Giants and
Myths
Milestones on the Road to Partition-Part 2
By Professor Nazeer
Ahmed
CA
The First World War ended in a triumph for the
allies. Russia had pulled out of the conflict
after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 so it was
left to Britain and France to divide up the spoils
of war.
The British and French war aims were different
from those of the Americans and included not just
the preservation of their empires but their expansion
into the former Ottoman territories. The British
made it clear that Wilson’s 14 point proclamation
did not apply to India. Instead the colonial noose
was tightened around the Indian neck. The Government
of India Act of 1919, sometimes referred to as
Montagu-Chelmsford Act, revealed the true British
intentions.
It skirted the issue of dominion status and put
India on a waiting list for 10 years during which
period the major Indian provinces were to be ruled
by a dual (diarchic) form of government wherein
a provincial legislative council would monitor
the activities of provincial ministers. This was
a way of shifting the focus of national politics
to the local provinces where it could be more
easily contained. A separate Council of Princely
states was formed to keep the major political
parties in check.
The Indians were disappointed with the provisions
of this Act. Protests erupted, the British responded
with the repressive Rowlett Act. The demonstrations
were brutally put down. It was during this period
on April 13, 1919 that the infamous Jalianwala
Bagh massacre took place near Amritsar wherein,
under orders from the British General Dyer, hundreds
of unarmed Indians, Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus
included, were gunned down in cold blood during
a peaceful demonstration.
Even as the Great War raged in the heart of Europe,
Britain and France entered into the secret Sykes-Picot
Agreement of 1916 partitioning the Ottoman Empire
between them. Britain was to secure Palestine,
Jordan and Iraq, thus securing a land route from
the Mediterranean to the Arabian Sea and from
there to the British India Empire. France was
to control Syria and Southeastern Anatolia. As
the Ottoman Empire collapsed (1918) and Istanbul
was occupied by British troops, the scheming gathered
momentum. By the Treaty of Sevres (1920), France,
Britain, Greece, Italy and Armenia each claimed
a piece of Ottoman territories leaving a tiny
slice in Central Anatolia for the Turks. The Turkish
nationalists rejected the terms of this Treaty,
refusing to ratify it.
India was caught up in the turbulence created
by the aftermath of the War. The British attempt
to abolish the Khilafat in Istanbul dragged India
into postwar politics. The Khilafat was an institution
established by the companions of Prophet Muhammed
(pbuh) immediately after his death. It had survived
fourteen centuries of Islamic history and its
mantle had passed to the Turkish sultans in 1517.
Although its influence had diminished in proportion
to the loss of Islamic territories to European
colonialism, it was still looked upon as the axis
of Muslim political life, especially by the world
of Sunni Islam. When the Treaty of Sevres awarded
the Hejaz to Sharif Hussain as a reward for his
collusion with the allies during the War, it cut
the principal connection of the Caliph in Istanbul
from his spiritual responsibilities as the “guardian
of the two holy cities of Mecca and Medina”.
This was seen as an attempt to abolish the Khilafat.
The Caliph himself became a de-facto British prisoner
in Istanbul and had little authority to influence
post war developments either in the former Ottoman
territories or in the Turkish heartland of Anatolia.
The emerging nationalist movement in Anatolia
disregarded the edicts of the Sultan-Caliph proclaimed
under British duress.
The attempt to abolish the Khilafat created uproar
among India’s Muslim religious establishment.
India had lost its independence to British intrigue
in the eighteenth century but the Indian Muslims
had taken some consolation in an independent Ottoman
empire whose titular head was the Caliph for all
Muslims.
The occupation of the Sultan’s territories
and the removal of the Sultan’s sovereignty
over the holy sites in Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem
meant that the sun had set on Islam’s political
domains. At this time, Muslim leadership in India
was divided into four categories. The first were
the Nawabs and the zamindars of United Provinces
(UP) and Bengal who dominated the Muslim League
since its founding in 1906. In the second group
were the Aligarh trained would-be bureaucrats
whose career goal was to secure employment in
the administrative machinery of the British Raj.
The third were the elite, British educated secular
nationalists such as Mohammed Ali Jinnah who were
working at the time for Hindu-Muslim cooperation
and a common political platform for the Congress
and Muslim League. The fourth group represented
the religious establishment, the Deobandis and
the ulema such as Maulana Muhammed Ali and Maulana
Shaukat Ali. The vast majority of Muslims, like
the vast majority of Hindus, Sikhs and Christians
were poor and destitute, often at the mercy of
moneylenders and landlords, and had very little
political involvement of any kind.
The Khilafat movement was started in 1919 by Muhammed
Ali, Shaukat Ali and Hasrat Mohani at a time when
the repressive Rowlett Act (1919) and the Jalianwala
Bagh massacre (1919) had created a general feeling
of animosity against the British. Gandhi, who
was by this time emerging as the undisputed leader
of the Congress party, saw in the Khilafat movement
an opportunity to forge a united Hindu-Muslim
stand against the British, and in combination
with a peaceful non-cooperation movement, force
the British to concede India’s political
demands.
The non-cooperation movement was launched on September
1, 1920 under the leadership of Gandhi with the
Ali brothers playing a supporting role. It was
an alliance of convenience. The goals of the protagonists
were different and it soon became clear that the
inherent tensions in these goals would make their
achievement impossible. First, the Khilafat was
an issue for the Turks to resolve. If the Turks
did not wish to carry the burden of the Caliphate,
the Muslims in India could not force them to do
so. Second, the preservation of the Ottoman Empire
required the Arabs to acquiesce to Turkish rule.
The goodwill between the Turks and the Arabs had
been shattered by the Arab rebellion in which
the British intelligence agent Lawrence of Arabia
had played a key role. Third, the Khilafat movement
received only lukewarm support from the elite
Muslim leadership such as Mohammed Ali Jinnah
who assessed correctly that the agitation in India
was unlikely to affect the geopolitics of the
Middle East. Jinnah, who was a constructive constitutionalist,
desired an orderly transfer of power to India
and had no use for the disruptive politics of
the Khilafat movement or the non-cooperation movement
of Gandhi. Fourth, even though the movement was
headed by Gandhi himself, right wing Hindu leaders
such as Malaviya were less than enthusiastic about
it. Gandhi’s objective was swaraj (self
rule) and for him the Khilafat was no more than
a tactical battle in that ultimate goal whereas
for the right wing ulema it was an end in itself.
Fifth, neither the Muslims nor the Hindus were
ready as yet for the sacrifices required of a
national movement with the dual objectives of
forcing the British to concede self rule and influencing
international events in far away Istanbul.
Upset over British policy after the War, some
molvis from jameet-e-ulema-e Hind, a conservative
association of Muslim clerics, declared India
to be “darul harab” (the abode of
war) and advised Muslims to migrate to a country
like Afghanistan which they considered “darul
Islam” (the abode of peace). In 1920, more
than fifteen thousand peasants from the NW Frontier
and Sindh heeded the call and did perform the
hijrat (migration) to Afghanistan where they were
robbed and some were killed. The protests by Kerala
Muslims against the British in August 1921 got
out of hand and resulted in a Hindu-Muslim riot
which was exploited by British propaganda to drive
a wedge between the two communities. Lastly, in
February 1922, a violent mob set fire to a police
station in Chari-Chaura in UP resulting in the
death of dozens of people. (To be continued)
