Blog: Khilafat Movement

Khilafat Movement

The Khilafat movement was a religio-political movement launched by the Muslims of British India for the retention of the Ottoman Caliphate and for not handing over the control of Muslim holy places to non-Muslims. Turkey sided with Germany in World War 1. As it began to lose the war, concerns were expressed in India about the future of Turkey. It was a peak period from 1919 to 1922 casting demonstrations, boycott, and other pressure by the two major communities, the Hindus and the Muslims. Being brothers, the Indian Muslims realized their religious duty to help the Muslim country. It was the extra territorial attachments based on Islam. Another factor same to the first was that the Indian Muslims considered Ottoman Caliphate a symbol of unity of the Muslim world as Ummah.

Aims and Objectives of the Khilafat Movement

          The Khilafat Movement aimed at presenting the Ottoman Empire and the continuity of the temporal power of Khalifa to protect Muslim lands without any mandate. Mohammad Ali put forward the demands of the Khilafat Movement in a speech delivered at Paris on March 21, 1920 by declaring:

            “The Khilafat shall not be dismembered but that the Khalifa shall have sufficient temporal power for the defense of the Faith, that in the Island of Arabia there shall be exclusive, Muslim control without mandate or protection and that the Khalifa shall remain as heretofore the warden of the Holy places.”

Demands of the Khilafat Movement

The demands of the Khilafat committee were as under
i) The Turkish Empire should not be dismembered.
ii) The Holy place should remain in the custody of Turkish Government.
iii) The institution of Caliphate must be retained.

In The Beginning

Gandhi also joined Muslims in their Khilafat Movement. In fact, he wants to protect the British government and needed autonomy of India through this movement. Therefore, He joined the Khilafat Movement for achieving his coveted plan. Apparently, he was showing that he was sincere to the Muslim cause. Quaid-e-Azam admonished the Muslims that this movement should not be started but Muslims were not listening to him. Non-cooperation movement, Hijrat movement, Moplah revolt and the Jallianwala Bagh tragedy did a great loss to Muslim properties, wealth and lives after the tragedy of Jallianwala Bagh, Gandhi left the Khilafat movement saying that he did not like violence. After Hijrat Movement, the Muslims had to come back to the Sub-continent but now they had lost their hearth and home. They had to face the severe circumstances in the Khilafat movement.
In 1924, Mustafa Kamal Ata Turk assumed power in Turkey and abolished the institution of Khilafat himself lf. This act of him really disappointed Muslims. Thus, the Khilafat Movement came to an end without achieving its goals The Khilafat Movement made Muslims realize that they had political power. They come to believe that they don't need to depend on the British or the Hindus for their rights. Thus the Khilafat Movement can be seen as a fore runner to the Pakistan movement. Many children had left their studies as a result of non-cooperation. Many people had left their jobs and thus it affected them badly. The Muslims who migrated to Afghanistan after India being called dar-ul-harb (A place where Muslims are not allowed to perform their religious practices) suffered badly as they could not buy their property back after being rejected by the Afghanis. Many died on the way back to India. The Khilafat movement divided Hindus & Muslims further apart. . Communal rioting occurred and both the communities lost trust in the other. The outcomes of Khilafat Movement were huge. It left both good and bad effects. It results in protest and rallies on streets of subcontinent. There was an increase in violence day by day. It results in collapse of Hindu Muslims alliance. A huge number of peoples were involved in this Movement, may be this was also a reason of civil disobedience. Because of some violent incidents in the country which resulted in the deaths of many Hindus, Muslims and British people.

CONCLUSION

          Every movement against the British rule left its good as well as bad effects on the people. After Khilafat Movement Muslims of the Sub-continent become united, strong and conscious about their separate identity which led them towards final destination. This was the real credit which Muslims derived from Khilafat Movement