bring Hindus and Muslims into one movement.

  • He treated the Khilafat question as a genuine wrong done to Indian Muslims, not just a bargaining chip.

  • The sequence:

  • March 1919: the Khilafat Committee was formed at Bombay.
  • September 1920, Calcutta special session of Congress: Gandhi proposed non-cooperation in support of Khilafat and swaraj together. He won the other leaders over. [2]
  • December 1920, Nagpur session: Congress formally adopted the non-cooperation programme. [2]

  • From January 1921: the joint movement spread across the country.

  • The programme: give up titles. Boycott government schools, courts, government service, foreign goods and elections. In the end, refuse to pay taxes. [2]

  • Britannica notes that Gandhi's support for Khilafat also helped him revitalise the Congress (give it new life). [2][3]

Results: from peak to collapse

  • The high point:
  • Students left government schools, lawyers left the courts, and foreign cloth was burnt.
  • Foreign cloth imports fell from Rs 102 crore to Rs 57 crore in 1921–22.

  • Hindus and Muslims marched together on a scale never seen before.

  • The first blow came in February 1922 at Chauri Chaura:

  • At Chauri Chaura (Gorakhpur district, United Provinces), a crowd burnt the police station, and policemen inside were killed.

  • Gandhi withdrew Non-Cooperation, so the joint campaign lost its all-India platform.

  • The final blow came from Turkey itself, in 1924:

  • Mustafa Kemal abolished the Caliphate in Turkey (1924).
  • The cause the movement was fighting for no longer existed, so the bridge between the two communities lost its ground.
  • Communal tension returned in the mid-1920s.

Time, place and evidence

  • Period: 1919–1924, in the Gandhian era of the national movement. It began with the Khilafat Committee (March 1919) and ended with the abolition of the Caliphate (1924).
  • Places:
  • Bombay: where the Khilafat Committee was formed.
  • Calcutta (September 1920) and Nagpur (December 1920): the Congress sessions that linked Khilafat to Non-Cooperation.
  • Turkey / Ottoman Empire: the foreign events behind the movement.

  • Jazirat-ul-Arab: Arabia, Syria, Iraq and Palestine.

  • Key people: Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali (the Ali brothers), Gandhi, and Mustafa Kemal (who abolished the Caliphate).

  • How we know:
  • NCERT Class 10, Ch 2 "Nationalism in India", and Class 12, Ch 3 "Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement".
  • Britannica's entries on the Non-Cooperation movement and the Khilafat movement. [2][3]

Don't confuse with

  • Non-Cooperation movement: This was the Congress programme, proposed at Calcutta (September 1920) and adopted at Nagpur (December 1920). [2] The Khilafat Committee was a separate Muslim body formed earlier, in March 1919 at Bombay. The two ran side by side; they were not one organisation. [3]
  • Muhammad Ali Jinnah: This is a different person. The Khilafat leaders were the brothers Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali, not Jinnah.
  • Khalifa vs Jazirat-ul-Arab: The Khalifa was a person: the Ottoman Sultan, as religious head of Muslims. Jazirat-ul-Arab was a territory: Arabia, Syria, Iraq and Palestine, which the movement wanted kept under Muslim rule.
  • Abolition of the Caliphate (1924): This was done by Mustafa Kemal in Turkey, not by the British. It was a Turkish decision, and it ended the movement's purpose.

Prelims Hooks

  • The Khilafat Committee was formed at Bombay in March 1919, led by Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali.
  • Jazirat-ul-Arab means Arabia, Syria, Iraq and Palestine. The demand was that they stay under Muslim sovereignty.
  • Non-cooperation in support of Khilafat and swaraj was proposed at the Calcutta special session (September 1920) and adopted at the Nagpur session (December 1920). [2]
  • Chronological order: Khilafat Committee (March 1919) → Calcutta session (September 1920) → Nagpur session (December 1920) → Chauri Chaura (February 1922) → abolition of the Caliphate (1924).
  • Trap: the Caliphate was abolished by Mustafa Kemal (1924), not by the British government or the Treaty powers.
  • The Ottoman Sultan was the Khalifa, the religious head of the world Muslim community.

Mains Points

  • The high point of Hindu-Muslim unity.
  • Khilafat plus Non-Cooperation brought both communities into one mass movement for the first time on an all-India scale.
  • This helped shake the Raj as it had not been shaken since 1857.

  • It also helped Gandhi revitalise the Congress. [2][3]

  • A unity with weak foundations.

  • The alliance rested on a pan-Islamic religious issue (a cause shared by Muslims across countries), not on a shared programme for Indian politics.
  • When Mustafa Kemal abolished the Caliphate (1924), the common cause disappeared, and communal tension returned in the mid-1920s.

  • This is useful for any GS-I question on the roots of communal politics.

  • Debate on Gandhi's choice.

  • One view: backing Khilafat was a moral act of solidarity, because Gandhi saw it as a real wrong done to Indian Muslims.
  • The critical view: mixing religion with national politics gave religious identity a place in mass politics, and this was hard to undo later.
  • A balanced answer accepts both: the strategy succeeded in the short run but was fragile in the long run.

Related concepts

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Sources

  1. 1Class 10, Ch 2 "Nationalism in India"; Class 12, Ch 3 "Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement" (primary)
  2. 2Noncooperation movementbritannica.com · tier 3
  3. 3Khilafat movementbritannica.com · tier 3