The Khilafat Movement: Hindu-Muslim Unity

The Ottoman Caliphate Crisis

After World War I, the victorious Allied powers dismembered the Ottoman Empire through the Treaty of Sevres in 1920. For many Muslims worldwide, the Ottoman Sultan served as the Caliph, the spiritual leader of the global Muslim community (ummah). The prospect of the caliphate's abolition provoked outrage across the Islamic world, including among India's roughly 70 million Muslims.

The Ali brothers, Shaukat Ali and Muhammad Ali, launched the Khilafat movement in India to pressure the British government to preserve the caliphate and Ottoman territorial integrity. The movement had limited practical prospects, since Britain's policy toward Turkey was driven by geopolitical calculations far beyond Indian Muslim opinion. But as a vehicle for political mobilization, it was enormously powerful.

Gandhi's Strategic Calculation

Gandhi saw in the Khilafat movement an extraordinary opportunity. If he could unite Hindu and Muslim Indians around a common cause, the combined force would be irresistible. In 1920, he merged the Khilafat agitation with his own Non-Cooperation Movement, creating the first mass political movement in Indian history that cut across religious lines.

The combined movement called on Indians to boycott British courts, schools, and legislatures, to surrender government titles and honors, and to practice swadeshi by buying only Indian-made goods. For a brief period, Hindu-Muslim solidarity reached levels never seen before or since in colonial India. The Ali brothers and Gandhi shared platforms, and mosques and temples alike became sites of political mobilization.

The alliance collapsed in 1922 after the Chauri Chaura incident, when a mob of protesters burned alive 22 policemen at a police station in the United Provinces. Gandhi, horrified by the violence, abruptly called off the entire Non-Cooperation Movement. Many Khilafat leaders felt betrayed. The movement further disintegrated when Mustafa Kemal Ataturk abolished the caliphate in 1924, rendering the original cause moot.