What was khilafat movement in india

Gandhi, Muslim ulama had issued a verdict and declared India as Dar-ul-Harab and the Muslims therefore needed to migrate to some other country or Dar-ul-Salam. Thousands of families sold out their properties for a tenth of their value and hastily left for Afghanistan, in August As many as eighteen thousand people marched towards Afghanistan, which was unable to bear the influx of the people.

Thus, the Afghan authorities closed their frontiers. Eventually the Muhajarins had to return to their homes. A great number of old man, women and children died on their way during returning to homes and those who luckily reach alive their former places.

They found themselves homeless and penniless. In fact they faced great difficulties. Even the preachers of Khilafat Movement realized the fact. In January , nearly three thousands students of various colleges and schools boycotted their classes and a number of teachers most of them were Muslims tendered their resignation. The Movement became so powerful that the Government was obliged to pay attention to the problem. A delegation under has leadership visited London and discussed the sentiment of Muslims but the delegation also returned unsuccessfully.

The Khilafat Movement came to an end when thousands of Indians were put behind the bar. The leaders in spite of their best efforts could not maintain the Hindu-Muslim Unity. One of the main reasons which caused a death blow to Khilafat Movement was the indirect announcement of Gandhi to discontinue the Non Co-operation Movement.

Gandhi used an incident of arson on February , when a violent mob set on fire a police choki at Chora Churi at district Gorakpur, burning twenty one constables to death as an excuse to call off the non-cooperation movement. It adversely affected the Khilafat Movement which thought to be integral part of movement. In , Kamal Ataturk set up a government on democratic basis in Turkey by abolishing Khilafat as a system of government which served a finishing blow to Khilafat Movement in India and people had lost whatever interest that they had in the movement.

The abolition of Khilafat by Kamal Ataturk was a serious blow on Khilafat movement in the sub-continent and he exiled Sultan Abdul Majeed, a helpless Caliph and abolished Khilafat as an institution, due to this all agitational activities came to an end in the Sub-continent.

A large number of Muslims migrated from Sindh and N. P to Afghanistan. The Afghan authorities did not allow them to cross the border. The Khilafat leaders, most of whom had been imprisoned during the war because of their pro-Turkish sympathies, were already active in the Indian nationalist movement. Upon their release in , they espoused the Khilafat cause as a means to achieve pan-Indian Muslim political solidarity in the anti-British cause.

The Khilafat movement also benefited from Hindu-Muslim cooperation in the nationalist cause that had grown during the war, beginning with the Lucknow Pact of between the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League, and culminating in the protest against the Rowlatt anti-Sedition bills in The National Congress, led by Mahatma Gandhi , called for non-violent non-cooperation against the British.

Gandhi espoused the Khilafat cause, as he saw in it the opportunity to rally Muslim support for nationalism. The combined Khilafat Non-Cooperation movement was the first all-India agitation against British rule.

It saw an unprecedented degree of Hindu-Muslim cooperation and it established Gandhi and his technique of non-violent protest satyagraha at the center of the Indian nationalist movement.

Mass mobilization using religious symbols was remarkably successful, and the British Indian government was shaken. In late , the government moved to suppress the movement. The leaders were arrested, tried, and imprisoned. Gandhi suspended the Non-Cooperation movement in early Turkish nationalists dealt the final blow to the Khilafat movement by abolishing the Ottoman sultanate in , and the caliphate in Minault, Gail: Khilafat Movement , in: online.

International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. The influence and prestige of the Moulvies, which had been gradually declining owing to new ideas and a progressive Westernisation, began to grow again and dominate the Muslim community.

The Ali brothers, themselves of a religious turn of mind, helped in this process, and so did Gandhiji, who paid the greatest regard to the Moulvies and Moulanas. To please the Muslims, he supported the case of the moribund Khilafat that the British had done away within Turkey at the close of the First World War. Later Mahatma Gandhi regretted this folly in sponsoring the Khilafat, but it was too late by that time—the damage was done.

Instead of coaxing Muslims into social reform and modern education, the Khilafat had legitimised their conservative religious instincts and roused their fears and suspicions about the outside world. It strengthened their communalism, which thrived on hatred against the Hindu Kafirs, lying dormant from the days of Alauddin Khilji and Aurangazeb.

Why was the agitation called off abruptly? Had Gandhiji consulted anyone in the Congress party before doing so? We read that this was because what had happened near the village of Chauri Chaura where a mob of villagers had retaliated on some policemen by setting fire to the police-station and burning half a dozen or so policemen in it.

But the disappointment and anger in prison do little good to anyone, and civil resistance stopped, and non-cooperation wilted away.

Mr Gandhi was shocked when Parsi ladies had their saries torn off, and very properly, yet the God-fearing hooligans had been taught that it was sinful to wear foreign cloth, and doubtless felt they were doing a religious act; can he not feel a little sympathy for thousands of women left with only rags, driven from home, for little children born of the flying mothers on roads in refugee camps?