#MahatmaGandhi
#GandhiJayanti

Gandhi & Khilafat movement:

In 1919, post World War 1, Ottomans which had fought the war on the axis side along with Germany suffered defeat at the hands of allied powers led by Britain.

Seeing the decline of Ottoman Caliphate & UK, France

(1)

and Russia dividing the Ottoman lands among themselves, Muslim sentiments across the world rose for the fallen Caliphate.

In India, in 1919, a movement was led by Ali Brothers, Mohammad Ali and Shaukat Ali which popularly came to be known as Khilafat movement.

(2)

The movement began as a fully religious one and had participants exclusively from the Muslim community. Muslim men volunteered themselves to go to Turkey and continental Europe and defend the Ottoman lands against allied forces led by Britain. While Muslim women mortgaged

(3)

their jewelleries to add to financial help to the Ottomans. Nizam of Hyderabad also chipped in with a decent amount of funding for the falling Caliphate.

Now sensing trouble in India, Britishers used their stooge Gandhi to hijack this widely popular Khilafat movement.

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In a rally taken in support of Khilafat movement exclusively attended by Muslims in 1919 in Bombay, Gandhi arrived at the spot with few other Hindu delegates, took to the stage and announced his support to the Khilafat movement & declared that from now onwards,

(4)

this movement will be joined in and supported by Hindus of India too making it a pan India movement cutting across religious lines. Ali Brothers and other Muslim leaders handed over the leadership of the movement to Gandhi,

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who in turn demanded unconditional support of Muslims in the Non co-operation movement. Muslims overwhelmed by this beautiful gesture handed over the leadership of Khilafat movement to Gandhi and went on to join Non co-operation movement enmasse.

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Britishers sensing a golden opportunity to finish off this popular movement carried out a false flag attack on British Raj's property In Calcutta and put the blame on the peaceful protesters of Khilafat movement.

Before Muslim leaders could understand what happened, Gandhi

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who was informed of the attack by the Britishers beforehand immediately called off the Khilafat movement citing the use of violence by Khilafat protesters in Calcutta putting an abrupt end to the movement.

Later on, when Muslim leaders led by Ali Brothers went to meet

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Gandhi & clear the air around the Calcutta attacks & prove the non involvement of Muslims in the violence, Gandhi pretended to be on a Maun Vrat(a vow of silence) and directed his assistants that he can't meet or talk with anyone at the moment.

Disappointed, Muslim leaders

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had to leave without meeting Gandhi and in this way the populist Khilafat movement which was exclusively led by Muslims was sabotaged by Gandhi at the behest of the Britishers.

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Moral of the story: Muslims should have their own leadership. We shouldn't count on others to do the job for us. And not everyone pretending to be your wellwisher is an ally.

(End)