Why Gandhi supported Khilafat

Why would a Hindu support the demand of the Indian 'Khilafat' aitation? Only non-Arab Hanafi Sunnis wanted the Turkish Sultan to retain Arab lands and claim leadership of all Muslims. 

Gandhi explained his position to the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford, in the following letter sent on June 24, 1920

"Your Excellency,-As one who has enjoyed a certain measure of Your Excellency's confidence and as one who claims to be a devoted well wisher of the British Empire, I owe it to Your Excellency and through Your Excellency to His Majesty's ministers to explain my connection with and my conduct in the Khilafat question.

So, Gandhi was a loyal subject of the King Emperor who felt he had a duty to explain his conduct to the British Government. But the whole world knew that the British Government was allied to the Turkish Caliph and bitterly opposed to Kemal Ataturk & the Nationalists.  On 16 March 1920, British troops had entered the Turkish parts of Istanbul and began to round up known nationalists. The Sheikh-ul-Islam, Dürrezadé Abdullah Effendi, issued a fatwa, on the invitation of the Grand Vezir Damad Ferid Pasha, declaring that killing of the nationalists, like Kemal Pasha, was a religious duty of Muslims. 

Since the Brits were supporting the Turkish Caliph against the Nationalists, it was they who paid for an Indian 'Khilafat' delegation to visit London at the end of January 1920. 

At the very earliest stage of the War, even while I was in London organising the Indian Volunteer Ambulance Corps, I began to interest myself in the Khilafat question.

Back then Turkey was seeking to enter the War on the side of the Allies.  

I perceived how deeply moved the Mussalman world in London was when Turkey decided to throw in her lot with Germany.

London had few Muslims at that time. Those who were there tended to be loyalists like Yusuf Ali, an ICS officer, who did a lot of propaganda work for the Government.  

On my arrival in January of 1915 I found the same anxiousness and earnestness among the Mussalmans with whom I came in contact. Their anxiety became intense when the information about the secret treaties leaked out.

Plenty of Indian soldiers were fighting Turkish soldiers in Iraq etc. There was a small mutiny in Singapore, but otherwise, there was little impedance to the war effort.  

Distrust of British intentions filled their minds and despair took possession of them. Even at that moment I advised my Mussalman friends not to give way to despair but to express their fears and their hopes in a disciplined manner. It will be admitted that the whole of the Mussalman India has behaved in a singularly restrained manner during the past five years and that the leaders have been able to keep the turbulent sections of their community under complete control.

The Brits had taught Indians a lesson after 1857 which they would not soon forget. The question was why the Brits should pay any attention to Muslim sentiment in India. After all, if they got riled up, it would be local 'kaffirs' (non-Muslims) not the British who would suffer.  

The peace terms and Your Excellency's defence of them have given the Mussalmans of India a shock from which it will be difficult for them to recover.

The Turks had received a bigger shock. They had been defeated and shorn of a lot of territory.  On the other hand, they had committed genocide on the Christian Armenians so the thing hadn't been a complete waste. 

The terms violate the ministerial pledges and utterly disregard Mussalman's sentiments. I consider that, as a staunch Hindu wishing to live on terms of the closest friendship with my Mussalman countrymen, I should be an unworthy son of India if I did not stand by them in their hour of trial.

What trial? A far away country had been defeated. Indian Muslims or Indonesian Muslims or Chinese Muslims could do nothing about it.  

In my humble opinion their cause is just. They claim that Turkey must not be punished if their sentiment is to be respected.

They weren't respected- much less their sentiments- because they, like other Indians, were a conquered people ruled by an alien King.  

Muslim soldier did not fight to inflict punishment on their own Khalifa or to deprive him of his territories.

They got paid to fight whoever they were told to fight.  

The Mussalman attitude has been consistent throughout these five years.

Those paid to fight did so. The rest paid their taxes which is how come the soldiers got paid.  

My duty to the Empire, to which I owe my loyalty, requires me to resist the cruel violence that has been done to the Mussalman sentiment so far as I am aware.

This is where Gandhi's chain of logic comes unstuck. His duty to the Emperor may indeed have involved trying to live peacefully with his Muslim neighbours. But it didn't require him to encourage them to resent something over which they had no power and from which they themselves suffered no material harm.  

Mussalmans and Hindus have, as a whole lost faith in British justice and honour.

Yet, Gandhi remains a loyal 'servant' of the King Emperor.  

The report of the majority of the Hunter Committee,

into the Jallianwallah massacre which did not involve Muslims 

Your Excellency's despatch thereon and Mr. Montagu's reply have only aggravated the distrust. In these circumstances, the only course open to one like me is either in despair to sever all connections with British rule or, if I still retained faith in the inherent superiority of the British constitution to all others at present in vogue, to adopt such means as will rectify the wrong done and thus restore confidence.

 Those 'means' might extend to writing a letter. Nothing more. However, if Gandhi really was a loyalist, he would also have a duty to help implement the Montague-Chelmsford Reforms- i.e. he should have been a co-operator, not a non co-operator. 

I have not lost faith in such superiority and I am not without hope that somehow or other justice will yet be rendered if we show the requisite capacity for  suffering.

In other words, Gandhi has a childish mentality. The children really want the grown-ups to do some stupid shit. Gandhi, a loyal and obedient child, thinks that if the kiddies cry and cry, the grown-ups will take pity on them and do 'justice' (i.e. give in) to them.  

Indeed, my conception of that constitution is that it helps only those who are ready to help themselves.

Constitutions help those able to rule themselves- i.e. solve collective action problems involving defence, law & order, fiscal policy, etc.  

I do not believe that it protects the weak. It gives free scope to the strong to maintain their strength and develop it. The weak under it go to the wall. It is then because I believe in the British constitution that I have advised my Mussalman friends to withdraw their support from Your Excellency's Government and the Hindus to join them should the peace terms not be revised in accordance with the solemn pledges of ministers and the Muslim sentiment.

Gandhi is saying 'I have advised my people to show strength and defy the Government unless the 'Khilafat' demands were conceded'. 

Two years later, he unilaterally surrendered. He went to prison.  

Three courses were open to the Mohammeoans ... 

1. To resort to violence.

In which case they would meet the same fate as the Turks.  

2. To advise emigration on a wholesale scale.

In which case they would starve to death in Afghanistan 

3. Not to be a party to the injustice by ceasing to co·operate with the Government.

In which case, they would go to jail. Gandhi would surrender and join them there.  

Your Excellency must be aware that there was a time when the boldest, though also the most thoughtless among the Mussalmans favoured violence and that Hijrat (emigration) has not yet ceased to be a battle-cry. I venture to claim that I have succeeded by patient reasoning in weaning the party of violence from its ways.

Chelmsford didn't believe Gandhi. He had a good intelligence service and knew very well that the Government had gained an upper hand over revolutionaries of all types.  

I confess that I did not- I did not attempt to-succeed in weaning them from violence on moral grounds but purely on utilitarian grounds.

In which case there was no weaning. If baby is ordering Pizza for himself, Mummy needs to make no special effort to wean him away from breast-milk.  

The result for the time being at any rate has, however, been to stop violence.

The Brits used a lot of violence. That's why they still ruled India. The revolutionaries might shoot one or two people here and there but then they were caught and killed. Their networks were penetrated. Under cover of Khilafat, the British sent an Indian Muslim to kill Ataturk. He was not amused. He got rid of the Caliphate though he was perfectly happy for some Arab dude to take that title.  

 I hold that no repression could have prevented a violent eruption ... if such direct action was largely taken up by the public.

The Brits were actually machine-gunning mobs from aeroplanes. They had the upper hand. True, if there had been a spontaneous uprising- of the Egyptian sort- they may have granted some cosmetic form of Independence (which is what Allenby insisted on for Egypt in 1922). But the Brits still held all the cards. They could sell war-surplus weapons to Princes or Zamindars or any other regional force determined to establish hegemony within a particular territory. India would have become like War-Lord ridden China.  

Non-co-operation was the only dignified and constitutional form of such direct action, for it is the right recognised from times immemorial of the subject to refuse to assist a ruler who misrules. At the same time I admit the non-co-operation practised by the mass of people is attended with grave risks. But in a crisis such as has overtaken the Mussalmans of India no step that is unattended with large risks can possibly bring about the desired change.

The risk was taken. It failed miserably. Why? Nobody, apart from some Islamist hotheads, cared about Khilafat.  

Not to run some risks will be to court much greater risks if not virtual destruction of law and order.

Brigadier Dyer had shown how the Brits could keep their own people safe. If 'law & order' broke down, it would be people like Gandhi who would suffer. There is little point practicing non-violence if there is no Pax Britannica.  

But there is yet an escape from non-co-operation.

You can surrender. Give Turkey back all the territory it lost.  

The Mussalman representation has requested Your Excellency to lead the agitation yourself as did your distinguished predecessor at the time of the South African trouble.

In 1922, it turned out that the Viceroy had indeed made representations to the Cabinet on behalf of the Indian Muslims.  

But if you cannot see your way to do so, non-co-operation becomes a dire necessity.

It failed. What helped Gandhi's financiers was the boycott of foreign cloth.  

I hope Your Excellency will give those who have accepted my advice and myself the credit for being actuated by nothing less than a stern sense of duty. I have the honour to remain, Your Excellency's obdt. servant. (Sd.) M. K. GANDHI

Letters like this were preserved in the files. The new Viceroy would read over them and decide that Gandhi was a hypocritical cretin. Also, he was as verbose as fuck. Get him talking and he will himself provide sufficient rope to hang his whole coalition.